Begin Again with Davina McCall - Author Jojo Moyes: Me Before You, Rejection & Starting Again In Her 40s

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

What if success is not the end of the story, but the beginning of becoming yourself? In this episode of Begin Again, bestselling author Jojo Moyes joins Davina to talk about rejection, reinvention, and the story behind becoming one of the world’s most loved writers in midlife. Jojo opens up about the years before Me Before You, when books were rejected, sales were low, and she wondered whether she would have to find a new career. Then everything changed. Her work went on to sell millions around the world, but success brought new challenges: emotional responsibility, pressure, and the painful realisation that she had no boundaries. Davina and Jojo also explore childhood loneliness, becoming fiercely independent, learning to ask for help, and the cost of always saying yes. They discuss why achieving the life you once dreamed of does not protect you from having to begin again. Jojo speaks honestly about divorce, and how even when it is messy and complicated, handling it with kindness can bring a clarity you never expected. They talk about identity, midlife loneliness, dating again and motherhood. How ambition and trusting yourself are the secrets to protecting your peace after years of pushing through. At its heart, this is a conversation about what happens when the life you dreamed of finally arrives, and you still have to learn how to live inside it. Jojo Moyes reminds us that beginning again is not about starting from nothing. It is about learning to honour who you are now, not just who you had to become to survive. Buy We All Live Here: https://amzn.to/4dQHepU 🌟 Follow for more honest conversations about identity, growth, and beginning again. Follow us here:📸 www.instagram.com/beginagain🎥 https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod ✨Follow Jojo: https://www.instagram.com/jojomoyesofficial/?hl=en  ✨Sign up for the Begin Again newsletter for all your behind the scenes access, recommendations and much much more at: https://linkly.link/2g2xm (00:00) Intro (02:07) What Is A Narcissist? (09:26) Identifying A Narcissist (15:48) The Different Types Of Narcissists (21:57) How Narcissistic Parents Affect Their Children (30:08) What Is Gaslighting? Narcissism In Relationships (34:18) Shopify Ad (35:19) Why Some People Are Attracted To Narcissists (43:47) Why It’s So Hard To Leave A Narcissistic Relationship (53:15) Narcissism In Kids (01:03:29) Why People Go Back To Narcissists (01:06:04) Narcissism In The Workplace Sponsored by: Do Health - The waitlist is open. Begin Again listeners get fixed early access pricing when they sign up today at dohealth.co/beginagain use code BEGINAGAIN Saily - Download from the app store and use code DAVINA at the checkout for 15% off Shopify - Shopify.co.uk for £1 a month trial Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Six rejections come back. I'd written three books by then. But then I pitched me before you. I went from selling a handful to 60 million. And that all happened in my 40s and 50s. Wow. Jojo. You are a fantastic wordsmith and a worldwide bestseller writer. Me before you went round the world. I used to joke that I was like a cockroach. Terrible things can happen, but there is something in me that just keeps plowing on. If I'm honest, I would have liked to feel less lonely. But I've read it. a lovely thing recently which was I bet you turned into the adult that you needed as a child. Oh God, sorry.

What are you doing to me? I was trying on versions of myself and then suddenly in a newsroom I suddenly had a focus. You getting into journalism was the first step towards the power of the written work. So I wrote me before you and suddenly got so many offers of work in Hollywood. What happened then? My mum died and I got divorced. And then it was just survives. That's a lot of grief.

The world will have its way with you. You just have to keep bouncing back. I want to ask you about dating in midlife, but also your top bits of advice for anybody watching this who is getting divorced. The very, very first thing is... First of all, I just want to say welcome to our humble abode, JJ. Do you know it's funny because we've met before?

We did. We met quite a strange period of both our lives. Yeah, and I want to tell you that I knew we were kindred spirits. Well, we cut straight to the bristle. We did. We did. And I couldn't wait to get you on here because of the number of times that you have pivoted or begun again. And I love the way that you are able to verbalise that

because obviously you are a fantastic wordsmith and a world. worldwide bestseller writer, but also you are a very wise and sage woman and it's just nice to have you on. I said, welcome. That's really kind of you. Thank you. So I don't, often I don't do this. I don't start at the beginning, but I would like to start with your upbringing in the East End and with your parents because you had quite different parents for the era. Like they were quite bohemian. Yes, it's quite funny because you always assume that your own parents are the norm. And it was only when I kind of got quite a bit older that I thought, no, not everybody's parents had a tortoise walking around the house. Free roaming. Free roaming and sort of a, yeah, they, someone described them

as hippies with a work ethic. And I think my dad would bristle slightly at the idea of him being a hippie. But if I look at the pictures, they're not far off. They, they were very hardworking, though, both of them. So there was never any kind of lying around. getting stoned. It wasn't that kind of a hippie. I think they just, they were very arts-minded, they were a bit alternative. They, um, but my abiding childhood memories of them working. I was either out with my dad in a van or I was sitting under my mom's desk while she painted. She was an illustrator and he set up a company that moved works of art. So that, that's my childhood memories is working. And both, both of those jobs based around extremely

creative process. Yeah. I mean, it was kind of an extraordinary childhood when I look back, because my dad set up this company called Mo Mart, which grew. And it was basically lots of warehouses that were full of works of art. Everything from kind of priceless, I don't know, David Hockneys or Vanguard's, to Paul McCartney storing the Beatles uniforms from Sergeant Pepper. Wow. So, you know, I was a cleaner there for a while and I would just sort of pot around and, you know, you'd be confronted by these extraordinary things. And I think you take on some of it by osmosis. I didn't ever want to be a visual artist, but I think there's definitely something about being around all that creativity that fed in.

But I think that the most important thing I saw with them was just work. You copy what you know and they were always working. So I just thought that's how you exist in this world. You work. And I grew up in the 70s and 80s at a time when you could still rely on working hard to get you somewhere. I think it's much harder for young people now. But yeah, I just, I loved meeting all the people that came through. I remember meeting some kind of amazing artists.

I watched the people that my mum worked with, creating amazing things. My mum's partner, who she went on to marry, was working with Stanley Kubrick on doing on set work for 2001. So there was sort of pictures of, you know, Mr. Kubrick on set. So everywhere I looked, there was something interesting going on. Yeah. But I think I was also a bit mulish. I didn't want to do what they wanted me to do. Yes.

So, yeah, that's how I ended up in words rather than pictures. And, I mean, you grew up in Hackney. I did. And it was very different. What was it like? My mum used to hate this, but my abiding feeling when I was growing up was not safety. Right. It was, I was tiny and blonde at a time when to be those things was not the safest.

