Drama Queens - Work in Progress: Amanda Kloots

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

Amanda Kloots has lived many lives — Broadway dancer, Rockette, author, TV host, wife and now, single mom — and she’s still redefining what resilience looks like. Amanda opens up about juggling loss and enduring grief with newfound joy and reinvention, She also shares hard-won insights on healing, creativity, and the quiet courage it takes to begin again.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Meaningful connections often show up when you least expect it in those small, surprising moments. So I'm very excited that today's sponsor, Bumble, makes it easier to notice those little sparks. With features like shared interests and prompts, you can showcase your personality right on your profile and connect with people who get your vibe.

So if you're curious about who might bring a little more joy into your life, Bumble is a great place to start. Ready to meet someone great, start your love story on Bumble. Hi, everyone. It's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Hi, Whipsmarties. I know we're all itching for some inspiration and perhaps a reminder that no matter how hard things get, there's. always an opportunity for healing, for reinvention, and for creation. And today's guest is a shining example of all of those things. We are joined today by none other than Amanda Kloots. You might know her

as an incredible former Broadway dancer and Radio City Rockette, a fitness entrepreneur, a television host from CVS's The Talk, to being a best-selling author. Her memoir, Live Your Life, My Story of loving and losing Nick Cordero is centered on her story of her life as a new mom and a wife in 2020, losing her partner to COVID in early days, and managing to be such an incredible advocate who took so many of us along, learning how to stay safe, learning how to protect our families and communities, and learning how to protect ourselves. Her memoir about that time is truly a lifeline for readers that are navigating grief. And now as a single mom to her young son, Elvis, Amanda has really continued to channel her loss into creativity. She wrote a gorgeous

children's book called Tell Me Your Dreams as a love letter to memory connection and hope. And now she is here in her incredible wellness element with a new supplement line that is honestly solving problems I know myself and so many of you have been begging to have solved. She always manages to see a problem and figure out how to fix it. And it's something that I really admire about her as a creative, as a woman, and a mom, and a friend. So let's dive in today and talk with Amanda about her journey to realize that healing is not really about moving on. It's about moving forward and loving every version of you that you're carrying with you. Let's dive in with Amanda Clude. how are you like before we you know get dive into interview things i just like i just adore you and i

never get to see you and i'm just so happy i'm seeing you now i know it's so nice to see you too i'm good i'm really good Elvis and I have the best summer ever we traveled um for like over a month together and um yeah i can't complain so phia life is really nice right now i'm like good feeling good about a lot of stuff and it's just nice to be in that place you know you know yeah yeah when you're really in the thick of it and and in something that feels so dark like there will never be light again and then your life feels light it it's not that i think people can't love their life or be grateful or really be tapped into goodness if they haven't gone through heavy grief. But there's some, there's a different degree of goodness, I think, after you've

processed heavy grief. Yeah. Yeah. And it's been like, I think because it's been five years now, five years was a weird mark and we can talk about it if you want to, but I was with Nick for five years. So now that five years has passed, like a weird, I don't know, it just it hit me like that timeline. Okay. Well, before we get into all the amazing things happening now and what's what we're doing now and perhaps our spiritual practices now, I always really like to go backwards with people because your audience knows you, your life, your career, sometimes your personal life as this adult doing great things out in the world, but I'm always really curious if you could go back in time and spend time with your younger self if you would see yourself in her. Like if you could rewind

in 1992, Canton, Ohio, what would you say to 10-year-old you? You know, I think I do see myself in her. I had a therapist a couple of years ago and she was the first person that made me do this but she said put your 10 year old self in a chair and look at her and talk to her and it was a first time that I had to do that and at first I thought it was really dumb and I was like this is dumb am I doing this I don't want to like I you know it was the whole process and then I really started to see like the benefits from it and and I do. I do see the little girl that just loves to ride her bike around the neighborhood and get Dairy Queen ice cream cones and go hang out with her friends and just had this like free

spirit of adventure and curiosity and dreaming and literally believing I could do whatever I would want to do in life and just dancing every day and loving it. And yeah, they really do connect with her. I think the poor little girl has no idea what's coming out of her, but I'm also, yeah, really proud of all the different versions of myself. I feel like I've had like 19 versions of myself. Oh, me too. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was, if I'm not mistaken, I think it was Cheryl Strad who wrote about how in our lives as women we almost become nesting dolls. You carry every version of the woman you were inside yourself. And I just, I love that as a metaphor. And I think it is so true because sometimes you'll talk about, you know, the versions of life you've lived.

