Noble Blood - The Impossible Identity of Elegabalus

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

In 2023, a museum in England determined that they would refer to the Roman emperor Elegabalus using feminine pronouns. Elegabalus, who allegedly asked to be referred to as a lady, has become a node in queer history as a trans woman. Though it's impossible to fully know the truth of how she may have identified, we can try to unpack the ways in which sex and gender were seen in Roman society. CW: sexual content Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Noble Blood merch — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Just a quick content note before I begin, this episode contains some sexual content and descriptions of, in vague terms, of sexual acts. So if that's something that's uncomfortable for you or something that, you know, you'd be sensitive about listening to with young children around, just be aware of it. In 2023, North Hertfordshire Museum in Hitchin, a town north of London, made the decision to edit some of the informational text it had on its walls. In referring to the Roman Emperor

Eligobulus, the museum would now be using feminine instead of masculine pronouns, consistent with the interpretation that Elagobulus, who ruled Rome beginning in 218 AD, was a trans woman. Eligabalus was emperor for just four years before her assassination in 222 AD at the age of 18. During that time, she developed a reputation for pushing gender and sexual boundaries. According to one classical source, she preferred, she, her pronouns, and announced on one occasion, quote, call me not Lord, for I am a lady. Ancient historians reported that she wore makeup, shaved her body, and worked wool, a typically feminine craft.

One ancient historian, Diocassius, said that she would stand outside taverns in a wig, soliciting lovers who walked by. He further alleged that she had planned to approach a physician about performing what today we would describe as a vaginoplasty. Those accounts led Keith Hoskins, executive member for Arts at North Hertz Council, to say in a statement, quote, Eligabalus most definitely preferred the she pronoun, and as such, this is something we reflect when discussing her in contemporary times. It is only polite and respectful to be sensitive to identifying pronouns for people in the past. But this decision proved controversial among classicists, because none of those stories about Elagobulus's gender presentation came directly from her.

All of them came from classical historians with something of a bone to pick with the emperor. Diocasius, the ancient historian with the most details about Eligobulus's femininity, was not a fan. He was a senator under the emperor who had murdered her, and therefore he had good reason to slander Eligabalus in his writing. Masculinity was incredibly important to ancient Romans, and so it was a common story. strategy for ancient historians to depict emperors they didn't like as emasculated or feminine. Other emperors like Nero, Caligula, and even Julius Caesar were accused of being too feminine. Nero was said to have worn the bridal veil to marry a man, while Roman elder Curio once said that Caesar was, quote, every man's woman. In fact, because of his alleged affair with King Nicodemus,

the fourth of Bethenia, Caesar was called the Queen of Bethenia. In the same way, you wouldn't turn to an attack ad to write a political candidate's biography, it would be a mistake to take those ancient invectives too literally. In an article in The Guardian, Zachary Hers, assistant professor of classics at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said, quote, these quote, unquote, biographies of Allegabolis are, pieces and that he would be inclined to read them as basically fictional. Without any narrative accounts of Eligobulus from her perspective, it's difficult to know what to make of these competing interpretations. On one hand, there is no definitive proof of how

she identified, and contemporary classicists agree that these sources attesting to her transness were biased, even offensive political problems. propaganda. But at the same time, ancient Rome was an incredibly misogynistic and transphobic society that prized a stoic, austere, tough masculinity above all else. You could also argue that those sources were so insulting because Eligabolis was threatening the gender norms of the time. Many historical queer lives have shown up in the archery. in biased sources intending to smear them. Given the dearth of trans figures in recorded Western history, Elagobulus could be an important node in queer history. But given that Roman

visions of gender were so different from our own, what does it mean for Eligobulus to have been trans? How do we divine whatever Eligabalus's own desires were for her gender when when the historical record is so murky. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. You probably notice that I'm also choosing to use feminine pronouns to refer to elegabalus. My reasoning is, given that there is no way of knowing for certain in this situation from more than 1,800 years ago,

I figure there's no harm in choosing to be more inclusive rather than less. But I do want to be very clear. My analysis is no means prescriptive or even necessarily correct, given that gender identity is an incredibly complicated topic, especially from historical eras that didn't share a modern vocabulary or understanding. I don't think we will ever find a definitive, quote-unquote, right answer to how allegabalus would have wanted to self-identify. But what we can do is examine her story with nuance and try to understand it as best we can, given all the context available to us. Anyway, Eligabolis's rule was controversial from the beginning. A little bit of background, the previous emperor, Macrinus, had gotten the job by assassinating the other candidate, Caracalla, who was Eligabalus's cousin. And then to ensure that Eligobulus's family wouldn't enact revenge,

