Drama Queens - Work In Progress: Monica Lewinsky Part 2

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Part 2 of our extended conversation with Monica Lewinsky charts the aftermath of a life turned upside down - the regrets, reflections, struggles and hard-fought success as an advocate for others.Plus, find out Monica's take on what comes out of the Epstein Files, dynamics of power, and why Michelle Obama is on her mind.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Welcome back, work in progress, friends. We are here for part two of this incredible interview with Monica Lewinsky. Can I offer you something? And look, I might be wrong here. Maybe I'm projecting my own experience. I think when you're really in something,

And you're, the uniqueness of having a human life on a public stage cannot be overstated. And people want to roll their eyes and go, oh, poor you. Nobody gets how hard this is. Yeah. Until they go through it. And I would wager that just like where you work becomes relative, going to the Pentagon becomes normal, going to the White House becomes normal. There is a thing that happens when you are plucked out of your life and put in a new environment. Very similarly to my own early 20s experience, move away from all your friends and family. You go to work on a TV show. You're working 15, 16, 17 hours a day with these people, just like you all were at the White House. You don't really know anyone. Your relative experience shifts. Would you have confided

in Linda Tripp if your three best friends were in D.C. with you? No. No. But in D.C., the relative scale of who seemed like a friend shifts to who you're picking out of in the pool of people around you. Yeah. You know, I talk about this with my partner and her experiences very similarly being put on a team and then your team is your option. For me, my cast, those are my people. For you, who you're working with there, those become your people. You're so far away from your actual life, but you have to invest in where you are. And so I get why you would. need a friend. It's interesting because I did also confide in all my closest friends.

It just was, you know, it just was different. It was different because they, you know, they weren't, I'm trying to remember. I had a best friend in D.C. Ashley that I'm so close to. And I'm trying to remember when I told her. I can't remember. So, but I think that there was. It really, I'll say it a different way. I think that had I not been sent off to the Pentagon, which was a world. I mean, I joke about being like private Benjamin. I really was private Benjamin. I mean, I went to Banana Republic to go shopping to go on my first trip to Bosnia. Like, what do I wear to meet the troops? I mean, like, I just was, I was a fish out of water there. Sure. You know, real fish out of water. And, you know, and I had some. incredible experiences as a young person, too.

And even my boss, so I worked for the Pentagon spokesman, Ken Bacon, and I became friendly with his wife while I was working there. And I'm still friends with her to today. So I see her whenever I'm in D.C. And she's an amazing woman. And I think that there's, but I just, I didn't belong there. You know, I just really didn't. I didn't.

And in fact, I was just talking about this. I think I had Laura Brown and Christina O'Neillan to talk about their book, yeah, their book. And I was saying about how when I got fired from the White House that, or transferred, that my supervisor said to me, well, it's a much sexier job at the pen. I mean, like, can you imagine someone saying that in today's world? No. Yeah. Cooler, perhaps. Right.

more impressive. But yeah, even the idea that people would speak to a young woman that way and say this is sexier for you. Gross. Gross. I hear you doing a thing that I understand. And I want to clarify a few things. I deeply respect how much responsibility you've taken. I hear you saying, you know, I was a young woman. I was 22, then I was 24. I also, in looking back, you know, know my earlier reference, my reclamation show, I look at the girl I was. I was a girl. You know, at 21 and 22 and 23, we were still kids. Yes, we were young adults, but there is this odd obsession with when you know enough. And I think about the fact that your brain isn't even done developing. Exactly. You can't even rent a car by yourself. Exactly. So, you know, it,

drives me crazy that someone, as you referenced, like a Megan Kelly, could be excusing what we are seeing in all of these Epstein documents being released and say, well, 15's not really that young. It's not really that uncommon. You know, my question I wish I could ask her is, okay, so whose daughter do you think deserves to be raped at 15, Megan? Yours are someone else's. Right. You know, these are insane conversations we are having about children. And I do understand reflecting on my own life and hearing you reflect on yours that you're really in this kind of in-between phase in your early 20s. And it strikes me, there are things you bring up and I watch your face. And I see you kind of looking back at that hopeful young woman. And I don't think it's

a naivete. I see almost a youthful romanticism when you reflect on it. A sort of idealistic young woman who is succeeding and excited. Did you have like expectations about how things might turn out at the time before it blew up? Oh, yes. I also think too, just to kind of round out what you're saying. I think what we don't, we have more examples of this now, but I don't think at the time. I don't think in the 90s in the early aughts. We had examples of young.