And I think I've watched that bump for some people. People be like, no, I don't like that. It sounds like, then what are you saying? You didn't know yourself or like I didn't know myself when I did this or I was somehow a different person. And I actually think it's not that you've been trying on versions of yourself that weren't authentic. It's the journey of life where you lean into something and explore it. And can you love yourself enough? Can you learn to love yourself enough to listen to whether your inner self says yes or no to that thing and then continue growing around it. Yeah.

And I don't know. I think that's really special that you can sit and say, yeah, I like all the women I've been before and I care about the younger versions of myself that are in me. I like that too. And I think what I love to do is like look back, like retrospect, you know, like I love looking back at my life and being like, you know, oh, wow. was interesting or how that affected me. I think of it as lately, like, my life is chapters.

Like, I feel like I just have these different chapters of my life. And I do feel like I'm in now a different chapter or I feel like I'm on the precipice of a new chapter. Like, have you ever felt it within yourself? You're like, start changing. And like, and it's good. And I just have to like, I'm almost on board because I know it's coming. but I'm kind of holding on to dear life, but also like, okay, I feel it.

And I know I want it. And I know it's there. I just have to like, be brave enough to turn the page to jump into that next chapter. Yes, absolutely. It's like when you're driving somewhere you've never been and you can tell that you're only five miles from there based on your GPS, but you still have no idea where you are. Yeah. You know, you can feel it getting close. to the destination, but you don't know what it's going to look like yet, and it's so surreal to

be in that place. Yeah, it is. It's crazy. I have a question. It may seem unrelated, but just talking about your younger self and the younger youths and the change coming, I'm so curious about this, because I grew up an only, and you're one of five kids, and I know you're really close to your family, do you think that change, you know, impending shifts, those things that you can feel? Do you think because you have such a close relationship with your siblings, you have maybe a little more practice at that? Because not only are you going through those life moments, but your siblings are, so at least you know you're not, like, totally on a path alone or insane. Yeah, that's an interesting question. I, you know, what's funny, though, is, you know,

is just to like oppose that a little bit so close to my, my siblings and my mom and dad, we really are each other's best friends. But we all live in different cities, the closest sibling to my brother in San Francisco. Anna, my youngest sister, lives in Paris. So we are literally all over the place. And I just said to my mom and dad, because I was home in Ohio, spending a week with them. And I was like, you guys. because, again, we were talking about, like, just change in life and stuff.

And I said to them, I was like, you guys have to, like, really just at this point in my life, support and trust me. I said, because we're at a point with our family that we all see each other maybe one or twice a year, like when we're all together. And I say, you know, I'll come home to Ohio maybe once or twice a year, Christmas and a summer, you know, maybe. but it just always depends right and I said like you aren't around me every day you don't know what my life is every day and so you have to like it's just different than when we were younger and we saw it because we weren't all married or we didn't all have kids and it was easy to just

like you know go and and that's different it's like oh it's not my Christmas or it's not my Thanksgiving or no we can't travel or mom has knee surgery so she can't travel so it's like It's, I think we're at a point right now where I think life is changing and for me especially and I actually am asking for my family just to like support and trust me because you're not going to actually know or understand fully where I am in life. Totally. It's hard for a family to do that when you're so close. Yeah, of course.

But I think you're right. the the intrinsic knowledge you have about your people when you're around them you observe so much it's impossible to get that same deep knowing when you're in separate places because you have to explain everything yeah you have to tell people the story of your day or you're weak and and it's hard it's like it's actually one of the things that as much as i love you know being a creative and doing the things we all get to do in our work, my greatest morning from that comes from the fact that I'm always somewhere else to my most important people and my family. I'm always the absent person. And yeah, I'll jump on a plane for a Saturday to make sure I can be, you know, at somebody's

baby shower and then get on the red eye and go right back so I can go to work or you know I'll do whatever I can yeah but man it does like smart when you just miss that close proximity for sure you're right the everyday things just change yeah and it's hard you know you try to relate to like I try to understand and relate to my sisters and my brother's life as much as possible and I think they try to relate to mine. But it's like, it's just, it's impossible, right? Like my sister's in Houston, she's a stay at home mom. She has three kids and she lives out of her car driving her kids everywhere she goes. And it's like, it's, it's so hard to relate, you know, for her to relate to me, a single mom who is, you know, a widow and, you know, living the life I'm living. So like,

it's impossible to relate. That's why I think, like, I think, like, this new idea of like support and trust. Totally. We just have to support and trust each other. Totally. And now for our sponsors. Do you think that that sort of support system when you were young, when you all did get to be together and it was like easier to be in the jumble? Did that help you with the confidence to get out and pursue this crazy dream?