And so very early on in life, I learned to put my keys through my hands when I got off the bus. I got followed home from school numerous times. We got broken into a lot. it's funny you you grow up and you kind of absorb all this stuff and it's just your life experience but it shows up later in life in different ways I remember my daughter kind of wearing a short pair of shorts once when she was going out and I said you can't wear that you you know you you don't understand what's going to happen if you provoke that sort of response and she just looked at me and went mom this is saffron Walden not hack me it's like I'm fine but I think I was hypervigilant for

a long time. I moved out of London when I was 30 and it just felt extraordinary to me the safety. Like I could walk through a wood and not feel unsafe and I felt safer and safer as I've grown older but I don't remember feeling safe in my childhood and my parents were working so I was a latchkey kid so I spent an awful lot of time on my own which I have spent many years in therapy kind of undoing. My, me too. Yeah. Not the latchkey kid thing, but I was thinking about things that happened to you when you were a kid. If something difficult happens to you when you're an adult, often the old feelings from that experience or trauma, whatever you want to call it, will be echoed again in this present day issue unless you learn to deal with it.

Oh, so that's what I've used therapy to help me in particular in the last year and a half. But the word that my therapist, God, listen to me, who am I? I've changed. The word that my therapist uses when my parents, well, particularly my mom, would leave me. And back in those days, they did a lot. They did. They just did. It was a very different experience.

She said, you weren't left. You weren't forgotten. You were abandoned. And you need to use that because it's not what they meant to do. They just were saying you'll be fine, you'll be safe. But to a child, and they didn't know this, the parents at the time, so it's not that fault. But they did, you felt abandoned. Not you.

No, no, it's really interesting because I was also thinking there was also a big bit of me that protected them from the things that happened. I remember being chased with knives by some guys with two of my girlfriend. when we were about 14. And it was only because we knew the very labyrinth thine back of the flats on the estate near where we lived that we could shake them off. And I remember us collapsing indoors,

slamming the door, and kind of falling onto the map, like staring at each other, like, what just happened? And my mum calling from upstairs, did you have a nice evening? And we all just went, yes. Because you knew that they couldn't cope with the knowledge

and also that the risk of not being allowed out. I think it's really hard to convey either to this generation or to men often what it was like to be female in the late 70s, early 80s. It was different. It was completely different. I mean, I think Benny Hill had a really big influence on men's behavior. The amount of being chased around. Did you hate? Did you hate? I hated it. Oh, so much. I was so angry by Benny Hill. Yeah. And but also the feeling that you couldn't fight back because it was just part of being a woman. Yeah. Well, we couldn't. Touched me on a bus. I'd punch their faces in. But then you just tolerated so much. And I do think, well, there's a lot of things that have got worse for women.

I do think the fact that young women can name it and understand what it is and push back against it is a really important development. Every single woman I speak to from this era has had, the same experience and I know you have three children and my my youngest is 19 now. And I literally feel so proud of myself that I've got them through life without anything terrible happening to them. But we did it a very different way. I think if anything, you know, I've had the breaks I've had to put on myself as to not be a helicopter parent because, you know, I think every generation decides they're going to do it

differently to the one before, don't they? And I just knew that I wanted my kids to feel that I was there, even if I was emotionally tuned into something else my work, but I was in the house, they could come to be for stuff. I didn't have much of a social life. I didn't do very much for a long time while my kids were growing up other than work or be with them. And so they had a very different childhood to me. And they also had each other, although I'm sure, like my siblings, they would sometimes have rather been on their own. But I think, I hope they would say it was a really happy childhood because we just kind of bummed around in the house and garden and had chickens and all that kind of stuff. And, well, you know what it's like. Yours had a rural, semi-rural

childhood too. I think it's a really nice thing. It's certainly better than running from the number to 73 bust up with your keys through your knuckles. Yeah. When you look back at little Jojo. Yeah. What does it feel like? You must be proud of her. Oh, do you know, I read a lovely thing recently, which was,

I bet you turned into the adult that you needed as a child. Right? Oh, God, sorry. I know. It's quite a thing when you think about it. And I... What are you doing to me? I'm sorry.

That's amazing. Isn't it? But you didn't the adult that you needed as a child. Wow. Did you? I, yeah. I think, like you said, our parents did the best they could with the knowledge they had at the time. And my mom was very young, as was my dad.

My mom was 19 when she had me. So I totally get. Also, they were broke. So they had to work. So, but. But if I'm honest, I would have liked to feel less lonely. I was without siblings. And I spent a lot of time on my own in a house that I was afraid of because we've been

broken into a lot. And this is going to sound very woo-woo. But I once got hypnotised. And I went in really skeptically thinking, you know, because I was a journalist for 10 years. So I'm like, well, I don't know how this is going to work. And I was a bit nervous and I was like, I'm going to keep one part of my part of my brain. Yeah, I can lock that bit away. Yeah, you better not mess around with me.

And then it was one of the most weirdly moving things as ever happened to me because this guy took me into my childhood. And, oh, this is going to sound a bit weird. But because I was afraid from when we'd been broken into, we had an old church pew in our front hall. and I used to get home from school and I would sit on the pew until my parents came home because I was afraid to go upstairs because if people broke in,

I wouldn't have a way out. It was one of those tall-thin Victorian houses. And this hypnotist somehow, I'd forgotten this and he got me to sit next to my, I don't know, 12-year-old self on this bench. And I was really conscious that I was hypnotised at one level but also I wasn't.

Like I was also aware of the two sides of myself. It was a really strange experience. And then he said, what would you do with that girl? Because I was a mother by the time I had this hypnosis. And I said, oh, I want to take her into the kitchen and give her some toast because I know. And then I cried buckets. And it really hit me then. Like, oh, you were just quite anxious, quite a lot of the time with good reason as well.

It wasn't, you know, it wasn't a great place to grow up, to be honest. And so that's what I did. I took my 12-year-old self to the kitchen and made us some toast of peanut butter and then cried buckets. So when you came out of your hypnotism, what were the things that you noticed changed in your present life? Oh, gosh, that's an interesting question. I'm not sure if there were any immediate changes, but I think I had to start acknowledging the parts of my character that had come from that. And honestly, I think there were a lot of positives. I am a very practical person and very capable. The downside is I am hyper-independent. I find it very hard, almost physically impossible to ask for help. Yeah. Because also it just feels sort of horribly self-indulgent. Again, if you're a girl of the 80s, you just muscle on, get on with it. And it was girl power before girl power, right? Yes. Yeah. It's cosmopolitan. You can do anything. You just have to make sure you're skinny enough, work hard enough, you know, know, know all the sex tips and just get on with it. That was the ethos. And I, half of me, you know, when my daughter's generation are taking their mental health days or, you know, complaining about some.

kind of what I would have considered in my age, almost non-existent sexual harassment, half of me wants to applaud them because I'm like, oh, you guys are really taking care of yourselves. And then I have to fight this slightly regressive part of me just going, oh, come on, just get on with it. And, you know, my partner says to me quite often, you can be quite tough. You know, just get on with it. I'm much tougher with my girls than I am with my son because I'm a girl.