women who are both. They are both very mature, like you were saying, I was the same, talking to adults. I could, you know, got along with anybody's parents. I had great manners. I knew how to have a conversation. So there are these ways that we are far more sophisticated than our peers. And then there are other parts of us that are far more immature, far more naive, far more, you know, romantic or whatever that is and and we don't we didn't at the time and you know it's the both the both of those and right and that's that young you know I remember this guy I knew who worked in this local supermarket and he said to me he was like you know when you turn 21 you think you're such a grown up you think you're such an adult and a few years later you're going to

realize how little you knew. Yep. And it was 100% true. So when I was in my internship, I was, you know, studying, my plan was to go to graduate school the next year was to make sure my scores were where they needed to be to get into a PhD program. So this was like, as I joked, a little pit stop on my resume, you know. Like, oh, it just crushes me for you. I know, poor little Monica and her beret. Um, so, you know, But, and I was still, I think something that opened up for me while I was at the White House was I became interested in communication. So that became a little more interesting to me. But I still was planning PhD forensic psychology going back to school for that.

And then whatever my career was going to go in that path. But then I was, there was this opening in legislative affairs. when I interviewed for it, my boss or the person who interviewed me who has done the same one who transferred me with the sexy comment, said, we can only give you the job if you commit to stay through the election because we can't have people leaving to go. Everybody wants to go work on the campaign because it's exciting. And so I decided to give that commitment. And so I had a plan to sort of, I did apply to graduate school for that year. Right. You thought, oh, yeah, I can do essentially a gap year and be at the White House. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I think in the same way that I have a friend who also doesn't have children who had also wanted kids. And she'll say that sometimes she has to remind herself that in her mind, her child would have been a perfect child, you know. And so that when you're, when you're living in the fantasy of what you didn't have or the, you know, wish you'd had, that

that's often the most perfected state of it and very unrealistic. So what my life might have looked like, you know, how this not all happened, is one version of a fantasy. My best friend from college always jokes with me. She's like, it always would have been hard for you to find a husband. Even if 98 hadn't happened, you know. No, I, you know, I think that's part of it too. You know, you said something earlier about the kind of magic of feeling chosen in your young

life. And I think I understand that deeply because I've had to come to terms with in my adulthood that not until I turned 40 did I realize, oh, I don't know that I've ever really chosen for myself. I think the most I've ever done has been presented with options, which is these are the people who will choose you out of these. What do you choose? That was the most profound, like, oh, look at me making some choices. Right, right. Adulting. instruction of messaging, expectation, normativities, including heteronormitivity for me to go, what do I choose? And that was compounded in a really interesting way with the difficulty of, again, going through a very long private process that then when it became public, the public perception was

different. And I think part of what really drove me crazy is because in my 20s, when I had an experience on a public stage with infidelity with a junior for some reason it became my cross to bear and not not not the person and by the way i i'm even nervous to say that because for some reason even reflecting on it i get judged instead of being like no i actually have quite a mature understanding of what that was and i don't care anymore it's been over 20 years like get over it right but it was a weird way to, in a way, be confronted with an untrue accusation because it was juicy for the press. And then to have press confirmed, they knew it wasn't true, but say, sorry, we got to run the story for the clicks. It was so infuriating to me. And I went, oh, the misogyny is still

so alive. And I think part of the reason they love it is because they can be so much more misogynistic with women, then they can be now with women who go through things with men. Like this is the frontier that feels like 2003 for the media. Wow. And they know it's wrong and they don't care. Wow. It was this sort of mind-blowing thing. And I think about it in some of the conversations I get to have with you because I go, yeah, that's part of it, right? People will know it's wrong, but you give them so much currency that they don't care. They don't care. Yeah. And I'm fascinated by this, you know, in my arc, something 20 years ago and something more recently, to your arc, because you were basically patient zero of modern online shaming. And now we're having these very kind of elevated conversations as a society, supposedly, about the interplay of age and power and consent.

And it's a lot to grasp. the size of misogyny, the size of the media profit industry. Yeah, and that women are not immune to misogyny either, as Phyllis Chesler wrote. I'm so curious for you, the ways you've reflected on that with us. Like, it's, I struggle, you know, it's, it's something, you know, I think I'm, I don't know if you're this way, but I feel like a, a thought, an idea, a ship kind of comes in. and I know it like gets put put in a dish and is marinating. Like it's a breathing inside. And every so often I go check on it.

