IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson - Celebrate Your Girlfriends with Rita Wilson

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

Actress, singer, producer and all-around great friend Rita Wilson stops by the show! Rita’s here to talk about her record “Sound of a Woman,” and how she channels her personal experiences into her artistry. Plus, Rita shares more about her early days on The Brady Bunch, how she continues to evolve, and Michelle gives the story of how they became close friends. Have a question you want answered? Write to us at imopod.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I mean, who will remember that? That's pretty good. You could totally learn that cheerer. Yeah. If you started to me, I know the words to it, but... One, two. Tell me who are you? The Bears, three, four.

Tell me who's gonna score. The Bears. Five, six. Tell me who's got the kicks. The Bears, seven, eight. Tell me who's really great. The Bears, nine, ten. Tell me who's gonna win.

The Bears. Say it again. The Bears. Who's going to win? The bough coo in the pom-poms. Very well, done. Very well. Hi, Craig.

How are you? I'm good. I'm happy to be back in action with you. I know. How are you doing? I'm doing well. I feel rejuvenated. Yeah.

Anything exciting happening in your life since I've seen you last? No, no, just the usual stuff. We're trying to get school done for the year. But. Are they still both playing instruments? Are they still following their music stuff? They are. Austin still takes piano lessons.

Aaron is counting the days until he can stop playing the trumpet. And it's a shame because he's such a good musician. Because, you know, he started on the viola. And when he practiced that at home, it was lovely to hear. But he did not like it. So we told him he had to finish it because he started it And he when he's in eighth grade Going to be going to high school

And I think this is the end of the line Well we always tell them I mean the boat for both of us And for everybody I know the thing we all wished we had kept up Was our instrument Because music I mean you know And our next guest is A living example of You know

When you hold on to music in your life when you don't let that muscle atrophy, you know, even if you've done a ton of things, you can always go back to it. You can come back to it, yes. But our guest today is

a dear, dear friend of mine, Rita Wilson. Rita Wilson. And I love her to death. You know, there are some people we have on here who are friends of yours, and I either an acquaintance of mine, but I feel like

Rita's my friend too because, and I'm going to wait until she comes out to tell this story, but I am so happy she's here and she just brightens the whole room and she walks in. She is a ray of sunshine. But let's do a proper introduction. I'll give her introduction. Rita Wilson is a multi-talented singer, songwriter, actress, and producer. She has released six studio albums, one of which we have, right here called the sound of a woman, and it's her most recent, which is a collection of

songs that explores the arc of a woman's life. So without any further ado, Rita will, she's in there being a producer. You're the only one who looks, you're the only one who has ever been looking at the screen. I was wondering, it's like, why don't you say it's her name? Because she wasn't sitting in the chair. She was not sitting in the chair. Busy body. Are you thinking of busy boots? Just mostly. Two of my favorite people.

That's all. Welcome to. I am I. It's so good to see you. Hi, honey. Hi, everyone. You're at our house. I love it.

It's so nice to be here because I've only seen it on TV. Right. I'm very happy to be here. You're looking a fabulous. What do you have on? Well, you know, it takes a village. It takes a village. You said you had an alternative outfit.

I have a little wardrobe malfunction, but this is something that I feel very comfortable in. You look great. I think it's all about comfort. Like, if it's not comfortable, don't put me in it, you know? Really, because I can't be myself. Preach. And speaking of comforting, comfort, so you probably don't remember this. But I remember the first time I met you, Mish was having one of her dinner parties at a hotel somewhere in D.C.

Do you remember? You and Tom were there. I think I know which one it is. And there were, it was small because there were tables of just six people, you know. It was really small. And I was the only civilian there. It was just celebrities galore. And you.

And I was, he came. He's like, you should come to dinner with us. And he didn't know. He was just sort of like. I was in town. She was like, come on by for dinner. I thought I was going by their house. So I was on my way over there.

She's like, no, no, no. We're at the such and such hotel. And I go over there. I walk in and I'm like, oh, jeez, I felt underdressed. And everybody in there is just like so nice and nice looking. So clean and fresh. Clean and fresh. And you sit right in.

I was, I felt like an outlier. But you were sitting at another table, but you were sort of back to back side to side with me. Right. And you made sure that I felt included in the whole evening. And you would lean over it to hate it. And you'd talk about it. And then somebody would say something. You say, you hear that.

And you were so sweet to me. I will never forget that. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. I feel like that's important, though. Well, I can tell. I do, because I can't. I think, you know, this is partly, you know, what we'll be talking about, I think, today.

