GAYDHD with EMMA WILLMANN

Former classical pianist turned standup Dylan Adler joins Emma to talk about life as one half of a pair of gay twins, including the 11 minutes his brother will never let him forget and why Dylan gets every gray hair and slowing metabolism first. Emma opens with the weekend she gave herself a canker sore on her uvula by shoveling street popcorn, which turns into an anatomy quiz neither of them pass...

Emma finally learns, on mic, that she’s been mispronouncing her guest’s name for roughly a decade. Carolyn Bergier gets into the short-lived rebrand that started as a simple attempt to abbreviate, the business cards and website overhaul she committed to, and how a single critique sent her retreating all the way back. They also dig into the alter-ego theory that lets performers get fearless on stag...

Emma reconnects with a friend she apparently used to sell Adderall to back in the day, and the two of them fall right back into it. Krystyna Hutchinson gets into frying her brain young, the doctor who handed her a prescription without a single question, and why extended release finally let her land the plane every day. They compare notes on ADD never getting formally tested, turning real pain into...

Comedian and actress Kylie Vincent joins Emma for a hilarious, defiant, genuinely joyful conversation about living with MS, finding comedy in the worst news, and her harmonica. Kylie gets into the paralyzed rescue dog she found on Petfinder and has cared for seven years (yes, the Capri Sun thing is real), turning a cane into a crowd-work weapon, and the specific art of making perverts feel welcome...

Comedian, actor, and podcaster Dan St. Germain joins Emma as the first mostly-straight guy on the show, and immediately offers up his "gay bona fides": the time a guy blew him, which he maintains is the straightest way to be gay, and playing Joseph in the Technicolor Dreamcoat, which was somehow gayer. From there it's a wide, funny, no-filter hang between two people who have clearly spent real tim...

Comedian, actor, and producer James Tom joins Emma for a funny, deep, and genuinely moving conversation about spending 17 years in the wrong pool before finding his way home. James traces the whole arc: 13 years in the Girl Scouts, coming out at 14 and going all in, women's college, starting testosterone right before the pandemic on a hunch about his future career, and the Fire Island trip that qu...

Comedian and Funny AF finalist Winston Hodges joins Emma for a warm, funny, wide-ranging conversation about the strange truth that every good thing that happens to him seems to raise the stakes instead of lowering them. After ten years and a self-imposed deadline, Winston had made peace with not "making it" and was on a lake vacation when a casting email landed that turned out to be Kevin Hart's F...

Comedian and classically trained actress Natalie Cuomo joins Emma for a very funny hang that eventually gets to her obsessive Hello Kitty claw-machine phase — the one that's left her apartment buried in stuffed animals and looking like a child lives there. Before that, they get into the specific humiliations of auditioning, including the self-tape that got Natalie's team to ask, in writing, whethe...

Emergency solo recording, because I had too much to report and no intention of letting my brain flit it into the ether. Last time I was high on my supply of mantras — turns out "I'm not someone who scrolls" lasted about seven days, and I'm ready to admit I'd medal at the Scrolling Olympics. Then a head cold, a Kansas City real estate gig, and a full health-anxiety spiral led to me buying a Life Al...

Comedian and science nerd Sarah Adelman joins Emma to talk sperm banks, big dick energy, anxiety, gossip, the placebo effect, and all the bizarre ways our brains shape reality. Sarah shares what it was actually like working at a sperm bank, why she thinks she found scientific evidence for “big dick energy,” and how seeing that much sperm changes a person. They also get into why gossip helps us bon...

Sex therapist Shavon Gaddy joins Emma for a very funny, very frank conversation that starts exactly where you'd expect — Emma's newly diagnosed weak inner sphincter and the fiber-supplement redemption arc that came with it — and somehow gets genuinely useful from there. They break down the actual difference between anxiety and depression, and between "being depressed" and a depressive disorder, pl...

Comedian Alex Kumin joins Emma for a conversation that goes 0 to 100 in the best way — funny, tender, and ultimately inspiring. Alex tells the story of finally meeting her longtime therapist in person, sobbing in her arms, and then falling into a three-week breakdown that turned out to be exactly the release she needed — decades of pushed-down feelings finally moving through her. (Content heads-up...