because, you know, I know you wanted to be a rockette, you, the, the jumping into that world of performance and dance and Broadway and the auditions and the rehearsals. I mean, it's so big and so hard. So how did you decide to go for it? And what was it like, you know, moving and getting into this whole new pace and whole new way of life for you? Yeah, no, so true. I mean, the support I had from my family doing that. I was the first of five kids to not go to regular college four-year degree and move to New York City. You know, my brother and my sisters all went to Ohio colleges and they were studying, you know, marketing or business or literature, you know, and I was like, I want to dance. And I have to say my choir director, my choir teacher in high

school. My parents were so, they were on board, but they were like not really on board. My dad was still convinced that I should go to this performing arts in Ohio and get a four-year degree. And we sat down with my choir teacher and he was like, I know she can do this. You've got to, you know, believe in her. And it was that my, it was only then, sorry, that my mom and dad were like, okay, we will, you can go to New York, go to this two-year conservatory. And I remember my dad being like, that two years equals what I spent on your siblings four years of college. So after those two years, Amanda, like, if something doesn't happen, like, you're on your own where your siblings had two more years of college. And I was like, okay, I could do it.

Don't worry. And, I mean, Sophia, I still can't believe that my mom and dad drove me to New York and dropped me off in New York City at 18 years old. Like, if Elvis asked me to do that, I'd be like, hell, no. or I'm going to like it's like not happening but um yeah they just they just believed in me and I mean still to this day you know they'll say an audition like how'd your interview go and I'm like audition that is so cute no no but like um but they've always supported me and they were always at everything from high school you know practices and performances to Broadway shows and rocket shows I mean, they've always been there.

So, yeah, that support, I think, definitely helped me think that I could do it. Where, like, you know, the stats to be on Broadway are insane. And at that point, I was a dancer. I really wasn't even a singer. I could sing, but I couldn't sing. I learned how to sing in college. And then kind of as I was performing on Broadway, learned how to really sing. So I really went into it with just being like, I can dance.

I didn't even do drama in high school. So, yeah, I mean, it doesn't make sense, you know what I mean? You think I'm grounded in thinking I could just go on, be on Broadway, but I really was just a dancer. But it's amazing. And I think the, I think that sort of youthful freedom to pursue your dreams just to be like, this is going to work. I'm going to make it work. I mean, God, imagine if it could be bottled and sold, you know? It's so cool.

What was it like to be? be on that Rockette stage for the first time. It's like it's such an iconic thing. It fills me with such wonder and this feeling of nostalgia because I remember going like with my mom and my grandpa to see the Rockettes when I was little at Radio City. It's like so iconic. Do you still get a little, a little nostalgia for it? Oh, 100%. I try to take Elvis every year and this is the 100 years celebration of the Rocket Legacy. So they're doing like a big thing. But I'll never forget it.

My first season was 2003. The opening costume was this, it's still to this day, probably one of my favorite costumes I've ever worn. Velvet, green, long sleeves, fur on the cuffs, a big fur hat, fur around like the, and a big holly thing right here. It was gorgeous.

We were all lined up. up backstage and you come flapping the tap move a flap and we came two by two flapping out of the Rockefeller Christmas tree set and my whole family was there and the first step was jump kick bevel so like my first move as a Radio City Rocket like was just like a jump kick right and I was dead center because I was center girl because I'm the tallest and Rockettes the tallest girls are in the center and then the shortest girls are out to the side it gives the illusion. And I'll never forget it. I was so nervous because they just, you know, drew perfection in you.

And when you're a rookie, they just make you know you're a rookie. At least at that time, you know, I don't know. It's probably different now. But in that era, it was definitely a hierarchy and you knew that you were one of the newbies. But yeah, it was amazing. It was so, I love that. Yeah. And I love that you guys.

go together when you when you come out this way and you go to broadway musicals now like what goes through your mind you know you you have this whole other career now and when you come back what what is that like and i i see shows a lot like i try to take elvis to see shows here in l.a and on broadway it's i'm always like how did i do this like it's so it's so much like eight shows a week and you start your workday at 8 p.m. And, you know, you're dancing until 11. And then you come back the next day and you do two shows. And it's like, and it's such a, it's such a drill and it's constant competition and

never feeling settled. And you never know if you have a job the next day. When I think about how I did that for 16 years, I'm very proud of myself. But I'm also like, how did I, how did I do that? But I'm also, I'm so glad I did it. And I'm so glad that I did it at the age I did it. And I think Broadway teaches you everything in life, especially resilience and belief in yourself. So I'm very proud of it.