But I think it's so important that there's so many people that feel like they're just invisible, you know. sometimes and even if you don't feel invisible, you can be made to feel invisible if you're in the wrong situation or crowd. Right. It's hard for me to feel invisible. Oh, yeah. It's hard. That is true. That is true. But I wouldn't say in your case you were invisible, but sometimes it's just that extra sort of somebody noticing that, you know, hey, you're here. Yeah, it was really sweet. I see you. I see you. Exactly. I want to know, how did you two meet the first time? Oh, it was at the first inauguration. And I'll never forget this because it was so impactful to me.

But I think it was at one of the events at the Lincoln Memorial. And Tom was speaking. And afterwards there was like a little get-together in the tent for anybody who had performed or spoke that time. And you and the president got up on stage and you said, I really want you all to pray for us and keep us in your prayers as we go into this. And that really impacted me because I thought exactly right. We do need to do that. Like in, I'm Greek Orthodox, as you know, but in our church, we always, you know, pray for our leaders and hope that they are doing the right things and, you know, they're for the right reasons.

And you definitely did that. Well, it feels like I've known you my whole life, and we've had some just amazing conversations. And in those conversations, I know how important your family is, how much, how important your work has been. But one of your major passions is music, as we talked about. Yeah. And this is your sixth album, The Sound of a Woman. Congratulations. Congratulations.

And we're going to. You know, we're going to do something a little bit different today because we've got a couple of songs queued up. Oh, yes. Great. Okay. Whenever you or one of us thinks it's the right time, we can do a little bit of a listen and talk about it. But I wanted to start by having you tell our listeners what the album is about, why you wrote it, why now.

I love that. Okay, so it's called Sound of a Woman. Why? Well, it was really to explore what that experience is like from different phases and experiences of a woman's life. And my co-writer Amy Wodge and I, we had the first song was Sound of a Woman, the title track, because we're like, what is the sound of a woman? So through this process of songwriting, I started to really feel like, I wasn't alone. It wasn't just my story. So many women are going through these same things and experiencing the same thing. So even though it's very specific some ways to what I'm going to be writing about, personally, this experience of it all is, I think, universal. So Rita, you're thinking, all right, I have some.

something to say, what made you want to say it through songwriting as opposed to screenplay writing or poetry or something else? Okay, good question. Ooh, ding, ding, Craig. It's a good question point. I'm getting good at this job. Very good. You do it enough times. You can get good at it. Well, I think you can ask any person alive, like, what did you love to do when you were a kid? And that, well, they'll have an answer for you. And so mine was music. And I loved music. And I would get up and sing at the drop of a hat. I would sing, oh, to Billy Joe. Like, just think of a 10-year-old going, like, it was a third of June, another sleepy dusty. I don't know. I won't sing all of it because, who knows, there might be legal reasons I can't sing it.

Yeah, you know, I don't think about it. We can't afford it. Exactly. So, um. But that song was fascinating to me because it really told the story of like, I came from this very boisterous family. And then I had this song that people were like going, oh, so somebody just jumped off a bridge and died and threw something off the bridge. Don't you remember we were playing that game? What song blew your mind? Yes. Which is a Tom Hanks' favorite where we sat around the table and we talked about the song that blew our mind and then we played it and talked about it.

And yours was, Ode Billy Joe. to Billy Joel. Yeah. And that was a song that I just thought, okay, why is everybody in this song just going past the peas after this big, huge bomb has dropped on the dinner table, you know? And you were hearing the lyrics. I'm hearing a 10-year-old a lot of times. They're just like, I think these are the words and they're mimicking it.

But you're taking in the content of these songs. But my mom was really good at that. Tell us more about your mom. Yeah, she was a force in her own right. Oh my gosh. She was extraordinary and really an amazing person. She was my best friend and she was somebody that I knew I felt so much love. So both my parents gave me that foundation of like, whatever you want to do, you always have a place to come back to. They never stopped me. And, you know, she was born in America, but raised in a little tiny village on the border

of Greece and Bulgaria. And they went there for a vacation, the whole family, when she was four years old, and her dad died. And the family... During vacation? During the vacation, yeah. And they were young. And so my grandmother...

How was your mom? My mom was four, so I think her mom must have been 32, something like that. So eventually, when things started getting rough, my mom had to escape with her mom. And by rough, you mean the occupation. Yes, exactly. And so she stayed.