And I'm like, huh, have we moved a bit? What's going on over here? Uh-huh. You know, and so I have, I had this experience around watching John Proctor as the villain. I mean. That play. Oh, my God. So good.

glad it's being turned into a movie or TV show, whatever, I just, because I want everybody to experience it. I had this realization that whether it was the case or I determined, because I decided it was the case, who knows it doesn't fucking matter. There is a level of anger that I never allowed myself to get into, to talk about publicly. And I see it with, I saw it in that play with the younger generation. And I just thought, wow, wow, what would that feel like? Yes, because God forbid, when you're being shamed, you're supposed to take it. And God forbid a woman have so much agency that she'd be furious at the way she's been treated.

And that's something I've marinated on a little bit is like, oh, I too have carried so much anger for the mistreatment from the world. that and is that the thing people want to poke at you know over 20 years of always wanting to ask women right never asking anyone else like oh yeah go like oh is maybe the reason you still want to ask the question because you've never seen me get angry and by the way i don't know that you could handle my anger world i don't know that you actually want a piece of that i for me i think you know, I think I'm not even in touch with it. I think it scares me. I, it's seeing glimpses of it there. And I, I had my, I had a spec scan done with Dr. Amon not, not long ago.

Oh, I want to do that so bad. I was, I had wanted to do it a million years ago. And then when Miley came on and she was talking about it, I was like, oh, I'm going to do this now. But one of the things he was talking to me about, which I am a hundred thousand bazillion percent going to try is a sort of rage therapy where you really dive into that rage and what does it mean to confront that? And so at some point, I'm curious to do that and interested to do that. And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible. Yeah.

When you think about that, you know, that sort of righteous anger and I'm sure wounded anger and all the versions of those feelings that we're not supposed to feel, but we know live in us, do you think if at that time social media existed in the way it does today, it would have made things worse or better? Because in one way, I wonder, would you have been able to be clearer about your own narrative? Right. Or would it just have been even more of the recycled garbage that the Internet feels like today? I think it would have been both.

I think that there would have both existed. more of an opportunity to have a fuller sense of who I was as a person. But as we all remember with Justine Sacco, who, you know, made a joke to her small group of friends who understood her level of humor, no matter what that meant, not something for public consumption, got on a plane, went to Africa, and landed with a very different life. You know, I could very easily see my humor the way I am. am also being taken out of context. But yes, there would have been more than just my high school yearbook collage page

to understand me as a person. To represent you. Yeah. For 20 hours of, you know, surreptitiously recorded phone calls that, you know, are gabbing to a friend. So these are sort of the materials. And then, of course, the spin, you know, that comes in. So. Yeah.

And then, who is it? Somebody reminded me even it was like, oh, yeah, I wrote it. poem about a fucking pizza when I was in second grade. Even that surfaced. Like, I mean, it's like, you know, that somehow, somehow a poem I wrote about pizza in second grade is worth is worth putting in print, you know. But so I think that there, there would have been more there, but then there would have been, you know, the beret and the dress and the all the things would have had their own handles. And there would have been more, you know, memes and jokes and so i but i also think because i meet people a lot who sort of say you know

i was always on your side and it might have been nice to see something of that because the only i could know was any sort of public support was if someone wrote me a letter you know the old fashion way. So, but it was, I mean, and the letter, the mail I got, I would get Monica Lewinsky, Washington, D.C. and it would arrive to the Watergate. I know, the dress to the White House came to where I was living. It was so. It made its way to you. Wow. You know, I think about that, the attention and, you know, for example, the male, how did you handle? I mean, I'm so glad there were people who were writing kindly to you because the world was being so deeply unkind and not remembering that you were a human being, who was helping you with the scary parts?

Because I know what it's like to get the threats and the things. And did you have anyone to support you through that part of the process as well? I think there was a few weeks in. I had to spend the first few weeks of the investigation without any psychological help because they weren't sure if I was going to get immunity or not. And so it's a whole long thing. But I eventually ended up with a forensic psychiatrist who helped save my life a couple of times. It was amazing, Dr. Susan. And then Judy Smith came on board who worked with Shonda Rimes on Scandal.