But I'm also just like, oh, my God, how did I do that? Have you done Broadway? I haven't done Broadway. I did a show on the West End. Okay. And it was so incredible. I had the time of my life. and I will never forget before I went.

I got all excited because, you know, I'm used to like network TV hours. I'm used to being at work 16 hours a day, 17 hours a day sometimes like by the time I've left my home and then gotten back. And I was like eight shows a week. I mean, the show's two and a half hours. I'm going to have all the time in the world.

I don't have my whole day to myself. There's going to be a day off a week. like this is so incredible I can't wait and I will never forget I randomly was at a thing right before I left for London with Brian Cranston and after Breaking Bad

he did LBJ on Broadway and then he did network fabulous in both shows of course and I was like I'm so geeked and what advice do you have for me like I'm really nervous but I'm really excited I love theater and he said well what are your

plans while you're there. And I kind of talked about like, oh, well, you know, I have a list every Monday I'm going to go to a new art exhibition and I'm going to, and he goes, oh, kid, I hate to tell you, you're not. He said, Sophia, you're just not. You are going to be the most exhausted you have ever been. You're going to sleep all day because it's going to take you hours when you get home at night for the adrenaline and the cortisol to pass through your body. You're not going to be And you're not going to be sleeping by 1230. You're going to be asleep at three or four in the morning. And you're going to go to work the next day.

And on Monday, he said, when are your two show days? And I said, oh, Saturday and Sunday. And he goes, so you're doing a five show weekend. He said, Monday, you're going to be a corpse. Yeah. And I was like, oh. Oh. I had just never considered the difference in the kind of hours.

Yeah. And I loved it. and I can't wait to do it again, and I hope to do it in New York when the right show comes up. Yeah, you should. Holy crap. Yeah, it's such a different skill set, and it's so funny because he's so right. Like Monday is complete rest massage, and that's about it. I mean, especially I did three national tours, and a national tour is almost even worse because you're on the road.

Yeah, you're on the road. You're in a hotel. You're traveling. It's like, it's so hard. It's, and you can't really understand it unless you're in it because even you said it's like you think it's like this glamorous, but you never have a weekend. You never have a night. You never have a holiday. It's really, really tough. Yeah. Funny because, you know, doing Broadway first and then going more over to like film and TV, I remember when I did my Christmas movie, And we, like, shot the first scene. It hit me that I was like, oh, I can forget those lines. Like, I don't have to. Yeah. I was like, I don't ever have to do that again. And they're like, no, I'm so trained to do the same thing every day.

And so the same lines and having to remember, I was like, oh, I can just delete that. And they're like, tomorrow's scene 201. I'm like, oh. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, this is amazing film. It's so fun. You're like, oh my God, I never have to have that fight scene again. I don't have to do it eight times a week. What? You do it for that day? And then you've done. I was like, I was like, I love film. It's just so funny how you get used to one thing and then you transfer over and then started off with film and then went to Broadway. It would be a whole different. Like, you mean, I have to do this all the time. Like it's so funny. Oh, it's crazy. And when you talk about, you know, I mean, even just what a cool thing that you got to start vocal training in college and then really open up as a singer because you were working on Broadway was, you know, when I think about obviously the last couple of years, it seemed like an outsider. Like music was such an important part of your life and career of Nick's life and career and then became something so important to the two of you together. Was the sort of early overlap in your working worlds when you guys were like getting to

know each other? Were you just like, oh my God, this man in his music? Yes, but it was, it was like a twofold. So when we started dating, I was ending my first marriage. So we had to, like, we were very, like, secret about our relationship. So after the show, we were doing Bullets Over Broadway, we would each go home. And then we would Skype for, like, five in the morning. And Nick would just play me music over Skype. But it was a twofold, like, because there were some things, like, he would play me some of his original stuff.