McCrines exiled the family to Syria, where Eligabalus' family was originally from. But exile did not stop Eligabalus's grandmother from plotting to overthrow McCrines. Their family led a religious sect that worshipped the sun god Eligabal. The young Elagabalus, named after the deity, was the heir to the king of the deity. was the heir to the priesthood of that religious sect, even though at this time she was just 14. Soldiers who visited Syria, many of whom supported the assassinated Karakala over the new emperor, often stopped to see Elagobulus perform her priestly rituals. They were purportedly captivated by her good looks evocative of those of the young god Dionysus

and her sensual dancing. Elagobulus's grandmother took advantage of that, lying to the soldiers by telling them that Elagobulus was Caracalla's illegitimate son and positioning her as the true heir to the throne. The grandmother also bribed these soldiers with her vast wealth, which these soldiers were excited to receive since they already resented McCrinius for his stingy wages. These soldiers declared Eligobulus the emperor and brought her to Antioch, where McCrinius was based, to overthrow him and install her as his replacement. When they got there, the troops launched an attack on McRinus, and they won, executing both McCrinius and his son. Their severed heads were brought to Eligabalus as war trophies, and the Roman Senate was forced to accept teenage Elagobelus as the new war.

emperor. As Eligobulus made her way from Antioch to Rome, ancient historian Herodian said that Elagabalus had a painting of herself sent ahead to be hung over a statue of the goddess Victoria in the Senate House. She was said to have done this so that the people would get to know her as the new emperor in advance of her arrival, but many considered it an act of hubris. Roman senators making an offering to the goddess Victoria would have to kneel in front of the painting of Elagobulus, seeming to put the new emperor and the goddess on an equal playing field. Elagabalus finally arrived in Rome in the late summer of 219 AD, refusing to wear the usual Roman garb of wool togas.

Instead, she donned a luxurious silk robe. Given that Elagabalus was barely through, puberty when she began her reign, her grandmother treated her as a proxy ruler. During her rule, Eligobulus's mother, Julia Soamius, and grandmother, Julia Mesa, were the first women allowed into the Senate. Soemius was given the senatorial title of Clarissima, and Maisa was deemed Mater Castrorum at Senatus, or mother of the army camp and of the Senate. Ancient historians noted how unorthodox it was for women to be so influential on Eligobulus's rule,

with her mother and grandmother's likenesses printed on coins and inscriptions. Another controversial aspect of Eligabalus's rule was her religious beliefs. At the end of 220, Eligabalus declared Eligabal to be the central god of the Roman pantheon instead of Jupiter, and made herself the, quote, highest priest of the unconquered god, the son, Eligabal, Supreme Pontiff. Every summer solstice, she put on a festival in Eligabal's honor,

distributing free food and riding through the streets on a jewel-encrusted chariot. The Roman elite were scandalized that the populace was worshipping a foreign god, and Elagobulus was to blame. Eligobulus's love life was just as salacious. She took a number of lovers, both male and female. Rumor had it that Eligobulus wanted to marry a male charioteer named Heracles,

declaring him Caesar and herself his wife. She was also said to have had an affair with athlete Orelius Zodocus, allegedly making him her husband and allowing him to have political influence behind the scenes. Her most controversial relationship was with Vestal Virgin Aquilea Severa, Vesta's high priestess, who Elagobulus was said to have married in order to produce, quote, godlike children. This was extremely taboo because any Vestal Virgin who had sex was supposed to be punished and buried alive. These relationships were all speculations, but officially, speaking, Elagobulus would end up marrying four times to four different women in just four years.

The emperor was also known to have bizarre dinner parties. She gave her guests strange delicacies like camel's heels or flamingo's brains or all-green or all-blue meals. Sometimes she was said to have brought out lions or bears to freely wander around the dining room. One Roman historian alleged that she placed whoopee cushions on all of the chairs as a prank, the first recorded use of whoopee cushions in Western history. These deviations from, quote, normal Roman life made Eligobulus unpopular. When her grandmother, Julia Mason, noted that Eligobulus's reputation had soured, she decided to replace her with her other daughter's son, Severus Alexander, who was 15.