Elle Orlando is back — and this time she and I are doing a book club. Two dyslexic comedians who hadn't cracked a book in years both tore through Lena Dunham's memoir, and they get into everything it stirred up: feeling compassion for their 24-year-old selves, the wild Klonopin doses in the book, and how getting off Klonopin made Emma feel like she hadn't known herself in years. They also dig into...

Solo one this week. I get into the week that gave me a little breakdown, the mantra that pulled me out of it, my favorite neuroscientist who identifies as a dolphin, and why I spike my matcha with Celsius.

Comedian Onika McLean joins for a hilarious conversation that opens with a full-blown rant about trying to "ground" in a New York City park that's been overrun by transplants and their so-called emotional support animals. Onika breaks down the real service these dogs provide, the rescue dogs dragging their new Minnesota owners around Bed-Stuy, and why she's been reduced to standing in a basin of E...

Comedian Oscar Aydin joins for an unhinged, very gay, very funny conversation between two friends with zero filter — capped off by a gay-slang lightning round where they rank each other with words like slay, shade, chosen family, and butch queen. Along the way: Emma announcing she got "rear-ended" and Oscar needing to know which kind, the fantasy always beating the reality (see: dressing up for th...

Comedian and actress Brittany Schmitt joins Emma for a raw, funny conversation that starts with the eerie feeling that your phone knows your love life better than you do. Mid-breakup, Brittany's feed filled up with reels describing her exact situation — and she breaks down the meme that finally got her off the wrong train. They get into self-righteous anger as a drug, the interior designers who st...

Comedian Eva Evans joins for a sharp, funny conversation about saying the wrong thing online and the people waiting to punish you for it. Eva breaks down what happened when a follower told her a word she'd grown up hearing as a compliment in Jamaica was actually rooted in an ethnic slur — and how posting the apology publicly, hoping to help other people learn, turned into the thing she regrets mos...

Comedian, actress, and TED talker Jaye McBride joins Emma for a funny and surprisingly tender conversation about growing up trans before there was even a word for it. Jaye opens with the childhood moment of seeing a trans person on TV — that flash of "that's me" — followed by her father's worst-possible reaction. They get into coming out as trans in 2007, how Pride has changed over two decades, th...

Comedian, actor, and writer Ali Kolbert joins Emma for a long-overdue catch-up that goes deep on the brutal mechanics of dating, breakups, and queer identity. They open on the gaslighting breakup Ali's still recovering from — the ex who insisted "I'm gay, he's just my friend" and is now a year-plus into dating that man — and the universal agony of not trusting your own gut until it's too late. Fro...

A solo deep-dive bonus episode where Emma gets back from a mini comedy tour and can't stop thinking about perception — what it feels like to walk on stage and feel a room "register" you in real time. That spirals into the legendary tale of the Texas wedding where she set out to win over the most conservative guy there (sleeveless cowboy tuxedo and all) and ended up more popular than the bride. The...

Comedian, actress, star of Kevin Hart's Funny AF, and aspiring empire-builder Caitlin Peluffo joins Emma for an unhinged, very funny, very gay conversation about dating, desire, and the absolute state of modern courtship. They get into the frozen-peas-on-the-TV trick for sneaking past strict parents, getting caught by mom mid-hookup in high school, and Caitlin's quest to get back out there after s...

omedian, actress, and podcaster Elle Orlando joins Emma for an episode that goes everywhere. They start with the anxiety symptom no one talks about — excessive yawning — and somehow end up explaining the double-slit experiment. Elle breaks down the four-day healing retreat led by her dad's girlfriend (a self-taught spiritual healer who studied with Tibetan monks), the finger muscle-testing techniq...

Comedian Akeem Woods joins Emma Willmann for a hilarious and surprisingly deep conversation about gay hookup culture, getting catfished, and what it really means to code switch as a queer person of color. Akeem opens up about growing up closeted in Florida, fabricating a fake girlfriend named Kiana on Facebook, and the moment he finally came out at 25. Emma shares her own unforgettable Craigslist...

Emma Willmann sits down with comedian Ashley Austin Morris for an honest, hilarious deep-dive into life with ADHD — from shame spirals over undone dishes to hyperfocus mysteries, lost wallets, and thriving in total chaos. Ashley opens up about growing up in Texas housing projects, being pulled in and out of school, and never having ADHD formally explained to her — yet somehow always knowing her br...