And that moment of being a girl where you're like, you've seen the Barbie movie, right? where like the guy is playing you music and you're like and then you're just saying like I get it I adore you and I get it you know and so it was like part part you know but that is very much the dynamic of Nick and I and Nick's music and you know he he was constantly making music and a lot of it never had lyrics and then some had lyrics and then some had jumbled lyrics and then all of a sudden he would be doing a show and they'd all have lyrics and one song sounded like rock and roll the next song sounded like a country song the next song sounded like broadway like and then the next one sounded like frank sinatra like he was all over the place right and so it just now it makes me

laugh it used to frustrate me but now it just makes me laugh because it's just very much him He just, he did. He loved music. I've yet to meet anyone that knew more about music than Nick Cordero. He would wake listening to BBC podcasts. He would read Rolling Stones cover to cover. I remember one of my favorite stories, he, early, early dating years, I'm in his apartment in Washington Heights. And he's like, babe, there's this girl and she's making music in her bedroom.

with her brother and they are going to be huge and I was like oh okay and he was like she's like 16 years old or like 14 years old and they I'm telling you now they're going to be huge and I was like okay and he was like her name's Billy Elish and I was like okay and years later what's so beautiful about this story is years later um during Nick's battle with COVID Phineas right me a song. And after Nick passes away, he DMs me, and I don't see it. And my realtor friend, who's his realtor friend, is like, I think Phineas O'Connell sent you a DM. And I was like, okay, so I looked at my DMs, there it was. I wrote your song. I've been following your story. And I was like, what? I listened to this song. It is the most beautiful song I've ever heard.

and it's like very cold play ask which i love and i write him back immediately we become instant friends he ends up singing me the song live many times in his concert it's like and i if i could i ended up telling him i'm like you don't understand nick told me about you guys when we first started like he clocked you guys in your bedroom in echo park or highland park i was like and how the world works you've written a song now about he would roll over in his grave like if he knew that you wrote me a song like it just is that's life though it's so beautiful you know what I mean yeah it's beautiful and now a word from our sponsors that I really enjoy and I think you will too Experience it must have been. I mean, both of you, you know, with your gorgeous careers in your own rights, you know, you were both known people. But then his COVID battle, it, I remember, you know, we have so many friends in common. We hadn't met yet at the time. But I remember hearing what you guys were going through. And suddenly it seemed like every single person.

and I knew anywhere was like, do you know what's going on with this Nick and Amanda couple in LA? And I mean, you were so generous with so much pain. You had every right not to take time out of your day to try to help other people. But while you guys were going through this battle of his sickness, you tried to tell so many people. You know, you became, at least for me, as, again, someone who didn't know you personally yet, such a guidepost, like a beacon, because you just told the truth. And everyone was so scared and people didn't know what was happening. And it was so hard to know where we were going to get any sort of information. And then, you know, you had all this disinformation happening people claiming you know oh don't worry it's like the flu no it's

not yeah and you were like let me tell you what's happening to my husband like let me explain what this does to someone's body it it struck me as being oh i'm going to get emotional sorry um it struck me that you took something so tragic and chose to give to other people. Like, it was such a profound, um, active service to watch in a time when, like, everyone should have been serving you. You know, I'm like, you, you should have had someone, like, make you a meal train and you were, like, trying to tell people how to get vaccinated. Like we have a meal train. Thanks to Shell Geller, actually.

She set up that meal train. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. Thank you. Thank you. You're just a gem of a human. And I know you've talked about it and shared about it. And you don't have to repeat anything you don't want to.

But I just, I guess I wonder, like, looking back on five years, years what how do you kind of process that journey you know the fact that we were also isolated and yet you were having this incredibly intimate moment with so many people i i don't know i just i guess i wonder like how it i don't want to say how it feels to you now that's a stupid word but you know how how how it settles i guess i it's like the oddest thing to be honest like it i've processed it so many times and yet i also like i have never processed it and what was i i was watching something the other day i think i was watching a movie and something will just trigger something and then like i can't even focus because I'm like back in that world. And then when I think about it, I'm like so

completely like I can't believe that happened that I get kind of like pulled away. And then I and then I try to process it again in that respect. And then sometimes I feel like I've processed it so much that it's not near to me anymore. And then I feel bad that I am moving away from it. And then I feel guilty about that. Right. And then sometimes where I'm too close to it and I feel guilty about being, holding on to it. I think that's just trauma, though. I think, which is why I think it's so important to understand that healing is such a journey and it never

stops because you have to keep treating it because it's going to process so many times in so many different ways because we keep growing and I keep living and I have done that keeps growing and keeps living. So our lives are moving forward. So it's impossible not to love and attach myself to that time in my life, but also I have to learn how to separate myself from that time in my life. Right. Both feel wrong. So it's a very hard. It's a very hard thing to process. And I think that's when like any kind of anniversary, be it our wedding anniversary or Nick's birthday or Elvis's birthday or his death anniversary or my birthday are very, very hard because