Yeah. But I think it's also because you know what they're going to be up against. So you're trying to give them armour. That's art. I hadn't thought about it like that. I'm trying to make them strong. Yes. I mean, they are.

I mean, they're amazing. I'm quite interested in how you came to look at journalism because journalism is quite a tough line of work to go into. So what was it that first? It was kind of an accident. I didn't go to college for two years. I was quite happy doing my thing. And then I was working for a bank doing statements for blind people.

And they sent me on a management training course at Oxford University. And for the first time, I was suddenly surrounded by young people my age who were fiercely ambitious. And you talk about pivots, and there was a real pivot that happened at this. point because I had been engaged up till then. I think because I was a bit estranged for my parents from the age of 16. Things had not gone well after their divorce and I spent a period of time where I kind of just did my own thing. I was living in lodgings on the Bulls Pond Road with a very nice family and from there I went to university. Wow. Because I just realized after I met all these people at Oxford. It was in Oxford University. It was a one-week course. I mean, if you've been

living in a room with flock wallpaper and a picture of the laughing cavalier and the windows shake every time the number 72 bus comes past, I can promise you, suddenly to be in the dreaming spires. You're like, and then there's all these people who are going, yeah, yeah, no, I want to travel the world and then I'm going to do this. And I was thinking, God, I'm just working at the pub in the evenings and doing statements for blind people in the day. And I remember, I mean, I remember my then-fiancee came to pick me up on the last day and I broke off my engagement on the way home. Because Ayo was suddenly transfixed by these people who had a really wide horizon. Everybody had a big horizon.

Everyone I was mixing with didn't leave their own postcode. It was just very small lives. And I think my parents slightly disbared of me at that point because I had rejected everything to do with their lives, art culture. I was working in a pub I didn't care I was you know engaged way too early I think because he had a huge family

and I wanted to be part of a big family it was the Walton's thing you know just like yeah oh my God I wanted to be in the Walton's yes I just wanted to be embedded somewhere and so I yeah ended my engagement

didn't go down terribly well understandably and then I got a place at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College honestly I hadn't thought about what I wanted to do. I just liked the building. It was really pretty. It looked a bit like Oxford. I never made strategic choices. Wow. I just kind of was buffeted along. But can I ask you? You did when an opportunity arose take it. Take it. Yes. I think there's

always been a really strong sense of self-preservation in me. I think I'm resilient. Yes, you are. And that's the difference. And that's the thing I try and teach my own kids is just the world will have its way with you and you just have to keep bouncing back, which I think is the point of your podcast. Yes. Well, I mean, I always try and explain it in the simplest of terms, but it's really, I want you to live a life you've loved. Yes. So you can die happy. Do you know, my friend Sophie Kinsella died just before Christmas of a brain tumour and she wrote a letter to be read out at her funeral, which was so good and so funny and heartbreaking. But one of the first things she said is, oh, but I have been so lucky. And having known her for 20 years, I totally got it. She was married

to the same man that she adored for 35 years. She had five glorious children. She'd had this career that she could only have dreamt of. And that was how she chose to meet it. It was Not, why me? You know, I have all these things to do. That wasn't in her nature. She just, that's exactly how she viewed it. I have been so lucky. And it was very liberating for all of us who loved her to hear it.

Well, it sets you free. Yes. And you're going to miss her. She lives an enormous hole in your life. Oh, every day. But you are at peace with her death. Mm-hmm, which is a gift from her. Yeah.

But I think this idea of grasping opportunities even when you weren't sure if it was something that you wanted to do, but it was an opportunity and not being afraid to fail. Yes. You were quite fearless, really. Oh, I have failed so many times. I mean, the first really lucky thing that happened was when I was at university, I studied work on the student paper.

And then I found out there was a local paper that might take. you know, interns. And so I popped in and I said, look, I can make tea and I can empty bins and I can photocopy for you. And I think I just really pushed them until they agreed. I was just this annoying person who would turn up a couple of times a week. And then eventually they let me start writing pieces. And I thought, this is my thing.

And I remember walking into that tiny newsroom and everybody was working on typewriters with three sheets of carbon paper. It was so old school. But I just remember thinking, oh, here are my people. Yes. And I had never felt at home anywhere until that point. I didn't feel it at school. I didn't feel it at work in the pub.

Any, you know, I was always sort of trying to fit in, but I didn't feel like that was me. I was trying on versions of myself. And then suddenly in a newsroom, I thought, oh, okay, I can just relax here. I can be who I am. So from that point, I suddenly had a focus. A focus. And I think that's the best thing you can be given in life is to know the thing that you want to do

because that was it then for the next 10 years. I think, you know, you getting into journalism was the first step towards putting words in an order of realizing the power of the written word. I just loved storytelling. Yeah. I realized that from. the start. I love talking to people. And then everything changed when you had your first child

in terms of, you know, journalism and... Well, I started writing books. I also at The Independent was Helen Fielding, who wrote Bridget Jones. And I remember watching her do that column from afar and thinking, oh, wow, that could have been me if I'd tried harder or been as talented. But it was like someone accessible was doing it right in front of me and succeeding. And then there was a sort of huge tranche of, I think they were called Chick-lit novels in the 90s and lots of novels about being young and in London. And I kept thinking, if they can do it, why can't I is that thing? So I started to write in my spare time.

And Charles, my husband was very understanding and used to take our daughter out when she was a toddler to the park on Saturday morning so that I could have some uninterrupted writing time and I would get back from work and I would write or I would get up early before work and write. I ended up writing three books in my spare time and what happened was the first one got rejected but someone I knew who knew knew an agent showed it to them and they said well it's not publishable but you've got a voice you should keep going and that was all the encouragement I needed and then I wrote a second one and that got me an agent even though it wasn't good enough and then the third one did go out on submission to six different publishers.

And I was so excited. I thought that that was it. And I was pregnant with my second child then. Very sickly. I was hopeless at being pregnant. And I also had this thing. Syphysis pubis. Syphysis pubis and you can't stand on one leg.