So she was sort of to help with the with the PR, which, you know, it's like, yes, I grew up in L.A. and around the industry in some ways. I mean, my dad's a doctor and my mom was a mom. Or I don't know what. I don't know the phrase we use anymore. Just a mom. Stay at home mom. Stay at home mom. Okay. Stay at home mom. So, but I didn't know this world, you know. And so there was that. I was just with my best friend from college this past weekend, Catherine. And after she had to testify before the grand jury, I was able to talk to her again. So I knew I had one friend in the world. Like, those pieces helped carry me through and some drugs, you know, prescription drugs. Right, antidepressants. Right, and some cupcakes and peanut M&M's. So I imagine that not only did you have to figure out how to process shame, how to eventually

analyze anger, there must have been some pretty intense grieving for career, privacy, dreams, identity, the things that you had forward vision on for yourself that didn't get to materialize because of this explosion. when in that process were you able to begin to find the light, like the moments to appreciate the aspects of your new reality, what good could also come with this tremendous amount of hardship? You know, I think that I think that things happened in ways.

right so the first you know I was saying that I'm not really in touch with my anger I think there had been moments where I obviously have there were there was a period of time I think 10 years out but that was the first time I expressed like really recognized my anger because it was when I came out of graduate school and I couldn't get a job and so that was a very rude awakening to me about, oh, this is how much I've lost. And I think the grieving has had to happen in tiny pockets as I've moved forward because I've also had to try to rebuild and try to rebuild in a landscape that it's like, oh, we don't know that a new house can be built on this kind of ground.

It was not a given, you know, oh, a house existed here before and therefore you can rebuild this house. Right. It is, it is new territory. Yeah. And the fact that I've been able to move forward and build a life with meaning and purpose, you know, that's happened in the last 10, 11 years, I'm incredibly grateful for it, but it was by no means a given, you know. And so I think there are a lot of other ways that this could have ended up to. Right. Well, it strikes me that you've had to really excavate that ground yourself.

And you probably had to start by hand. And that's something a lot of people didn't get. No. And I've had a lot of helpers, you know, and it's, you know, it's something that I really, I don't work enough at it. I think there are other people out in the world who probably do more, but it's, I am passionate about trying to find ways for people who don't have the resources to get help, to get help. And for people to really understand that getting help doesn't just mean services.

It's how do you have the time off from work? How do you have the time to process? Like, you can't just go on your lunch break and, talk about trauma and go back to lunch. No. And so that is, you know, that is the thing that not being able to get a job afforded me that I was able to have this time to work on myself in heel and rise. And, but that there are certain conditions that have to be present for that.

And how do we help other people? And how do we help people who have the resources understand that we live in a much better fucking world when everybody is lifted from the heaviness of trauma

you know and so that is where that's where the world is better yeah oh yes yes yes

I mean from the rooftops I it's the way the world can heal and you're right it requires time and it requires support

and I think when we try to rush it or we don't honor it that's where things really spin out sideways. I think about that in terms of some of these amazing moves that you've made, someone we have in common now is Amanda Knox. You know, she's come on the show.

I've been an incredible fan of her books, and you helped her produce the scripted series, the Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox for Hulu. And she, very similarly to you, was someone who's, story was told for her. Her story was told with so many inaccuracies. I mean, I remember hearing about the sex games and the thruple and the intimate night gone wrong. And not only was that not true, there was literally not one single shred of evidence that it ever happened had happened. It was truly something the police made up because they thought it would paint her.

in a way that would guarantee a conviction. Right. And to know that that happened to someone who just so happened to be the first person home after her roommate was tragically murdered, to know that they had fingerprints in DNA and they didn't care. They still pointed at her. I mean, it's just, it's so egregious. And similarly to you and similarly to things I know I've experienced

and so many women I know I've experienced in the public eye, there was glee at her destruction, even though the destruction was based on a lie. How did the two of you connect? Were you someone that somebody out there connected her to and said, you have a lot to talk about, you could be a support system? Were you interested in telling her story

and you met that way? like how how did this stunning piece of television art that also is a reclamation? How did it happen? I think that so Amanda and I first met, I think it was 2017. We were, she was doing her very first public talk. And I was speaking at this event the day before. And I think she had known John Ronson before. So I, you know, John Ronson had talked to her, talked to me about.