How was she when she was 19? 19 traveling alone. Yes, yes, exactly. But yeah, so both of my parents were incredibly courageous, but my mom was probably an artist in some way. And I think she loved music. But one of the songs on the album, is called your mother.

And it's twofold because one of them is, what are the questions you wish you had asked your mom, if your mom is no longer with us? And do our kids really know us? I know so many amazing women who do incredibly wonderful things in their lives, like over the age of 50. And that is in some ways, the beginning. I heard a term the other day, which I loved, which somebody called somebody over 50

a queenager instead of a teenager. Oh, I love that. I love it too. Don't we like that? I like queen a queenager. I like that. Right. So I liked it too. Let's copyright that. Yeah. Put it on shirts. I'm a queenager. I'm a queenager. I'm a queenager. I'm serious, Dan. Somebody's is going to do that. Does that make me a kingager? No. No. It doesn't roll off the tongue the same way, does it? No. But that idea that I've met so many women that are doing incredible things and they're somewhat different than what they were doing in the earlier parts of their lives. And everybody has a gift. And if you have something you want to do, do it. If you do something consistently enough, you do not get worse at it.

You can only get better at it. You can't get worse at it. And that really supported this endeavor of songwriting because I thought I would go down to Nashville all the time and just write, right, right, right, right. And I thought, well, I know from watercolor or tennis, I'm not going to get worse at it. That's right. I'm just going to keep doing it, you know? This back-to-school season, spend less on your kids with Amazon. I remember with my two youngest, one year, what they wanted for the upcoming school year changed. four times on the way to the store. They were so focused on which backpacks or lunch boxes they wanted. Then they changed their minds minutes later. Do you remember what it was like to go school shopping with mom and dad?

Oh, when we were kids? Yeah. Oh, for sure. I mean, that was like excitement, you know. It was like getting the new box of crayons, you know, whether you could get the 16 variety or the 64. There was nothing that spelled progress in learning than a new box of crayons. When you increased your number.

I mean, it was like, we are living large now. A fresh spiral notebook? I was ready to fill it up. I know exactly what you mean. We had what we needed, but there was always that one thing mom would let us pick out that just made the whole year feel right. And for me, it was always the three ring binder. Just the empty three ring binder? Yeah, because you could get the binder with the action figure on the front.

You could get Spider-Man. I just never went for the action figure. Oh, man. I like straight color. Batman. What was the item for you? It was the spiral notebook with the paper already in it. And I like the colors because I like the color code for the subject.

You'd get reading, you get math. You know, I was highly organized. Less into the characters, more into the focus on being organized. Yeah, I remember that. School shopping can be so fun, though, the nostalgia of it all. We want the best for them, but we're also allowed to want back-to-school shopping to be a little bit easier and more affordable. It's good to save money. So, you know, you can spend it on your kids later.

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Because the lyrics on this song are amazing. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Another. Don't make me. I know, right? This is my favorite part. Oh, my gosh.

Like the wood. Oh, gosh. Wonderful. Wow. Thank you. You got good at songwriting. You didn't get worse. Thank you.

Thank you. Just from a technical standpoint, so did you come up with the lyrics and then say, I got to figure out a melody to this? Or did you have the melody and then say, I got to write something to this beautiful song? How does that work? Every song is different. Amy Wodge, my co-writer and I, we knew sort of what the arc was going to be. And sometimes, like in this song, we wanted to just, you know, say to our children, we weren't always just your mother. Our kids come into the world and they're like, oh, you're my mom. They don't know you before. They just meet you as mom.

They didn't know you were fast. No. They didn't know you could run. Exactly. Our mothers were really zipped up. Oh, my God. Talk about stuff that generation. No way. And I also feel that I'm on the cusp of sort of this, you know, my mom's generation,

which was very traditional and, you know, patriarchal because mom stayed home, dad went to work. And then there's my little interim generation, the cuss, and then right ahead of me was Gloria Steinem and, you know, Bella Abzug and all the feminists that were sort of paving the way. for women's rights. I always felt like I was straddling this balance of like, who am I? Am I my mom's values? Am I these ladies' values? Well, I think we're growing as women to understand that it's not a zero-sum game. You can, you know, I know, I know as I grow, I'm learning to appreciate all that my mother was in that tradition and the strength. I mean, like you said, we don't know who they are, as the song says. So, you know, And sometimes we don't take the time to listen, as the lyrics say.

That's right. Listen, because that generation of mother was never going to tell you outright, but she was telling us about herself in little ways if we would listen. Exactly. You know? Exactly. Well, you know, the album follows your arc as a woman and to sort of create some context to that. I want you to take us on your arc, starting with childhood.