Standing on one leg is like literally stabbing you in the vagina. I had the same thing. So here I am. Picture this grey blamonge, bit weepy, on crutches, really gorgeous. Peak Jojo. Advertis for being pregnant. And then six rejections come back, one after the other. And I'd written three books by then.

And I just thought, clearly, this is not going to happen. I can't use up all my free time when I've got a baby and I've got another one coming. And I have this very understanding husband who cannot keep letting me, you know, use up half family time to do this. And I cried for about two days. A book is a very vulnerable thing because you are giving of yourself. I used to say it's like someone saying, sorry, your baby. baby's ugly. Because it is, it's, you've poured everything into it, all your love, all your thoughts, all your, you know, so much of yourself. And it's just like, no, we don't want this. So I have huge

sympathy for people who, whose books are rejected because it's not just a piece of work. It's a piece of you. They don't want it. And I mean, how, how long would it take you to write a, novel? About 18 months to two years at that point. Yeah. You'd taken six, nearly six years, five or six years out of your life to do three books. And no one wanted you. It's like, that's a long time. And you're 30 at this point. Yes. I was just, because I had my second child at 31. So yes. And I just thought, okay, we're done. We're done here. I can't keep trying. You know when you've got that little idea in the back of your mind, something that you think, you know what, I might do that one day. And then life gets kind of busy. And it just sort of

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Where did me before you come from? It wasn't me before you. This is the thing. Oh no, it wasn't. It was a book called Sheltering Rain. Yeah, Sheltering Rain, of course. And it was talking to my grandmother, who was Australian. And she had married my grandfather after two weeks of knowing him.

And she'd actually been attached to another man at the time, but just met my grandfather, fell in that. They were happily together until he did. died. But she told me this story and I'd never really got into how they'd met. I was like, hang on, he was Scottish. You were Australian. How did you meet? And she told me this story and I said, how did you know after two weeks? And she said, oh, well, you know, dear, you just know, don't you? And I thought, well, no, I can't even pick a brand of air conditioner and stick with it. And it got me thinking about how different generations of women have viewed choice and how sometimes

how having loads of choice might actually be not the best thing for you because she just made this commitment and she stuck with it. And I suddenly thought, oh, I want to write about different generations of women. And unbeknownst to me is where chance and luck came in, Mae Binchy, Rosam & Pilcher, all those great doyens of female literature had suddenly announced either they were retiring or they'd written their last book. And so publishers were casting around looking for a multi-generational story. So I wrote three chapters of this story in a synopsis, and I sent it to this agent, and she just sent it back going, I want more.

And I went out heavily pregnant and met six different publishers. And they all bid on this book. So you were suddenly in a bidding war, having been literally no one would go anywhere near you. No one would touch me. You were in a bidding war. And then I remember I have a friend who works in publishing and he was advising me and telling me, you know, just sit tight. You don't have to. Because I was in a spin now.

I was just like, just say yes. I don't care. I just, and he said, well, what do you want? And I said, I just want to be able to redo my bathroom. That's all I want. And he was like, I think you're going to do a bit better than that. And I didn't end up going with the highest bidder in the end. I went with the one that I felt most aligned.

Aligned to, which was Hodren Stoughton. But I was with them for a further eight books. And it wasn't, I didn't have a single bestseller with any of them. them for whatever reason. I thought that once I got published, everything was going to be fine. And then you find out, no, because you're grafting away, you're doing your little library tours and you're showing up and you're turning your books surreptitiously face out and all the local book shops. Oh my God, Jojo, did you do that? I still do. I love that. I still do. And any way to says they don't is lying. Those eight books. Yes. So you are at a stage now when,

None of them are bestsellers. No, I keep writing these books. I put everything into them. And for whatever reason... And you don't know why? They're just not taking off. And is anybody going, try a bit more this, try a bit more... It's like nobody knows why.

Nobody knew why. They all loved my writing. They would read the books. They would make them cry. They would try new marketing strategies. There was one that everybody thought was going to be huge. And then the Richard and Judy list had just come out three weeks early. it was like being run over by a steamroller because everyone at that point just went for the

Richard and Judy books and I just saw my little book just disappear under the big roly thing. And you just don't know what people are, what's going to appeal. And my problem was I kept writing very different kinds of books and the supermarkets were very dominant in book selling at the time. And so they wanted to know that their customers could trust what they saw on the cover. And mine didn't fit into anything. Because one minute I was writing something historical, the next minute I was writing a kind of almost a murder mystery, the next time I was writing something else. And I didn't, they couldn't jacket me in a way that said, oh, you know, here's this thing. Like cozy crime is massive at the moment. You know what you're going to get. It's a cozy crime. Yes, yes, yes. Richard Osman type thing. None of my books fit that mold. So I'd started to sense that my publishers, although they'd been incredibly supportive and tried really hard, they were losing. interest in me. And then I was looking after, helping look after my aunt who had multiple

sclerosis. I had another close friend who I'd trained with as a journalist who also had late stage multiple sclerosis. And so I'd spent a lot of time considering the issues of dignity and hope when you have someone in your life who is in need of 24 hour care just to stay alive. And then there was this court case that I read about, well actually I heard about it on the radio first. A young man, and it wasn't a court case, sorry, it was a case of a young man called Daniel James, who was a rugby player, a young rugby player, who had ended up quadriplegic after an accident. And after a few years had persuaded his parents to take him to Dignitas. And I remember being really shocked by this story. And the journalist in me wanted to read more about it.

So I was sort of reading all the information that I could because I remember. At first I felt quite judgmental of the parents, and then I realized that your brain seeks certainty, but actually a lot of issues are far more grey than that. And I suppose because of what was going on in my own family and my attempts to make my aunt happy when there was nothing for her to be happy about or look forward to anything, and I knew that if she had known about Dignitas before she had got ill,

that that's the route she would have chosen because she was furious and unhappy about the indignities that she had to suffer as a woman who could no longer take care of herself. Yes. It's a lot. It's a lot of things that you don't even think about as an able-bodied person. And I came up with this story idea and I told my publishers and they kind of looked at me like, oh, okay. And then I think if we're going to talk money, I'll tell you.

They offered me one sixth of the amount that they'd been offering me. And Penguin Michael Joseph, who had been, I wouldn't say courting me, but they'd certainly let me know that they'd be interested. Their managing director Louise had loved a couple of my books and was sort of furious on my behalf that they hadn't done better. And so I had lunch with her and she laid out exactly what she would do. And she said, we're not going to be able to rebuild you quickly because your sales history is terrible. But we can do it.