about her a bit. And we connected and I, you know, recognized a pain that I knew very well, you know, and in talking to her. And we stayed in touch over the years. And in 20, I guess it was, my God, we worked on this show for so fucking long. It takes so long. In 2021, so the fall of 2021. I was in a first look deal at 20th television and I read this interview that Amanda had given to the New York Times and she was talking about

wanting to make a movie of her memoir. So I thought oh, well you know, what about a limited series? And went to my executive kind of got sign off there, went to Amanda, brought everybody together

and we then together found our showrunner K.J. Steinberg, who has just done an exquisite job, I think, with the show. I mean, I am biased. But one of the things, you know, so in the micro sense, the show was important to me because I felt Amanda deserved to have this sort of relensing of her story and that reclamation. On a macro sense, I was interested in exploring even in myself that question. of why do I know Foxy Noxie and still remember Foxy Noxie and I don't know who the Rudy Gidey is and I did not know that they had found Meredith's murder.

And so that macro is so reflective of the culture. It's so reflective of what we have come to do to young women in the public eye. Yes. And it is that piece of it was interesting to me on a. you know, psychosocial level and wanting to explore that. And we were really lucky it was important to both Amanda and myself that Hulu and 20th and our producing partners, Littlefield Company and K.J. Stamberg or Showrunner, were all supportive of this idea of showing the aftermath.

It was really, really important because there are moments of the aftermath that are universal for people. I don't, you know, I don't know. I know your experience was different in ways, but I don't know if there was, there were moments that felt resonant to you there, but it just, that was really important to me. Yeah, it was incredibly resonant to me. And I think it's really interesting, you know, I, there were moments where I had to pause episodes. Like, I had to take, a break. It was so true and touched such a live wire of the trauma I work on that I needed space from it. And it's interesting to watch with, you know, some friends who were like, no, we have to finish.

And I'm going, I need a break. Me as I am, I need a break because I'm so emotionally overwhelmed for her, and it turns on all my own overwhelm in myself. And I think that is such a testament to the truth you were able to tell for her. And with her, because, right, she was an executive producer, too. Yes. I think that it's, well, it was something I learned really working on Ryan Murphy's impeachment. And that was around this idea of emotional truth. And so that they're, you know, whatever degree of resimilitude and actor wants to bring to a role,

the thing that is really important is that emotional truth because that then taps into the broader experiences that other people have had when it's not the exact same details. Yeah. Yeah. In a way, it allows you to tell a very specific story that resonates universally. Exactly. Yeah. And now a word. from our sponsors. In watching, particularly in the last few weeks, the truth of this trove of Jeffrey Epstein emails and files and all of it come to light, I think about the truth for a lot of those. women for those survivors who've been telling us what happened to them for so long and who weren't

believed. And everybody, I would say most of us knew. We trust people. We also trust the evidence and the photographs and the things that we've seen. What really strikes me right now is this incredible double standard of the way the White House was held to task in the 90s versus at current, and it's like my brain can't understand how our current president is one of the most mentioned people in this trove. You know, the ruling finding him guilty of raping Eugene Carroll, the defamation, you know, the details that have come out about these 12 and 13-year-old girls and these affidavits of these court cases who withdrew the case because one disappeared. and one was so scared, she was going to get killed.

Like, this is on a level of depravity that is so extreme. Yeah. And the spectrum of these abuses of power are breathtaking to me and heartbreaking to me. And I, on the one hand, I feel like women are going, well, you're finally looking at it in print. Do you believe us now? And on the other, when I think about my friends who've been through things, you included, I'm like, are you okay? Yeah. Because this is the sort of thing that can be everywhere and really push on that, that bruise we carry.

Mm-hmm. Are you having an I told you so moment? Are you getting in touch with anger? Like, how is this for you? I think what I find heartbreaking is that. We have, first, we as a society, whether, you know, sure, there may have been individuals of us who felt differently or some, I didn't speak up, but some have, in defense of the survivors. But we failed these young women. Yeah. As a society, we failed these young women.