Alexander was elevated to Caesar in June 221, and Elagobulus and Alexander were expected to rule together over the following year. Elagobulus went along with it at first, but she grew disillusioned with being a co-emperor when she started noticing that the Imperial Roman army liked Alexander better. She petitioned the Senate to depose Alexander, and when they refused, she tried to have him assassinated to no avail. According to ancient historian Cassius Dio, Eligabalus started a rumor that Alexander was about to die, to make sure the Imperial Army wasn't on his side. A riot broke out, with many soldiers trying to throw Eligabalus into the barracks. On March 13, 222, Eligabalus appeared to step down. She and her mother performing a ceremony where they officially passed the torch to Alexander. Upon hearing the soldiers cheer louder for Alexander than they did for her, she was incensed

and immediately changed her mind. She called for the arrest and execution of everyone there. The Imperial Army responded by, attacking Eligobulus and her mother. They tried to flee, but she was found, her mother holding her tight. They were both killed with their heads cut off and their bodies stripped naked and dragged across Rome. Not everything in that story compiled together from various and all very biased sources can be verified. Modern classicists have confirmed only the basics that Elagobulus was the head priest of the worship of the sun god Aligabal, arrived from Syria to violently take over

the Roman government when she was 14, ruled for four years, married four times, and was executed and succeeded by her cousin Alexander. The most lurid details, including unfortunately planting whoopee cushions on unsuspecting dinner guests, were all possibly fabricated. Many of the most controversial aspects of her rule were related to her gender and sexuality, from dancing sensually to posing as a sex worker outside of a bar, to marrying a vestal virgin, and proposing to a male charioteer. But where did those details come from, and why would ancient historians have invented or exaggerated them? Why was Eligobulus's gender and sexuality such an issue for ancient historians? As I mentioned earlier, Elagabalus reigned during a time when Rome had extremely strict standards for masculinity.

The ideal Roman citizen exhibited masculine characteristics like valor, excellence, courage, dominance, and an austere presentation, as opposed to women, who were considered decadent, soft, and extravagant. Men who didn't fit the masculine ideal were considered to be afflicted with Molita, a Latin term which can be translated as softness or effeminacy. Those with Matala were considered to be preoccupied with their appearances. They shaved their bodies, wore a perfume, and rougeed their cheeks. They were also seen as overly indulger.

eating rich foods and seeking out sex. These tropes almost perfectly describe ancient historian's depictions of Eligobulus. Elagabalus was considered to have Molita, uniting her love of lavish dinner parties, expensive robes, and voracious sexual appetites. The term Molita also gives us a clue as to why Elagobulus's sexuality and gender were such huge issues for ancient historians. Because sexuality was so deeply tied to Roman ideals,

Molita was typically assigned to outsiders, especially from the, quote, east. Romans viewed Persians and Syrians as overly extravagant, feminine, sexual, and servile. A common trope of Molita was the mythical Sardinopolitanian. of Assyria. Allegedly Sardinapalus lived as a woman during his rule, hanging out with his concubines, putting on cosmetics, speaking with a higher tone, wearing women's clothing, and spinning wool. He also drank heavily and pursued both men and women without a care for his reputation,

much to the chagrin of Roman authors. Many of those same tropes also show up in descriptions of Allegabolus, who was also said to have affected a, quote, soft and melting voice to sound more like a woman, wear eye shadow, work with wool, and hang out with sex workers. Cassius Dio, the ancient historian who had the most issues with Elagobulus's alleged femininity, even called Elagobulus Sardinopolis. According to contemporary historian Martin Ix, many Romans nicknamed her the Assyrian. Ancient historian Herodian also ties Eligobulus's femininity to her status as a foreigner, especially as the high priestess of an unfamiliar religion.

Herodian emphasizes that Elagobulus performed orgiastic dances in the temple of Amesia in Syria, and then brought those dances to perform in altars around Rome, and even in the theater, embodying a sensual foreign sensibility inappropriate for the leader of Rome. He also suggests that Eligabalus's Syrian origins caused her to reject standard Roman men's clothing, preferring silk dresses with gold embroidery

and gem-covered golden tiaras, which Herodian associates with the Phoenicians, as opposed to the plain wool clothes worn by most Roman men. Eligobulus's foreign femininity was such a problem for ancient historians because the emperor, as the most powerful person in Rome, was expected to embody their version of ideal manliness. The perfect Roman man was expected to dominate in his relationships with women or boys,

but also on a wider scale with foreigners. The emperor being a foreigner herself not only meant that she didn't care to be the ideal Roman man, but also that she wasn't advancing Roman cultural dominance by embodying absolute masculinity. This helps us to explain another aspect of Elagobulus's transness, her stereotypically feminine passive role in sex. In her sexual life, she was said to. quote, recreate female characteristics within the male. The Historia Augusta presents Allegabolus as, quote, taking the role of Venus in her private reenacting of the story of the judgment of Paris, even going so far as to, quote, model the expression on her face onto which