And we love your work. And we think, you know, and they offered me the same amount of money. But I just felt that they're more aligned. More aligned. Yes. She was so enthusiastic. More importantly, she had this vision that I trusted. She knew exactly what she wanted to do with me.

And I thought, I've got nothing to lose. I'm going to switch to these people. And then Richard and Judy picture. up this book and the rest is history because it started a kind of snowball. And I remember a friend saying to me that for about the first three years of actual big success, I looked like a rabbit in headlights. Really? I just, I kept thinking, well, it's going to stop now.

Did you keep it like thinking it was going to get taken away from you? Yes. You couldn't trust it. No. Absolutely not. And it was about three years before I finally thought, oh, okay, so the next book sold okay. And now the backlist, the books that I'd written before, the other eight, were starting to sell. Oh, maybe this is okay.

And then me before you went around the world. I mean, can we just talk about numbers there? How many countries? How many languages? I mean, something like 46 languages. Yeah. Unbelievable. I think it's sold about 15 million copies so far.

And then the rest of them have sold another 45 on top of that. So I went from selling. I mean, a handful. Like, I don't think I've made six figures to, I think now it's in the region of 60 million. And that all happened in my 40s and 50s. I mean, this is a real, a really solid, loud message. Yes. To any.

It's about resilience. And also, never give up. Yeah? On your dream. Never. You know, sure, like do different jobs. do whatever you need to stay afloat, but never give up. No, because anything can happen.

Yes, and also love the process. Yes, love the process. Definitely. When I pitched me before you, I remember pitching it to my hairdresser, lovely Frank, and he always used to ask me what I was working on. I said, oh, well, I've just started this book. It's a bit weird. It's about a quadriplegic who's decided he wants to end his life,

and it's about, you know, this care. and he just looked at me and I said, okay, let me change how I describe this. I said, it's about a man who has everything and then decides that because he can't live the life that he had, he wants none of it. And it's about a woman who falls in love with him and decides to try and change his mind. And he went, oh, that I would read. Then my dad, when I first, he read it and he said, well, darling, it's very good, but I think, you know, you're going to get in terrible trouble with the Catholic.

countries, they're not going to like it. And the truth is, for the first three years that that book went out into the world, I think I got, I was delude with the emails. I cannot tell, well, I've got them at home still, but like probably thousands of emails from people who were either in a similar position. They were carers. They were people suffering life limiting illnesses or they were people who were in a wheelchair. And people responded to it in this extraordinary way. So by the end of that three years, I had to take every Sunday simply to respond to all the messages. And in all that time, I only had one message while it was just the book from a woman who was furious with me. And I entered into a correspondence with her and it turns out her daughter had taken herself to Dignitas

without telling her. And she was so angry and we, I can completely understand it. And so we talked for a while and we came out on good terms with each other. Jojo, can I ask you something? Yeah. You've just told me that Sundays were spent answering people and you had this woman you entered into a discussion with her. Is that really important to engage with people? And how exhausting is that?

Because it's an awful lot of giving of yourself. Well, I had to stop in the end because it became very overwhelming and I'm quite a kind of poorest person. And so I would take on a lot of their things. You know, I'm a lot older now and I've had a lot of therapy, so I understand about boundaries. But I didn't have any. I just felt I've had all this luck.

And I remember hearing about J.K. Rowling once talking about the guilt she felt when she was successful. And I thought, how ridiculous. Just enjoy it. And then I got it because I'd written this book that was very specifically about, you know, terrible things happening to people and suddenly people were asking me to share their experiences and wanting to tell me and being incredibly vulnerable and so I had to answer them

it was like the least I could do yes and also finally I had some readers that was the other thing I wanted to thank you thank them in a way respond and make them feel like they hadn't wasted their time but then it becomes too much and then some of the people want to answer you again and again. And then we, my, I'd taken on a friend, Jackie, as an assistant by them because I couldn't cope with the volume of stuff. And so we set up an arrangement where I would answer the first one and then she would

answer subsequent emails. But then people would get unhappy with that because they felt that somehow I was blocking myself off from them. And then I realized that I got to a point where I couldn't make anybody happy. No. Because I couldn't answer all the emails. And so we had to take the contact. button off. You went from just being desperate to get into this and then thinking, my God,

and you actually hit a bit of overwhelm like where you, I did. I actually, I'm, I'm a bit broken. What, what happened then? Do you know what an ESIM is? Be honest. It does the same job as a physical SIM, but it's built into your phone digitally. And SAILI, who sponsors begin again, is an ESIM app that I love because it gives you a safe, secure internet data connection overseas without having to pay expensive roaming fees. It's available in over 200 destinations and it comes with built-in cybersecurity. But the best part is that it lets you change your online location to home while you're away. If you've been watching a show, for example, then you go on holiday and suddenly you can't

access it anymore. Well, with Saly you can. Give it a try. Download Saly in the app store or by scanning the QR code that's on your screen right now. And for a cheeky 15% off your first purchase, you can use the code Devina at checkout. That's Davina for 15% off. So the thing about achieving some success after a long period of not being very successful is that you find it very hard to say no. I mean, I don't know if you've experienced this in your life. But you're very conscious that fortunes

can rise and fall. And so you feel like I've got to milk every opportunity as it. comes. And I wrote the screenplay for the film of me before you, and it was a big commercial success. So I suddenly got so many offers of work in Hollywood. So my kids were all school age. So I was getting up and doing whatever they needed in the morning. Then I would be writing books in the day. And then in the evening, I would be on LA time working on scripts. And so never free. Never. And in fact, I was thinking about one year, I think it was 2017, where I had one week's holiday and we all got food poisoning. Just being so gutted. It was in October. We were in Lisbon and we'd been to a fish restaurant two days into our holiday and I'd been so excited about this holiday. I was so uncool on the plane. I was pretty much bouncing. And so I've never been very good at giving myself rest. I like what. working and I'm really lucky to do the thing that I love. So I find it really hard to step

away from that. And I think it's not unusual for freelancers and I think it's especially not unusual for women. And so that was going on. My mum got cancer. They said she would last six months and she ended up lasting four and a half years. And anyone who's been on that cancer journey knows that it is not a straight trajectory. It is an absolute roller coaster of hope despair, treatments, no treatments. Is she going to make Christmas this year? Is she not?

You are, or I was trying to manage my children's feelings about it. I was trying to help her. I was having my own feelings about it while dealing with work. And I was touring a lot. So I, and the books were so successful at this point that every publisher wanted me at the same time.