And I have felt for a while that all of this should be driven by the survivors. What do the survivors want? What is best for the survivors according to them? Right. And I, you know, I think that I don't care what side of the aisle someone is on. I don't care how revered they've been in history, how much they have done to help society. It is, it's one thing. for there to have been people who flew on a plane not to the island and used bad judgment

and the degree to which they knew, which is, we see that complication in stories like Weinstein too, where there's sort of the level of what someone knew, what they didn't know, making assumptions. But there is zero chance of anybody who went to that fucking island who did not know what was going on. Right. There's zero chance of people who spent an enormous amount of time in Jeffrey Epstein's presence to have not had a sense that there was something darker happening there and seen around. And that's the part where, you know, you just think, okay, what do we do so this doesn't happen again? And also have to ask ourselves the question, where is this still happening now that we're not looking and we don't want to see?

yeah you know my um my publicist was virginia jufre's publicist and so you know it is just it's heartbreaking it is heartbreaking to think about what that young woman went through and what she carried totally you know and when i think about the the level of public scrutiny it's heartbreaking to me that that breaks some people it it it makes me further impressed by and protective of people like yourself who've managed to stay through it grateful that you've had the support in the moments you've needed it grateful that i have too you know i'm really curious about the middle the place of reclaiming because in this Amanda Knox story, in your podcast, even when I look at what these survivors of the Epstein world have been fighting for, it is to tell and reclaim their story.

When you are part of a story that lives in the world with or without your consent, you can't really reclaim it unless you get to put your story in the world. Because when you're only talked about, but your voice is still. in from you, that's another harm. Absolutely, absolutely. And I think as a person who is still trying to figure out how to reclaim my total voice on certain subjects, watching you, becoming friends with you, watching what you and Amanda have done together for Amanda's story, I feel like you're really, you've built your house on new terrain, but I feel like now you're building a road. in a previously uncharted landscape

for a lot of us to travel together. And I wonder... Thank you. Yeah, it's really profound. And I wonder what you think about... I'm trying. You are. And I wonder, you know, for some of these women

or other people who deserve to have their stories told accurately, how do you feel about that now with a few? retellings under your belt. Yeah. You know, as a producer, as a creative, as a person who makes narrative story with the truth at the center. Right. How do you think about how they or we or women around the world might heal from telling

their stories? Right. I think, you know, one thing that I think is important to sort of put around a conversation like this is a little like. a conversation we have in the anti-bullying world around. I have a really hard time when people say you have to stand up to a bully. Okay, that's not true for everybody, right? And so, and so that's where I feel like I think, you know, and I've spoken privately to a number of people who've gone through public humiliations, whether I think what they did was okay,

not okay, whatever, I take my own personal judgment out of it because I know the pain of not wanting to be here anymore because of the weight of that commiliation. So I understand it. And but people will say, well, you know, how did you reclaim your story? And it's like, it is, there is no three-step process. There's no, there is no universal way that is works for each person. And it's, and so I, I want to. make sure that people know you can do reclaiming in the way that works for you, right? For many of us, it is about vocalizing that story, you know, especially my, I had a professor at graduate school who had said to me, you know, that like my narrative had been constructed

by powerful people and there is no competing narrative there. I had no narrative coming from me. And that until there was a competing narrative, there was no other option. Right. And so, you know, I wasn't ready to hear it when she first said it to me. But it lodged in there somewhere and helped me. And so I think there are, you know, what it means, like sometimes even when we talk about reclaiming, sometimes replacing what you had and was lost or taken from you is the same.

same as getting it back. It's like, and so that's, that's sort of part of it is that I, I don't, I think I've, I've had experiences and maybe I should be more specific. I've had a few experiences where sometimes people have said to me, I think I should write a book or I think I should do this and I should. And it's like, yes, you can do that. But be aware of the bigger circle, you know, you got into medical school, go to medical school. You know, it's, or, if you want to do this, it's fine, but make sure you're going to be okay when the publishers, after the publishers have sort of exacted their flesh from your story. Like, what do you have after that? So is writing a book and going public, is that going to provide you? Because

it's not a panacea in some of these instances. It may be a step that's farther down the road. That's my opinion, you know, from my experiences. And so, I don't know. Does that make sense? Absolutely. I think there's so much wisdom in that. And I think, you know, the reality that wraps around all of this that's true for every subject we've talked about is everything's really shades of gray. It's a spectrum. There's no black and light. There's no right or wrong. There's no yes or no. It's really a spectrum of lived experience. and many things are true at the same time.

And I think that's, you know, in both the Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, I think KJ built the show, that the spine of the show is the anatomy of bias in understanding not just what happened, but how did this happen? And I think in the podcast, the kind of conversations I'm wanting to have are, you know, I mean, I hope you felt that way from our chat. I was so grateful you came on. And it's like I want to know all the things. You know, it's all the shades that are in there. And what, because I think that's, that's where I think you could be helping other people. And like, I'm very, I think you're the same. I'm not prescriptive on my podcast at all.