that Venus is usually painted. Cassius Dio adds that she slept with women to learn to, quote, imitate their actions when she should lie with her male lovers. She was said to have hired agents to find and bring well-endowed men to her quarters, occasionally seeking them out herself at public baths. Ancient Romans saw gender and sexuality as inexorably intertwined. They had a gender binary, but one's gender identity was determined by someone's birth sex, as well as the role they played in sexual encounters. One half of the binary was the penetrators who were seen as strong, stoic, aggressive, and masculine. And the other half were the penetrated, who were seen as weak, frivolous, vein, and feminine. If you were a penetrator, who you were attracted to didn't matter.

You could have sex with men or women, and you would still be considered masculine, as long as you took the active role during sex. On the other hand, if you took a passive role during sex, that would fundamentally change your gender identity. Women and men who were penetrated in sexual encounters were both considered to be feminine. As long as your sexual role aligned with your societal role, men being the penetrators and women being the penetrated, you'd fit within Roman gender norms. If you deviated from those norms, most commonly by being a man that also wanted to be penetrated, you would be humiliated and insulted for being too womanly. It also went the other way around.

If a man were thought of as too womanly or soft, he would be assumed to be the passive partner in sex. Who was allowed to be the passive partner in sex depended not only on one's gender, but also on their societal role. Women, being the, quote, inferior gender, had to always occupy a sexually passive role. Boys, slaves, and foreigners were also permitted to be sexually passive in their relationships with adult men. This dynamic shows up in historical accounts of Allegabolus. It was fine for Allegabolus to do sexy dances as a young, attractive boy, but she was expected to age out of it in her adulthood. It was extra scandalous that she was sexually passive, given that she was the ruler of Rome, expected to dominate everyone at all times. Contemporary classicist

Zachary Herzludes to another Roman trope to describe why Allegabolus was depicted as sexual passive, the kinitis. This word does not have a direct translation. It functions as a kind of slur that describes foreign-born men who dance sensually and like to be anally penetrated, which nearly exactly lines up with depictions of allegabalus. Given that the conitus only shows up in politically charged smear campaigns, historians tend to think of the conitus as more of a concept, character, or trope than an actual identity. Hers calls the conidas a, quote, public identity, comparing the concept to the contemporary idea of the stereotypical welfare queen. While the character could describe real individuals, it functioned more as a rhetorical tool

intended to draw the public's attention to dangers to the status quo. Hers read depictions of Eligabolus's kinitis-like sexual passivity as an expression of anxiety about the state of Roman political life. Emperors previously had been chosen from an elite class of senators and died peacefully after a successor had already been determined. But Eligabolis was symptomatic of a new status quo, in which military support mattered more than senatorial support, and new emperors, most of whom had barely gone through puberty by the time they came to power, rose to the throne violently. Cassius Dio and Marius Maximus, senators who wrote popular histories of Allegabolus, would have been salty about losing power in that new system,

and they used the power of their pens to denigrate Allegabolis. The stock character of the Canaanus was a powerful tool, not only because the canitis was viewed in derogatory terms, but because Kenidi never spoke for themselves. Lacking the political upper hand, ancient historians took the rhetorical one. As hers put it, quote, Dio and Maximus could no longer govern, but they still could write. Ancient historians' bias against Eligabalus could partly explain why she was feminized in the historical record.

As we mentioned earlier in the episode, it was common practice for ancient historians to call leaders, quote, too feminine as a means to discredit them. But still, even considering that tradition, Eligobulus remains an outlier. Other leaders like Julius Caesar, Nero, and Caligula were all alleged to be Kenaii, wearing women's clothing, acting passively during sex, and shaving their bodies. But none of them have been reconsidered by contemporary historians to be trans women. What makes Eligobulus so different? What's so striking about Eligobulus's gender presentation is that she bucked traditional Roman understandings of sex and gender. While Caesar may have been every man's wife and Nero was said

to have acted as a bride in a marriage ceremony to one of his freedmen, Elagobulus asked to be treated as a woman throughout her life, not just during sex or in relation to a male partner. She appeared to have a remarkably modern view of gender as an identity separate from her sexual role. But whether or not Eligabolis actually represented herself as a woman remains up for debate. Unlike many historical queer figures, Elagobulus as the ruler of Rome, had power over how she represented herself, through statues and coins she commissioned as official representations of her and her reign. According to scholar Eric R. Varner, Imperial portraits and coins were actually at times a space in which rulers blurred gender boundaries in their self-presentation.