So I was often doing back to back. And I remember doing a really crazy tour, I think it was about three and a half weeks nonstop. And I ended up on the west coast of America. It was Denver. And I flew out of Denver. And there was something like whatever flight it was. And I had to appear in the Frankfurt Book Fair the next day. That was when I stopped.

And I'd said, I'm not sure about this. the time change, and I wasn't sleeping as well. I've always been an intermittent insomniac, and at that point I was lucky to get four hours a night, and I didn't sleep very well on planes. So I was like, I don't know how this is going to work because I'm at the end of this tour all the way across America, and you're often zigzagging every day, you're flying every day.

It's not glamorous. It sounds glamorous, but it's really not glamorous. So I'd gone from Denver at the end of, I think, three weeks, and then flown to Frankfurt and there was a big publishing lunch for me with lots of my international publishers and I remember I didn't even know where I was at this point

and then sitting at this lunch and someone told a joke and I started to laugh and then it became tears and I couldn't stop crying and everyone was completely horrified and I felt mortified I was a 40-something year old woman

weeping at a table full of people and at the height of my success Like, what did I have to cry about? But I got home and my best friend rang me and I didn't sleep for about three nights because my body clock was so messed up at that point. And she got really angry with me. And she just said, you have to learn to say no. You have to advocate for yourself. And I didn't, I learned the lesson a bit.

But if I'm honest, I didn't learn it properly. because then my mum died and that was it. I did learn. Sorry, this is going to sound so darkly humorous. But I thought after that, I thought, okay, I'm going to take a year off. I've done okay. I'm going to give myself that rest. And I thought I'm going to travel a bit and I'm going to hang out with the kids and I'm going

to do some horse riding. I'm just going to have a lovely time. I'd move to a new house, which I loved. I had all my dogs. I had loads of rescue animals, horses, you name it. My kids had absolute freedom to kind of bomb around and do whatever they wanted. And that little crack up had happened in October 2019. And I thought, right, 2020 is going to be my year of rest and relaxation.

And instead, my mum died. I got divorced and we had a pandemic. I never got my year. And then it was just surviving. I was just going to say it's survival. We all went on to survival mode. Like losing a parent, losing your mum. And, you know, losing a marriage and a mum at the same time, that's a lot of grief.

It was a lot of grief. Change. Yeah. It's huge that. It was so huge. And I don't think I realized at first. And I remember saying to this doctor, I don't know what's wrong with that. me, I can't stop crying.

And she said, all right, talk to me. I remember meeting the scriptwriter Sarah Phelps, and I went up to her and shook her hand, and then I just burst into tears and I'm sorry, I'm not normally like this. And she just looked at me like, okay, you need to see a doctor. She's very capable woman. And I saw this doctor and she just said, talk me through what's going on. And I told her. And she said, I think you have a completely understandable depression.

Like it's a completely natural reaction to everything that you're going through. Could I ask you something? Yeah. Was, were you perimenitals? Yes, but I didn't know it at the time. And I wish with hindsight that incident of antidepressants had been given HRT. Because I, if I'd have been talking to you, I think I said this is where you are. I think the vocabulary changed after that.

And also, you know, GPs and it's not their fault, but they don't learn about it in med school. No, what is it? They've given one. Well, they don't even have to do that if they don't want. Oh, it's an optional. But yeah. And so you can learn more about it if you want. But the Royal College of Psychiatrists have just made a mandate that a mid-life woman or a woman in her 40s, mid-40s, if she presents with low mood, she needs to be told about perimenopause, menopause, that HRT is a good option to go and speak to somebody and not be routinely prescribed antidepressants.

Yes. Did the antidepressants work for you at all? They did. They did, but I then read up about coming off them a couple of years later, and that was very scary because it can really send you haywire. So I was very badly advised by an online GP that I should take a couple of weeks. And actually, I took nine months. I came off them super slowly at a kind of extraordinary slow rate. And I am really grateful to not need them anymore.

But I do take HRT because that's what keeps me. I don't know, trucking, I guess. How did you meet Charles? That work. Yeah, I was his boss, strictly speaking, because I became news editor in the late 1990s. And he was the technology correspondent or science and technology. And I just thought, oh, he's a good person. He's really smart.

There was a huge round of redundancies going on. So it felt like every three months would be in the pub saying goodbye to a bunch of people. And then we kind of built our relationship from there. Being drunk and saying goodbye to people, which was kind of how most people in the 90s started their relationships. And everything changed, you know, as you know. It is a, even if it's done amicably, which mine was, it is such a dislocating thing to live through. because it's a shift of your identity. Totally.

And there is something to do with walking into a room and people knowing, even if he's not there, that you are a wife or a missus or you are a partner to somebody. And then to go in by yourself is somehow really hard. And there's some people who find it very difficult that you've done this.

And so I was sort of quite shocked by some people's reactions. and that's always a funny thing is that other people's reactions to your divorce is such a strange especially if you are a woman who works hard and is visibly successful because it's automatically down to you it's um it's your fault for not being more present or for not working harder and the one thing i all i can tell you is that i work hard at everything relationships you know some things just end and you know nobody needs to know more than that but I you know we discussed earlier on that you and I shared a divorce lawyer my one of my proudest possessions is the email she

sent me after I got divorced saying I wished all couples could handle it with the grace and kindness that you two showed each other and my ex-husband is still my friend and we speak every week and he has Christmas with us so I would really like to just ask for your top you know, it can be three, it can be four, it can be five, whatever. Yeah. Bits of advice for anybody watching this who is getting divorced. Yeah. Because you never hear that, that couples, and it's, it often, it might start,

oh, we're going to be amicable, and then it's not. And you've done it. Yeah. How did you do it? Okay. The very, very first thing is never marry a man you wouldn't want to be divorced from. Wait. What?

So are they a kind person? Do they treat people with respect? Do they talk badly about their exes? All these are key indicators of how that person is going to be about you once you're no longer. Can I say something? Go on. You've literally blown my mind. I have never heard that.

Don't marry a man that you wouldn't be prepared to be divorced. Or you wouldn't want to be divorced from. Like, I don't mean that. Like, you're not thinking about divorce. You're not thinking about divorce. Yeah. If you were in conflict with this person, how do you think they would behave? Yes, that is the most, because that is who they are at their core, right?

Are they a good person? Yes. And my ex-husband is a good person. That's amazing. Okay. Oh, I love that. The second biggest one is just, it's actually not about you. It's about your kids.