it's just a remembrance of time. And anytime you can clock that time is, I think, just also a trigger. So I don't know. I think it's, it's, I don't know if I'll ever. not be healing from that and I also think that's okay you know it's just it's just life it's a part of my life it's a scar that is in me that will always be in me and there's a lot of beautiful parts about that scar and there's a lot of really hard parts about that scar yeah I still can't believe it happened like I mean there's so many times where I I cannot believe that happened and I it's like talk about

that little girl, I look back on that chunk of my life, that COVID part of my life. And I'll even, like, I have, you know, Instagram saves everything. So, like, there's times where something will pop up and then I'll, I'll see something. It's like, I don't even recognize that version of myself. Like, it's such a fight or flight moment in life. And I think that you talked about my honesty and thank you so much for everything you said. I think that in our lives, when you're going through like severe trauma or life and death situations, it's just all the bullshit is removed. You're just being honest.

There's nothing else to work about is just, it's just pure honesty and truth. That's it. Like that matters other than that when death is on the table. So I think that was just a version of myself that came out because nothing else mattered. Right. To the world. I mean, we were, we were all worried about death at that moment in our lives. you know you got COVID that means you could die possibly yeah it was just such a weird time in our

world and like yeah and I and you know I think what you just said reminds me I heard you say something recently that I thought was so beautiful that you haven't had a fight with anyone since Nick passed because what's the point in fighting with anybody and it almost feels feels like that's one of those, everything's whittled down to just what's necessary things that you took from that journey. And again, just as an observer, you know, I've watched you write a memoir that has also been so incredibly honest, find joy again, like get back into your dance, which I imagine is so healing for you, you know, doing Dancing with the Stars. We were all like so geeked and excited you know you've you've shared really beautiful stories with your

audience on the talk it's really interesting to watch you share the honest truth and also really courageously i would say find your joy again i just wonder about in this place where you're so tender and you also have no bullshit left i would imagine it actually takes some like ferocious courage to claim your joy in, in public, out loud. Yeah, it does. You're absolutely right. It really does. Because I think, in a beautiful way, the world got to know me and my story, but also

in a very hard way, it's like they're still attached to that story. And I'm very grateful for it, and I have a beautiful community of people that. that support me that I know and that I don't know. At the same time, yeah, like, I, I'm also a 43-year-old woman that has a lot of life to live. And Nick would want me to live that life as beautiful and big and as full as possible. I know that. I would want the same thing for him if the rules are reversed. And, yeah, I do.

I have a gorgeous son. And, like, I'm going to still, like, I'm not perfect. I'm going to make mistakes. I'm going to do silly things. I'm going to do smart things. But, yeah, I think you're right. People do get attached to who they think you should be or what they think you should do. And, you know, it's also like, well, no one actually lives my life except for me.

And I am proud of how I'm living my life. So, yeah. We'll be back in just a minute after a few words from our favorite sponsors. You are a generative person, you know, even when you think about every step of your career, you know, dance to Broadway, to moving up through that world to, you know, film and TV and the show and the and the writing. I mean, it's like you, you continue to gather. creative inspiration, forms of expression. And to me, that says to me, like, oh, that my friend is like a very entrepreneurial person. Like, you are, you always want to learn something and then learn another thing. And I, I feel like when I saw the announcement that you were expanding into

wellness, you know, again, as a dancer, as a mom, and creating supplements, I was like, I'm obsessed with that for her. You know? Like it just felt it felt like the next right thing for you to get your hands on something completely brand new and completely your own and completely creative. Where do you think the idea came from? I mean, does it go way back to early days of career? Or does it also track to the fact that a public health crisis was so incredibly personal for you and your family and health has become wealth, essentially. Yeah, well, definitely. Health is so wealth. You know, I've always loved creating things. My first creation was my jump rope with my fitness company, and then I created a fitness mat. That's right. Oh, my God. I created this mat that I

sold for a while, and then I created a CBD muscle relief pain cream. I love creating products. that I believe will be beneficial and helpful to people. And so cut to, you know, this chapter in my life, I do many things. One of them is I'm an influencer. So I, you know, get paid to influence products or things or whatever. And the amount of supplements I have influenced over the years, I can imagine. And some of them I love and some of them, you know, I don't like. And a lot of them, though, are, you know, extremely expensive pills.

or powders that I would try and then get on my counter and I would get over them, you know, because like how many pills can we take? And I think this powder tasted good, but now I think it tastes like grass. And I just got to the point where as a mom and as a single mom and somebody that's just trying to find things in the day to make me feel like a whole human being and that I can keep moving in life, just felt like there was a need for a supplement company that allowed a woman or a man or anyone to be able to take five minutes, put a powder in water, have it taste great, have it be affordable, have it be accessible, and have them feel good about what they just did.