Oh, my God. Okay. I love that. Because you've alluded to the fact that you are a Hollywood, California girl. Yeah. Even though you are the child of immigrants, you grew up right down the street. Yeah. What was Rita like?

What was Little Rita like? Oh, my God. Little Rita. Little Rita. Well, I went to Hollywood High School right down the street. Which we pass every day. Yeah, every day. I know, it's crazy. It is remarkable.

Same building and everything. Yeah, everything looks the same pretty much. Although now there's fences around the school. You can't just walk up onto the lawn and go into the classrooms. I was a cheerleader. I was happy. I was part of a church singing group. I had great friends.

I started modeling, like the first day of high school, a photographer who had had permission from the school. to be there, asked if he could take my picture. I said, yes, that turned into, I didn't realize it at the time, but he was shooting a layout for Harper's Bazaar magazine. So they asked me to be in Harper's Bazaar magazine. So that got me started. You know, as a teenager, your mom agrees that you can go off in model in Europe. Yeah. And she came with me because, you know, I was 15. But back in those days, I had an agency in L.A. And in the summertime, they wanted their models to go over to Milan and get a portfolio together and get some experience working. And that's what I did.

I'll never forget, because you remember the things that you wear. I was wearing like a little red and white checked gingham suit that my mom made me. Yeah. Like little pockets here. I looked like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, literally. It was so. Hey, y'all. So sweet. And, you know, in some ways you're going into the lion's den. Because all the Italian playboys would just hover and vulture like around the lobby to the hotel. Like, who's coming down today? And it's like, read, it's fresh meat. You did feel that.

You know, had my mom with me. So they're like, oh, not her. Okay, fine. But I do feel like my parents gave me that foundation of just a foundation. Like, you can do this. And we will be there. And if you ever get tired of doing it, you don't have to do it. So it was, I did have a sense of adventure in that way to be able to like try different things and not feel confined by anything.

And at this point, were you thinking I'm going to have a career in acting? No. Because I read, I read in, oh man, I can't remember the periodical where you said, well, if I wasn't, if I didn't get into show business or acting. or acting, I was either going to be an athlete or a detective. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And so I have many questions. Okay, good. But I'm only going to ask a couple.

First of all, what sport would you have been an athlete and what kind of a detective? Oh, yeah. I like both of those. Okay. I would have been in track. Okay. Or skiing. I didn't play tennis as a year.

young, you know, as a teenager, but I loved skiing and I loved track. I love being outside. I just, oh, that, I love that. And then detective, I like to get to the bottom of stuff. And so just put me in there, like, I need to solve this crime. Were you like that with your friends? Oh, my God. Probably. I don't know. I just like, I would want to get to the bottom of, well, like, why did they say that? Well, why did they do that?

What did that mean? How does that work? And I remember someone told me a really valuable thing when I was a teenager. He was an older guy. And we were having a conversation. I can't remember what the circumstances with, probably a work situation. And he said, he was talking about something. And I didn't know what it was.

And I said, I'm sorry, can you explain what that is? I don't know what that is. And he said to me, that is so great that you ask. when you didn't know something because most people are too afraid to ask and just look stupid or whatever. So I just want to get to the bottom of it. It's like it's a form of fomo.

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I mean, because it's like you grew up on the south side of Chicago on 74th of Euclid. Sleeping in the back of the back. Isn't it so crazy? And then now I'm going to be on the Brady book. Exactly. It's like... Trust me, I was amazed too. I so remember...

I mean, I told you this. I am a Brady Bunch aficionado. She is, yes. I mean, I can name that episode in two words, you know? Exactly. And yours, which was Jan tries out

for cheerleading. Marsha. Marsha tried out. Yeah, Marsha tried out. And you were Pat Conway. Exactly. Oh, my God. You were the good.

You were the good. You were the good. cheerleader. Yeah. My God. So Greg had to choose between his girlfriend and his sister. And his girlfriend was a bitch. She was just using Greg.

She was so nasty. She was a, she was fast. No. Oh. No. She was the, she was the Greg's solution to the problem. Yeah, she just wanted to be the cheerleader and she thought if I can work my boyfriend Greg.

Greg. So she wasn't interested in Greg. No. Until she found out that he was going to be a cheerleader. on the judging committee. That's right. That's right. It was outrageous.