And it's like, I want the listener to find what they need in the conversation because I trust that people are wise enough. Prescriptive is great. And there are plenty of people who do. prescriptive and is really helpful to people. It can be really helpful to me at times. But I also think there's something to navigating what you're feeling, what you're hearing, what's coming up for you, what are you thinking about differently that you hadn't thought about before? And you can only do that in the soup of context. Totally. And now a word from our wonderful

sponsors. When you think about the podcast in particular, because you do, you give so many people space to reclaim narratives, you get to bring your full self into every conversation. And so everyone who listens gets to know you better too. What do you think is the most meaningful part of your own reclamation in that interview series? I think it's a great question. question, and I need to think about it for a second. I would say, I think it's funny because I guess what's coming up for me is very typical me. It's like, okay, what can I be doing for someone else, which is not always a good thing, so it may seem whatever. But for me, it's been very meaningful that people who've come on the show have told me they felt safe. that people who listen to the show have said, I feel like I saw or heard a different side to this person

that I didn't realize or didn't know. I've heard from a young woman who is an associate producer on the Amanda Knox show who was like, I don't know how you do it, but when I finish listening to an episode, I feel less alone. I mean, what bigger gift could you get? Or, you know, the lady who made my smoothie

when I got a $10 million smoothie at Airwine. I was like, my name is on the thing because of my points there. And she's like, I love your podcast, you know. So just those moments of connection. Like that all feels, I think it feels like part of my reclaiming because it's purpose. And it feels, it fills me in a very deep way. I love that. Yeah.

So it's a lot. I mean, as you know, it's so much more work. I ever could have imagined ever, you know, and I want to protect people and, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things I've learned from it is I don't have to ask every question that everyone out there might want me to. Yeah. I don't have to do that. I think we really can shift away from. some of what feels typical and sad. And that's really nice. Yeah.

I think it's trying to be... Actually, I learned this from Tarana Burke when she came on and she talked so much about how important it is to not ask survivors or to expect that a survivor is going to tell their story. And that, you know, we can... And I've heard you do this on your podcast. cats too. So it's, you know, in your conversations, which is creating a space, if someone wants to, they can. But also that, that option of, I can summarize for the audience so they know what

happened. It's just, we're not like playing in the sandbox of trauma porn. You know, I think that that's really important. And I think, especially when you've been through it, we're so much more than the worst things that have ever happened to us. And when that's all anyone wants to talk you about it's like really yeah to your point you look you look at this whole resume and it's this yeah like let let me be a human not a not a topic right and i think there's something really special about those of us who want to not just have a great conversation but take care of our people yeah taking up more space in this arena yeah i mean it's why one of the reasons i'd Myard, I know one of your favorite guests that I'm like, maybe one day, but Michelle Obama is just, I mean, she's just such an

extraordinary woman and one of those people that in decades, hundreds of years from now, if we're still exist on the planet, there will be people saying, imagine being alive at the same time she was. Yes. imagine being in the world. I haven't met her, but I know a lot of people who know her. And I just, obviously, as a person, I see what she puts into the world. And it is, yeah, it's extraordinary. So special. When you sit at this vantage point, you know, looking out at all this incredible work that you've done and the work you're still doing, you know, things you're developing, the self you're still developing, what feels like your work in progress right now? Oh, my God. There's so much.

And it's so funny. I love the title of your podcast so much because there's that Latin phrase, which I always say wrong, mutatus, mutandis, I think it is, that's like used in legal things with changes still being made. And I've often joked that that's going to be on my tombstone. Yes, wow, I love that. But I, You know, I think professionally I'm really excited about continuing to, to grow the podcast and grow the conversations I'm having. I think in that way, developing entertainment in that space that moves conversations forward in whatever lane or topic that might be.

And I think that the, I mean, my personal, I'm like working on every. a really tough day yesterday and just, you know, the, like, sitting in the tears and sitting in the numbness and just kind of going, okay, this is where I am today, you know, and my world reflected it. I came home from being away for a couple days to a leak, and then driving in the car that night, I hit something and my side view mirror broke off, you know, and it was just like, okay, sometimes like you just get in a hot bath and you cry and it's okay you know it's okay it's okay and so all the things you know all the things this has been so lovely sophia the best thank you so much we will we will make a plan for soon yes i would love nothing more

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