Totally. Yeah, so I created proper, there it is. it's so cutie i got my got my box oh god i should have brought it in here from the kitchen but the point of it is is that i truly believe i'm not the same person every day i don't need the same supplement every day some days i'm feeling under the weather so i want to boost my immunity some days i'm not eating great so i want to have my greens some days i'm super anxious and i need a powder that'll call my anxiety. So I created five powders and then we just launched our daily glow, which is their six powder, um, so that you can, it's like, it's your fun. You're like,

what am I need today? And mix them and you can use two or three of them in a day, whatever you need, but it's all about, um, they're $28, which is so affordable available at Target, Amazon and on our website, but like they not only are affordable, but they taste so good. that it's like you don't even mind getting all the greens in your day because it's like a bright green apple and it's so refreshing. So it was more so just that, Sophia, just being like at a point in my life where I've influenced a lot of things, not a single mom, I'm just doing things in my day to try to make me feel better. I do love health. I do love wellness. I'm obsessed with longevity. So it's, yeah, just giving, I always think about, because I'm from Ohio, I always think

about like Linda in Ohio. What does Linda in Ohio need? Yes. You know, she doesn't live in New York City or L.A. She's not getting NAD injections. She's not sitting under red lamps. She's going to Target and she's trying to find one thing that'll help her feel better in her day. And so that's why I created proper.

I love it. And what I think is so, I mean, for me, as, you know, your friend and a recipient of the line, what I love about what you're talking about is the simplicity of it. I will never forget after a show that I'd worked on, my sweet writer went on this whole Twitter thread. We've created this series together that was supposed to be about like foreign adversarial espionage in the NSA. And it turned out that when we made it, some things had shifted in our landscape and And suddenly that seemed like American reality. And, yeah, the network was like, we're not going to become targets of the most powerful

people in the country. So this show is not going to go on the air. We laugh about it now, but we were very sad. And the backstory matters because my sweet writer was like, here's what I'm going to talk about, the amazing people who put this show together. And he went on this, like, gorgeous thread rampage on Twitter and was talking. about like our collaboration and our writing and he goes and you've never slept better or felt better than when you work with this woman because she carries around a bag with 35 potions and

things and bottles and whatever and she makes you take all your vitamins every day and and it turned into like a little bit of a thing for a while with people being like what's in the back and like what are the 35 things you take and I hit a point where I just was like I can't do this like I yes I feel better when I make sure I'm getting everything I need and I'm getting the vitamins and minerals I need but I I don't have it in me to figure out what to take with what food so it doesn't make me nauseous and to figure out how to carry all this around with me all the time like at least when I go to set I have like a little eat and this is an hour after you eat and it's like what and you know when I go to set I wheel around a little bag like a grandma like a trolley so I can do it but in my life I don't have time for this And when I got your line, I was like, oh, I have time for this. And I love that I can say this is most of everything I need. And if I want a combo, I can double down on this. I can, you know, to your point, energy and greens and whatever it is.

And it just feels like somebody solved a problem that I know I have, that I didn't know how to solve. So on behalf of myself and everyone nodding along to this conversation, thank you. I think that it's important that in wellness, we don't make ourselves feel guilty. Like, that's good fitness, too. Like, don't feel guilty if today you can only do five or ten minutes. That's not tomorrow, you know. Don't feel guilty if you didn't, I don't ever want anybody to look at my supplement line proper on your countertop and walk by and feel guilty.

I want you to feel inspired. So I hate when pills just. Just look at me. I call it my supplement graveyard. Yes. Where I'm like, I know I should take them, but it's four pills. And it's like I already took three pills. It's like I just can't do it.