That was a funny story. Mind you, she remembers us on one hour of TV a day. That's all we can watch. We watched the Brady Bunch. Exactly, but we only got the Wizard of Oz once a year or two, but we remember everything. Exactly.

Nowadays, people can watch everything millions of times. But you were saying that it was cool. I didn't expect to audition for it. but a girlfriend of mine was auditioning for it. And she, it was for the role of a cheerleader, and she didn't know how to cheer. So she asked me if I could teach her how to do a cheer. So I said, sure.

And then she said, just come with me on the audition. And I said, okay, you know, it was great. Go to Paramount Studios, drive through the gate. And you're 15 at the time? Yeah, 15. And she, we're in the waiting room, and she goes into audition. and she comes out and she wasn't really an actor either

but I think her mom was in the business or something and we're still friends by the way and so the casting person came out and said are you here to audition? I was like no would you like to? And I'm like, okay. So I go in, I don't get that part but they needed a girl who actually could be a good cheerleader. And you were so good, Rita.

Because I wasn't cheerleader. The Bears! The Bears! Who's going to win? The Bears! The fact that you can still remember that, now you can't give me any crap about remembering plays in a game. I don't care. I mean, who would remember that?

That's pretty good. You could totally learn that cheer. I could teach it to you one day because she could do it. I know the words to it, but... One, two, tell me who are you? The Bears, three, four. Tell me who's going to... The Bears, five, six.

Tell me who's got the kick. The Bears, seven and eight. Tell me who's really great. The Bears, nine, ten. Tell me who's gonna win. The Bears, say it again. The Bears, who's gonna win? The Bears.

Woo! Very well done. Very well. No, it was not. This was a pre-question to my wrapping, of course. I've never done that together. I've never talked to you about worse. No.

Right. So this is a very different kind of conversation. So funny. So would that like your big break? Oh, totally. That's how I got my Screen Actors Guild card. And once you had a Screen Actors Guild card, then you could audition for commercials and other TV.

It wasn't really until my 20s that I thought there was a, I was doing a play. And the director of the play was like, you seem to, like being on stage, like, have you ever thought of getting any formal training? I'm like, was that? I mean, I had taken an acting class, but it was like for film. I didn't know about formal training. And so he told me about these drama schools. There was Lambda in London, Rada in London, and Juilliard in New York. So I was like, fantastic. So I applied to all of them. I got rejected from Juilliard, rejected from Rada, and waitlisted at Lambda. And then I just kept calling them all the time. Like, hi, have there been any people who have dropped out yet? I sure would love to come,

you know? So I ended up getting in and going there because that's when I realized like, maybe this is my real job, you know? Wow. And how long was that program? That was a one-year overseas program. So while you're acting now, and you got this at the time job going on, right? At what point do you start thinking, boy, it sure would be nice. to do music? I didn't think that. I tried. There were always movies or things that were coming up that had singers in them.

And I'd like, great, I'm going to go and do that. There was a little club out in the valley called the Palomino, and it had like an open mic night. So my girlfriends and I would go out there. We'd try to get up on stage and sing. But I also had a part-time job as a ticket taker at the Universal Amphitheater at Universal Studios. And I would take the tickets, and then you were allowed to watch the shows.

So this is like 74, 75, 76, somewhere around there. And I would watch the shows, and everybody came through, you know, my heroes, Joni Mitchell, Carol King, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Elton John, comedian, Steve Martin, you named Jackson Brown. they were all performing and I would sit on the stairs watching them and having an actual ache like a longing, a yearning, like it's something that someone that you love, that you'll, like, they'll never look at me, they'll never see me. It was that kind of pain. Like, how do you do it? How do you get to be a musician and sing and get on stage? How do you find a band? I didn't know. But I knew who everybody was. I knew all the songwriters on the album covers, all the studios,

all the musicians who played on which albums, who sang harmonies, I knew it all. And so when it happened, through Kara DiGuardi, this amazing woman who was a songwriter, and she said, great, I'll write your first songs with you.

And she did. Shout out to Kara DiGuardi. What I'm hearing is that you were a hustler, you were courageous, you were already kind of a producer, right? You were producing your life. You were producing your situation. You were doing it all.