Beginning with Augustus, male rulers, and goddesses were visually conjoined. For example, on certain coins, Augustus's face was put on the goddess Diana's body, with her hair cascading from his head. There's also an example of a statue of Marcus Aurelius, with his head added to a female body dressed in an ornate toga. That said, even with that precedent for gender bending in Roman imperial representations, Eligobulus's portraits adhered to masculine standards. This isn't to say that her coins were typical, fitting the rest of her norm flouting reign. Her coins are strange. Roman coins typically have a heads side with a portrait of an important person

and a tales side with a scene including Roman gods or a personification of Rome intended to reinforce the dominance of Rome and the legitimacy of the current rule. In Eligobalus's coins, the, quote, tails side has a chariot pulling a meteorite with an eagle on top of it, an image utterly unique to her rule. On the head's side, her portraits depict her wearing her sacred robes, again, flouting Roman norms of austere dress. Even though these coins break from conventions in most ways, they do portray her as male, with size. sideburns and a mustache. That said, she could have publicly identified as male and expressed her transness in private, or she could have tried to persuade the members of her court for her coins to represent her as a woman, and they could have refused. It remains unclear whether and to what

extent Allegabolis wanted to be seen as a woman, given that the one source that attests to her requesting to be referred to by feminine pronouns and requesting a vaginoplasty come from one source with every intention to slander her and her feminine qualities. It's hard to argue that that is inherently an accurate rendering of her wishes to be treated as a woman. There's no evidence that explicitly refutes that framing, but there's nothing that directly supports it either. With the evidence we do have, it seems most likely that she was, at least to a certain extent, transfeminized by a society hostile to any form of gender nonconformity. Her religious dancing and silk robes threatened Roman norms of masculinity, especially for

emperors. Ancient historians interpreted this as evidence that she presented herself as a woman, both in terms of her appearance and her sexual role. They portrayed her this way not necessarily because they took any interest in how she understood herself, but in order to emphasize the danger of her foreign influence. It was a kind of trans panic about excessive femininity at the center of Roman life, conflating male femininity with sex work, decadence, and irresponsibility.

But this portrait of Eligobulus as a decadent, opulent emperor has also kept her alive in the literary imagination. Her flouting the status quo made her an inspirational figure to many artists and writers. In the 1960s, a number of queer writers created fictional portraits of her reign, from bodice rippers like Child of the Sun to literary fiction like the novel Family Favorites. At a time when homosexuality was still criminalized right before the Stonewall riots, those more sympathetic depictions of Eligabolus situated her as a node in a longer queer lineage. We may never know exactly who Eligabalus was or how she saw herself, but she opens up the possibility to consider queer life in other eras.

And she allows us to examine the complete. complexities of how ancient Romans viewed sex and gender. That's the end of the story of Allegabolus, but stick around after a brief sponsor break to see how Elagobulus inspired Oscar Wilde's picture of Dorian Gray. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wadom. My next guest, you know from Stepbrothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and The Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him one day. And I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved.

And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall, and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that.

There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodom. My next guest, you know from Stepbrothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo. Woo.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day. And I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through. And I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you. Which is really sweet.

Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there.

Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Oscar Wilde learned about Eligabolus while honeymooning in Paris, where he picked up a copy of Joris Carl Hoisman's book, Aurobe, that had just come out. Aribour was a novel that celebrated decadence, centering around an eccentric dandy who retreats into his own aesthetic world. Hoismans brings up Elagopolis as a fellow Asthete, a figure that transcended her everyday life by focusing on beauty, and excess. That book inspired Oscar Wilde to write the picture of Dorian Gray. To such a degree,

actually, that both texts were cited in Wilde's 1895 trial for gross indecency as evidence of his degeneracy. In the original manuscript of Dorian Gray, Wilde cites Allegabolis as a true aesthetic in his musings about the nature of art, writing, quote, young priest of the son, while yet a boy had been slain for his sins, used to walk in jeweled shoe on dust of gold and silver. This reference to Elagobulus and any reference to Arabois was cut from the final text. It's unclear why Eligabalus didn't make it into the final draft, but scholar Nicholas Frankel suggests that editor John Marshall Stoddart, quote, oversaw the elimination of anything that smacked generally of decadence.

And Elagobulus certainly fit the bill. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Menke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Julia Malani and Armand Kasam. The show is edited. and produced by Noemi Griffin and Rima Il K. Ali with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.

For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice. ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to thanks dad on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an I-heart podcast, guaranteed human.