And so you feel guilty about not doing something good for yourself. And I just never want that to be the case. And so proper isn't about like you have to take your daily greens on a daily basis. Sure, you can. But you can also just take it when you need it so that you feel good about that choice at that moment on that day. I love that so much. When you think about, you know, all of these projects you've brought into the world, they're all things that it strikes me that you mother. You know, you create something and you get it ready to release out to people. And I think raising kids is

kind of like that. You know, I had a conversation on this show a few months ago. What an insane thing I'm about to say was Michelle Obama, and she talked about how her mom's best advice was that she was raising adults, not raising babies. Like, yeah, you raise your babies, but you want them to be adults when they go out into the world. And I guess I wonder, you know, now I'm at the stage where everyone in my life has littles. And it's so much fun to be surrounded by kids all the time. and yours is six and like he's still a baby but he's on his way to adulthood right like what do you what do you see in him are there things in the same way that you can look back at your 10 year old self and see yourself in her are there things you can see in him now by six

where you go oh that's that's how you're going to be when you're 15 or oh i see something about you that you'll take out into the world as an adult man someday? Yeah, yes. Like perfect example is this happened, I don't know, about a month ago, but he still sleeps with me and we climb into bed. And I had had, I had just like had a night. I was sad. So we got into bed and I said to Elvis, I was like, I was like, Elvis, I'm really sorry.

I was like, Mommy was on her phone a lot tonight. And I was like, I'm sorry about that, buddy. I was like, I feel like I didn't spend any time with you tonight. And I was like, I just, I miss dad. And he goes, he lifts up his arm and he goes, come here, mom. And like, ask me to, like, come in and cuddle, like, I do to him. Yeah. I entertained the thought.

And I, like, got under his little arm and, like, put my head gently on his chest, his little chest. And he's so tall and skinny right now that he's like, you know, just bones. And so like I gently laid down. He was like, mom, you're heavy. And I was like, adult. And he's like, you're like a 10 pound weight. And I was like, okay.

All right. And then I was like, and he like, but he was trying to like console me. Like he knew that I was sad and he knew that I needed like a hug and love. And so then I pulled his arm away and I was like, get in here. I was like, you'll be bigger than me one day and you can, you can hug me then. And then he's so sweet. But like, I think it's those things where I just, I hopefully am seeing like who he will be at 15. And a man, he'll be, you know, at 25, you know, partner.

So I just, yeah, I treasure that little kid. He's a good little boy. Oh, it's so, so sweet. Well, when you think about all these things, know all the all the things you hold your family and your work and your company and you know your your navigation of the sort of ends of the spectrum of all of this experience as you look forward because you've done so much what what feels like it's ahead what feels like your work in progress out on the horizon

yeah well you know like you said before i love creating so i have like i have i'm very much it's and i think it's from broadway never feeling like completely stable you know it's an actor performing you know and so i kind of cast a net of like 10 different things and i kind of have them all like burning so that yeah if one goes out i still have nine and then if one like starts really getting hot then like I can kind of fine-tune the others. So, you know, I'm really excited about proper and all the fun things that we have in store for that. And there's a lot coming down the pipeline.

So that's like my entrepreneurial business side. I get to travel a lot for fitness and teach. And I love teaching fitness so much because I love what fitness community is. And I love helping people and I love challenging people. And I love helping people understand that fitness. can be fun and filled with joy and filled with gratitude instead of yes please yeah instead of you know pushing hard and hurting your body and um all that stuff so i love i love all of the things on the horizon for just teaching and and connecting with people all over the world with that and then yeah my

you know creative brain is always you know trying to do more movies and tv shows and hosting and all that stuff. So there's fun things that pipeline with that. I don't know. I just feel like we're in a day and age where, and I feel like you probably relate to this too, is like, I feel very lucky that I get to do a lot of things. And there's times where I feel lost and there's times where I feel like, I can't do this and I don't know what I'm thinking. And then there's times where I'm like, I can absolutely do this. I can. Yeah. Who's going to tell me no? And if they tell me no, one day they'll tell me yes. So like, we'll just keep pushing. Um, And it's fun.

So that, like, keeps me going. So, I don't know. I just love all the different things. And I am equally passionate about all of them. I, if you see me teaching a fitness class or you see me, like, acting in the show or hosting a red carpet, like, I'm equally passionate about all of those things. Yeah. I love them all equally. I don't want to choose.

Like, I just, I want to do them all. I love that. I will never forget, you know, really early in my career. you're being told, like, you have to pick a lane. Yeah. And I remember thinking, why am I supposed to reduce the subjects that I'm interested in? The things I find fascinating, why shrink that? And I think we're really lucky that through our adulthood, the ability for people to be

multi-hyphenates really feels like it's shifted. Yeah. I'm happy we're here. I think so, too. Yeah. I think still needs some shifting, but we're getting there. Yeah, we're on our way. Yeah, definitely.