But I know in you, and I know a lot of women and women in various businesses feel overlooked, underappreciated. And I'm just, you know, I just want you to talk a bit about that because when we talk about the arc of your growth as a woman, you know, so many women go through that period in life when they doubt what they can do even in the face of them demonstrating all that they can be just like our mothers. Exactly. You know, and here we are a whole generation of way, having had more opportunities than our mothers, but still carrying some of that, do I really have anything to say? Exactly. Can you talk more about that? Yes. The best way to describe it is, you know, the song Michelangelo that hopefully will play a little bit of too is a lot about this process because there was this quote that I had on my bulletin board for many years and it was one from the sculptor Michelangelo and somebody had asked him and thank God somebody wrote this down, but somebody had asked him, how in the world do you make these incredible sculptures out of these massive chunks of marble that are just there?

And he said, I see the angel in the marble and I carve until I set him free. And that to me was a perfect metaphor for having a vision for who this person is inside of you and being able to chip away at the marble of your humanity, of your womanness so that we can become ourselves. And that took me a long time to get there. It really did. Well, before we talk more about that, why don't we play some of Michelangelo? Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you.

We've talked about it. I've talked about it on this show. It always amazes me how long we as women take to fully accept and know ourselves. How are you supposed to know all of this? You're not. But why is there that pressure that you're supposed to know all of it? I really do feel like that shaping that we come into, the shaping of ourselves, you know, that's the gift.

Like I don't know when it happened, but I knew it was happening. because it happened in sometimes small ways where you just thought, I'm going to say no to that. Or that doesn't work for me anymore. Or this isn't an area I want to go down anymore. And it's that idea that I could actually have a boundary about something. You know, like everybody talks about boundaries. But if you've never had them and then you start having them, people get a little, they don't like it.

There's an expression that I love, which is when people pleasers stop pleasing people, people aren't pleased. Right. Rita, how did, as you were building your career and becoming the woman that you are, how did you, early in your career, how did you start thinking about family? I mean, were you someone who knew you always wanted to get married and how? have kids, were you kind of devoted to your career and, you know, or did you think about it at all? I thought about it, but I was engaged before I got engaged to my husband. Yeah, that's right. And if I had married that person, I would have been divorced within a year. I thought that was what you were supposed to do at a certain age. And I actually thought, because I had never

really fallen in love with anyone that I was just I would be okay and my mom when I told my mom that I'm like I don't know though should I marry him I'm not really in love with him this was her generation don't worry you grow to love him

and I was like mom that's not my generation like you know but her generation was like is he a good man? Will he provide? Will he? There wasn't any of this,

I have to be madly in love and I have to, you know, and it was just like they thought of things differently and my parents were married for 59 years, so whatever they figured out, they figured out.

But it was, I still wanted to hold out for that falling in love thing. So when I finally met Tom and fell in love with him, that was like, oh, wow, well, this is very, very different than what I had before. And marriage would not have sustained that relationship. Were you thinking about, well, what if I never have kids?

I should have kids, this did the biological clock thing? Or were you thinking, look, let me find love. And if I do, I'll see where it goes. But if I don't, I don't. Yeah, it was more like that. It was more like that. I did know that I wanted children, but I didn't want to have children

with the wrong people or person. And so that definitely, you know, falling in love with someone really, really helps. And Tom had two children. So I always saw that he could be a good dad. So I was like, okay, good. That's helpful. A little example here.

here. I really wanted to maintain being able to work and being able to keep my foot in the creative door except for being in the dishwasher, but not the washing machine. The being the whisked girl. And then, you know, having children when you become a mom, that I just could not get over how amazing it was. I loved everything about being pregnant. I loved everything about giving birth. I loved everything about nursing a child. I loved everything about having a baby and raising children.

And even in the really difficult times, because every kid is different, I still knew, well, we have a foundation here. and this foundation, which I was trying to give to, our kids was, you know, different than the foundation my parents gave me, but I wanted to give that to my children to say, like, there's always a place that you can land. And there's, we're always going to be here. We may not be here in the way you want us to be here. That might be challenging, but we're going to be here for you. But there might be some, you know, things around that. I know that I carried that around for a while that there was this sort of bedrock stability.

Right. You know, and here I was, you know, I'm married to somebody who's going into politics. And I have a career myself and I'm not home. And, you know, so I'm thinking, is this going to screw up my kids? And then we're in the White House. And it's like, oh, my God, my mother didn't do this. Right. Like, how do you pave that way?