You've made a decision that is going to profoundly affect them. Even the best divorce is going to have a negative effect on them, and you have to acknowledge that. And so even when your ex, you might want to kind of stick pins in a dolly or, you know, you kick the wall or whatever, you don't do it in front of the kids. Nothing. They get none of it. Absolutely none of it. Get some therapy, get a best friend, punch a pillow, whatever. None of this is going to your kids because even if you are tight-lipped and punch.

polite about your ex, they will feel it. They will pick up on every vibration. So I would also say pick your battles. Like, does it really matter? I mean, I had dinner with Catherine Bedford, this divorce lawyer, and she was telling me about how, you know, some people will literally bankrupt themselves over who gets the guinea pig. And you have to just say, does this really matter?

Does it matter? And one of the other really important things was when we divided up the things in the house, although there were things that I loved that I let go of, and we'd agreed that any family heirlooms should stick with, you know, any pictures or... But I wanted the kids when they went into his house to see things they recognised

and to feel like they were at home. I wanted them to be comfortable and I think he felt the same way. So we were generous with each other at every point. I mean, that sounds very healthy. Yeah, I'm not going to say it was fun. No, of course, but you'd be still married if it was. Yes. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not meant to be fun, but you did do it in a respectful way. And because he was a good man, we were able to talk honestly, and at a point when some lawyers were advising me not to be honest with him, I was honest with him, I was honest with him and trusted that he was still essentially the person that I'd married 22 years earlier. And so it was. And so now we talk about stuff all the time. And, you know, not just the kids. We'll still check in with each other. We buy each other birthday gifts.

He is part of my family. I'm not married to him anymore, but he's the father of my kids. I want them to be able to come to me if they've got concerns about something that's going on with him and not feel, oh God, can't talk about dad. And yeah, he has been, yeah, he's someone who will always be in my life. And I never have any regrets about having married him because he gave me the three best kids in the world. And I'm not sure I would have had the career that I had without his, the way he was with me and my career, if I'm honest. I want to ask you about dating in midlife because there will be men and women watching this who are our age, who are like, we didn't have apps. No.

Like what do we do? Well, that was frankly terrifying. Yes. And I didn't do it. I don't think I could. No. I came out of my marriage. We ended up living together for 15 months because it was COVID

and because it was more important to have the kids have stability. And then I was on my own for a year and I was completely unprepared as a very independent person for how lonely I would feel. Really? You felt lonely. Yeah. And also because, because. I had huggy kids for a long time and then suddenly they were gone or mostly gone or certainly not at an age when they particularly want hugs.

Yeah. And I really missed just that physical touch. Yeah. In a way, and you know, I've always had dogs and I had horses. So there was a lot of kind of hugging of animals, but it's not the same. And then I found that I got quite anxious going into social situations as well. So I... Had you been like that before?

No. No. But I think it was a combination of... There was a brief period where I was recognised. And I don't know how you do it because I was very bad at it. I did not like... You know, I like being a name on a spine. I don't really...

I'm not very good at being visible. And so I found that I would be totally hopeless at proper fame because it's that thing when you... have a conversation with someone you don't know and you suddenly become aware that you're becoming material to them, that anything you tell them is going to become an anecdote for somewhere else. And so you stop being a human being and you start being a kind of thing. Yeah. And I had a few occasions where I'd go out and you, and you must have seen it for the last however many years, but it's that thing. There's a slight change in expression. And my level of fame was that

compared to say yours because I'm not a visible person, but I was so bad at it. And I'd had a few occasions where I had had those sorts of experiences or I went to a book launch where I could hear my name being whispered behind me as I walked and it was really discomforting. And I'm just not built for it. I'm just not built for it. So I went to a party. It was my friend, best friend's party. And I said to her, I'm going to come for two hours.

then I'm going to go. And she knew me and she knew how I was at that point. And she just said, that's totally fine. And I was quite sad, I think, at the time as well. I was kind of fine on the outside, but I'd go home and, you know, cry a bit. It's just adjusting as well, isn't it? You're used to having a unit and suddenly I was not part of a unit. I was sort of rattling around by myself. And I bumped into someone I'd known a friend of my best friends. I'd known him in Paris sort of 30 years ago. Wow. Someone I'd had, we'd had no interest in each other at all, like not each other's type.

So funny, isn't it? Yeah, and I knew he'd been through a lot of stuff because I'd heard on the kind of group grapevine. And he just, he's a very huggy man. And he just said, oh, come and give me a hug. I hate your life's been a shit show or something. And he gave me this hug and I just remember thinking, oh, God, that's nice. Yeah. And then we agreed we would check in every hour and have another hug.

And we've been together ever since. And that's been, yeah, six years. Now, a big lesson there, I feel, and I need to really point this out to people. Go on. So we were in our 50s. I was 50. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, you too. And, you know, if you'd have seen him on an app in your 30s, you would have swiped. We had nothing in common at that point. Not your type. I don't think we would have got together any time up until 50. We were the same. Yeah.

Like just not looking at each other like that at all. So forget type. Forget apps. They're just too light. There's no... Also, I think the things you're looking for are very different. At this age, I don't need anybody else's money. I don't need anybody else to get married to.

I don't need to have children with someone. somebody. There is no tick list of things that I'm working towards. All that matters is, does this person have a good heart? Do they make me happy? And John has a heart as big as kind of Northumberland. And he makes me laugh. Where did Northumberland come from? I don't know. That's just so random. I love that. It's just, got a heart as big as Northumberland. But possibly not slough. Not slough. But, and I'm not going to say it's all been easy. It hasn't. It's involved therapy. And what I've discovered, you know, when you've married for a long time, you settle into certain grooves of behavior.

So I had. There's habits. Yeah. Ways of being, ways of arguing, ways of handling conflict or disappointment or vulnerability. And you just get used to how you're doing it. And then suddenly you're with someone else who is a completely different kettle of fish. And they don't play by your rules. And is it healthier, would you say, because you're doing.

you are examining things, that you are behaving in a way where you like yourself more. Oh, gosh, that's an interesting question. Sorry, the thing that's just making me laugh is when you get together with someone you knew when you were essentially a teenager, there is a large part of you that remains a teenager. So there is a big part of our relationship that's really childish and stupid. And fun. And fun, yeah. But I think I am a lot more mindful about how.