Right. And you were living a completely different life than your mother in the household that you raised. How did you think about that? It was hard because I did feel torn and felt a little guilty if I was working or if I couldn't be in two places at one time. You know, I also, Tom was really, you know, when we got together, he had only done, I think, three films. And I think we met on his third or fourth film. And then he, his career was really taking off. And what I would have been working in at that time was series television. And back then, if you were doing a network show, you would have to sign on for a seven-year contract. And I didn't know how to do. And I didn't know how to do. And I didn't know how to do. do that. I didn't know how to be working on a series, having a husband who was also working all over the world, not being able to then keep the family together. And at the same time, how do I keep working? So I think not being able to really take advantage of those years when I would have probably been in a television series, probably had some effect on my career professionally. How did you keep your creative muscle flexed during that time?

It wasn't very flexed at that time. It wasn't. It was a little flabby. Yeah, it was very flabby. And I remember feeling frustrated. This summer has been all about getting outside for me. I've been walking a ton, playing a little pickup here and there, and every single day, no matter what I'm getting into, I'm grabbing my Bamba socks.

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What the blessing is about friendship? Oh, my God. Boy, your husband, your partner. cannot supply everything that you possibly need. That's why God invented girlfriends. And that helps you guys too. Yes, it totally does. And I think that is massive.

You know, they've been, my friends have been there to celebrate. My friends have been there to get me through crises. I remember when I had cancer. and you invited me down to visit you when, you know, you were first lady. And can I say where we went? Yes. Okay. We went to Camp David.

And it was, I can't tell you the feeling because I was maybe four weeks out of having breast cancer surgery, bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction. And Tom had to go, he had been gone to do a movie. So I was like, what am I doing? And you said, why don't you come down? And we'll just have a weekend down here. You were like, can I come without Tom? I was like, screw Tom. Exactly.

Yeah. But you know, it's like you just don't know, right? Yeah, yeah. You were so, I don't know, it made me feel so. Vulnerable. And it was also like, it was, I was already in a sort of vulnerable state just having gone through that, you know, process. But then to be there by yourself, but to feel that I wasn't alone was huge. That's what a girlfriend is. Yeah. That sets us up perfectly for our listener question.

Okay, dude. I'm ready. Very well done, Rita. Very well done. It's as if you know what our relationship question is. And this is from Lucy. I have a close group of girlfriends I've known for years. Our kids grew up together, and now that they're all adults,

I still meet up with this group of women regularly for dinner or for our book club. Recently, though, I've started to feel a lot less close to them. I've found that our conversations feel pretty surface level, and when they do go deeper, I often get frustrated with them because our politics have really drifted in recent years. I recently started a ceramics class, and I love it. I've realized I haven't actually done something for myself that's totally new to me since having kids. I've thrown myself into it, and I've also become friendly with some of the people in the studio, and it's put into perspective how toxic my friend group can be for me. Suddenly, this group of women who were truly some of my close, as friends for years feel stifling to be around. My question is, do you think this is a phase that is typical with friends and should I try to put distance with them? How? Is it normal to outgrow people at this stage in life or do I owe them more? Wow, that's really great. I'm supposed to answer that. Well, we'll talk about it. But what are your thoughts? What advice would you give? It sounds like she's growing in some ways.

And it sounds like she's shifting, you know, like from one phase of her life to another. And doing that sort of, that transition can be difficult for the individual, but also for the friend group. Because she may not feel like she's being seen as this new person in the friendship group that is, wants, her to stay in a certain lane or bucket, right? And yet, if there are people in that group that you really, really love and you really want to be with and continue that relationship, maybe it's good to do more individual one-on-one stuff together so that you can check in with them and say, hey, I'm kind of feeling this way and, you know, what's going on? And, you know, can we talk about this, even if it's a difficult conversation. Because I wouldn't throw out the old friends if you have

so much history with each other. Because every relationship is going to go through phases, but I'm a big believer about pausing if you don't feel good or safe or whatever. Not really disconnecting or cutting people off, but just pausing and kind of saying, I'm going to take a little breather here for a minute. I think I'd agree with you, Rita, that You know, things, she shouldn't feel bad that things have shifted because it isn't unusual. Right. And it's okay. It may shift back again, you know? Yeah.

You know, you may get into some new interests, develop some other new friends, get to know them, circle back around in five years, run into somebody in your old group and something clicks. Yeah. You know? And it's like, wow, I miss this. part of you, you know. So I like what you say, sometimes you do need to take a break. Yeah. From people. Sometimes you need to take a break from your family, you know, without cutting ties completely. But I have, that's why I always try to encourage my daughters, my nieces, nephews, young people that I know is just to stay open to people. Yeah, exactly. Because I have made,

And I've said this time and time again, some of my, the most special people in my life came into it after the age of 50. Right. Wow. That's amazing. And that doesn't make the people who were there before any less special. Right. I've tried to do my best to keep blending people, you know? You're really good at that. And it's the fun of watching people get to know everybody. And all the mixes don't always work. Right. You try it out and go, oh, yeah. That. That wasn't very. good. I got to take a little salt out of that and put it over here. You know, you learn, but I get a lot

of pleasure out of my friends becoming friends. Me too. I love that. Craig, how does male gender? Because you were representing all men. I am. So there's going to be some wild generalizations.

He's blue for the boy. But I like both of you all's advice for Lucy and agree with every part of it. The only thing that I would add is that I think

for me and a lot of guys when you're when you feel that growth and that need to sort of stretch your arms and stretch your arms and legs in different direction

I tend to and my friends tend to try and bring that group along a good deal of my friends now have become golfers. And because of my life, golfing was never a part of it. I mean, it was back when I worked in corporate America, but that was so long ago. I never became a golfer. And they always try to include me in golfing, even though I'm not a golfer.

And I have to be open to vulnerability. I'm sorry, how do you... But how do you get included if you're not a golfer? Like, do you just walk around with them? So I can do either. Like, you could go on the golf cart? I can drive the golf cart.

Okay. I can... That's a good compromise. And bring my clubs and I can play a few holes. Okay. Or I can play the whole thing. Or I can just be there

for comedic relief. You know? But it's, it's, we all, it feels like, We all try to keep the team a team. That's kind of cool. I like that. Yeah, and it's kind of neat.

And everybody has their specialty or their lack of specialty, and everybody gets a chance to be the one who's sort of spotlighted as the one to get this special treatment, even though it's teasing special treatment. I don't think it would work if I said, okay, everybody, we're going to take a watercolor class together. No, it would. I don't think it is. I mean, how great would that be if you could do it that way? That would be a blast.

Well, I sort of had a version of that when I forced all my friends into a quarterly boot camp. Oh, I remember. Yes. That was, that was insane. But I think I was in a special position where I was trapped. And in order to see them, I was like, you have to come here. But this is what we're going to do. You have to do the boot camp.

I mean, I used to even think. I never said any, I've never said anything to you about that boot camp. But I was like, man, that's rough. It was hard. Well, that was not the version. So Rita came along to one of these sort of really hard health and fitness retreats off of boot camp. Where we, you know, you'd walk for four hours. It's just.

Oh, like you were walking like 17 miles. You'd get an almond, you know, as a break. Why? You know. Why? Well, you know, well, Rita didn't do it. No, I was like, I was at the. back of the line and the first day you know they give everybody walkie-talkies because you're in the

mountains you know they give everybody walkie-talkies and they're like um if you need anything just let us know and i'm like maybe 90 minutes into the walk and i'm like hi hi it's rita uh when are we done and there were also two lines that they told you about There was the private line where Rita could be talking just to the people or the party line where everybody's walkie-talkie is going on. So we're all like on mile 100. And Rita's like, um, where are the cars? And it's like, we're all like, damn, Rita's going home. And then she got back to the ranch and she's like, hi, I'm in my room.

Can I get some tea? And we're like, bitch. I'm by the pool. And it's going over. And we're all for you. Self care. Good for you. She left the hike.

See, she's back at the ranch. And she's ordering drinks. That sounds like something guys would do. See, guys would do that. We're sucking up. We're taking our, we're eating the third of four almonds. It's so true. And she's like, hi, Rita here.

And that's how she would start. Rita here. And it's like fucking Rita. I still lost weight on that. And I lost weight on that. and I lost inches. But you didn't lose your mind. I did not lose my mind.

I did not. Rita was just like, I'm going back. Wow. I've never been back to that place. No. I haven't gone back again either. Wonderful.

But it was still a bonding experience. It was super fun. We laughed about it. That was really fun. And we still do. And all my other friends there, it's like, remember Rita? Oh, God. A sound of a woman, woman, beautiful.

Thank you. I mean, you make us all fall in love with whatever you're doing because you just approach it with the right spirit. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we are grateful that you've come to share just a little bit of it with us here at I Am. What a joy today has been. Thank you so much. This really has been absolutely great.

So you get to talk to her all the time. I'm like, oh, man, thank you so much. Well, we got you today. We got you today. Yes. But, yeah, thank you so much. This back-to-school season, spend less on your kids with Amazon. You know, one thing nobody prepares you for when you have kids is how quickly they go through school supplies. I cannot imagine when I was growing up going through backpacks as quickly as my kids do nowadays.

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