I show up and I think he is too and one of the reasons this has worked is because he is that unicorn of a thing a man who is prepared to do the work on himself and that I know from a lot of my girlfriends who are my age who might be navigating similar situations is actually quite rare and I'm really grateful that he does the work too and so it sounds so kind of Americanized and such an awful phrase doing the work. But there is a reason why a lot of second relationships fail statistically. And it's because you're coming in with children, baggage, you know, habits, behaviours that are quite ingrained and having to navigate quite tricky situations. And it requires a lot of being a grown-up. And

sometimes we don't want to be grown-ups. We want to just stamp our feet and go, I don't like this. And you can't. You have to just bring your best-sell. to the table. And sometimes it might take me 24 hours to locate that best self, but I'm getting there. And I think the difference is I'm grateful. I'm really, really grateful to have a second chance and to have somebody who really loves me in as kind of huge a way as he does. To be loved by John is quite an extraordinary thing because he has no inhibitions about saying it or showing it whatsoever. it's all out there. In fact, you know, he jokes that I was hilarious for the first year

because he would sort of say, I love you and I would just go, okay. You go, don't panic, I love everybody, it's all. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't take anything for granted, you know, we're here and it's good, and that's all I ask for. So last year was another kind of reassess everything. Can you tell me about that? Yeah, so 2020 was.

my anisarobulus. It was just terrible. I then had to rebuild. So I moved to London, which was the place that I'd grown up in. And I took up some hobbies, which was something that women never do. Oh, my God. I really want to talk you about this. Isn't it interesting? Men have golf? Yes. What do we do? We don't do anything. We're really bad at hobbies. I remember this therapist saying to me, it was her who made me do it. She said, what do you do when you're not working? And I was to say, well, I'm with my kids. And she said, and she said, yes, but what do you do for you? And I said, well, I walk my dogs. And she went, nope, that's walking the dogs. And I went, okay, well, I do training. You work like, no, that's to stay fit and well. I said, I love a hot bath and reading a book. She was like, no, that's just self-care. That's not you. And I really think. thought about this and then I was asking my friends, what do you do for you? And they were doing the same thing. And I suddenly thought, this is really strange. Why are women so bad at doing things for ourselves? So when I moved to London, I took up Pilates, which I know makes me an absolute

North London cliche. But I really loved it. And I've always loved horses, but I used to do what my husband called hacking and yacking, which was just getting lost in the woods and talking to my daughter or with a friend. And so I took up classical dressage, which was really niche, really ridiculous, has no purpose in life beyond what it is. So I started competing again, which was the first time I went to a competition, I didn't sleep. I think I was awake until 4 a.m. And I think I won the first one. It was only very low level. And I really love it. So I have lessons every week. I go away to Portugal to train at a special place there. And they, that has been an incredible thing for me. I go by myself. Sometimes and I, I, so, it was so

interesting, you know, we talked about depression and I carried it over for a long time. And in the mornings were my hardest time. So I used to get up, walk the dogs, walk it off. And then I'd be in a good place. And I called John from the first time I stayed at this place in Portugal. and I said something really weirds happened. And he said, what? I said, I'm not depressed in the mornings. And he said, oh, like, he said, is it because I'm not there? And I'm like, no, no, I just, I think it's because I'm basically being 14.

I'm being fed, looked after. I don't have to worry about anybody else. And I'm getting to learn the thing that I absolutely love doing. And it occupies my body. It occupies my mind. It occupies my emotion. It's given me a community. And I really think it's important for women.

especially when they're older to claim something for themselves, whether it's... That's such a good piece of advice. I don't know. Fishing or, you know... Anything. Anything. Like, doing a Matte level, I think is brilliant. I've got this lovely list that you talked about doing in 2025 all the things you did.

Okay. In 2025. And I'm going to read it to you because this is so joyful. And anybody watching, men or women, just know that you could go and do anything you like. Yeah. Oh, okay. I think I know what you're going to say now. So, this is what I've done in July instead of writing.

Got three piercings. Yeah, I had to get one gone because I couldn't wear ear buds with it. Help my daughter adopt a half-tailed cat. Yes, Stanley. Ridden a horse in fancy dress and torrential rain. Yeah, I was dressed as a potato. Helped with an eight-year-old's four-hour birthday party. That was a lot.

Not even your eight-year-old. Like just an eight-year-old. Turned my garage into a gym. I did. Well done. Had some business meetings. Yeah. Wought my dogs 800 times.

Wow. Had a mammogram. Yes. Important. Self care. Can you make your machine softer one day, please? I agree with that. Yeah.

Read some books. Yeah. Chatted to service at my local cafes. I love that because I know you're a little bit of an introvert. Like you're not a natural chat to everybody. No, I'm not. I have to work at it. somewhere where people know you.

Yes. I used to live somewhere where I didn't see people for days at a time. But now I love it. Yeah. Yeah. It's changed your life. Yeah. Cut down some diseased hedging.

Yes. Looking after nature. Stayed up late. That was one of my favorites. On my deathbed, am I going to regret not getting eight hours of solid sleep every single night? No. No. Am I going to be happy I stayed up late sometimes?

You are? But it's just going to take you four days to recover from it. To get over it. Yeah. Went swimming in Cornwall. I did. Gorgeous. Accidentally opened a neighbour's bill for semen storage.

Oh, God. I did. And then I didn't know what to do. Because I didn't even know that was a thing. I may have got rid of the letter. I'm sorry. I think that's illegal. I probably just admitted to a crime.

I was so stunned by the word semen storage that I didn't know what to do. Sorry. Oh, God. some new friends. Yes. So nice. Continued my unbroken 45-day duolingo run of Portuguese. 2.97 days. Yes. Agora. Portuguese is so difficult.

Well done. Can I just tell you I learned about Day 200 that what I've been learning is Brazilian Portuguese rather than European Portuguese. So it's pretty much useless. But I'm still going. Yeah. Well, when you go to Brazil, it's going to be good. Yes, I'm going to go back to Brazil. failed to paint my toenails. Why is that so good? Because I'm... I don't think it matters.

Great. And I just want to say, thank you for that list. It brought me personally such joy. It was a beautiful thing. And I also want to say, this is your latest book. It is. And it is out now, and it's out now in paperback. It is.

And it's called We All Live Here. And it's about a lot of the things that you and I have been discussing about women carrying everything and trying not to fall apart at the seams and having a laugh while they're doing it. And ain't that what we all want to aspire to do and be? And I think reading it in words is thought-provoking for women our age because if we're not doing it, but we read about people who are even in fiction.

It's inspiring. I think seeing ourselves. Yeah, exactly. And thank you for seeing us. Oh my God. Well, thank you for having me. JoJo. It's been such a delight and I'm so glad I'm beautifully brilliant.

Oh, thank you. I love you. Oh, I love you. So just in case you missed this episode here, if you love this episode, I know you're going to love that.