Death, Sex & Money

This September when SNL announced its season 51 cast, Ego Nwodim made the cut. Then, just days later, she announced on social media that she was leaving the show. "The hardest part of a great party is knowing when to say goodnight," she wrote. In this episode, she talks about learning to trust her body when making big decisions, growing up in a family of workaholics, and her 3 AM post-show ritual...

In a new, very special Death, Sex & Money and Slate Money crossover, Felix Salmon and Anna Sale dig into the difficult decision of whether or not to have kids. Child care? School? New vehicle? All the baby gadgets? Kids are expensive! Anna has two kids, and Felix is famously childless. Between the two of them they dig into their decisions to have and not have kids, the budgeting and balancing...

In the early-morning hours of October 2, 2023, progressive activist and organizer Ryan Carson was stabbed and killed by a stranger on a Brooklyn sidewalk. His girlfriend Claudia Morales—who witnessed the crime, attempted CPR, and dialed 911—quickly became the target of sensationalist online posting. Internet trolls falsely claimed that she didn’t cooperate with law enforcement and suggested that s...

Christine Brown Woolley grew up in Utah with a dad and two moms, in a polygamist community called the Apostolic United Brethren. When she became an adult, she joined a polygamist marriage as a third wife, helped raise more than a dozen kids, and became co-star of the TLC reality show Sister Wives .  Fast forward to 2025, and she has left her marriage and her polygamist faith. This week, she talks...

In the new movie Sovereign , actor Nick Offerman plays an extremist who doesn’t believe in the legitimacy of the Federal government. In real life, Nick comes from a small-town political family. His father is the mayor of Minooka, Illinois, and his uncle is on the village board. In this episode Nick talks about choosing roles, how he’s different from his family, his love of teaching woodworking and...

When Peter van Agtmael went to Iraq in 2006 to embed with the U.S. military, he was 24 years old and confident that his pictures could help end an unjust war. Two decades later, after documenting combat deaths overseas and then turning his camera lens on America, he's learned the limits of what photography can do. In this episode, Peter talks about the emotional toll of bearing witness to violence...

This week, Anna learns about how frustrating it is to apply for jobs these days, especially for early-career folks, even those with college degrees. First, Jeopardy champion Brendan Liaw talks about what it was like to list his job as “stay-at-home son” on national television. Then Slate writer Nitish Pahwa explains why talented people like Brendan are having such a hard time securing work. And fi...

Over the past few months, we've been asking you to tell us stories about your beauty interventions. You told us about feeling caught between viewing appearance improvements as vanity and recognizing how much looking a certain way affects your relationships, career, and self-worth. In this episode, Anna talks to listeners about their appearance choices: Asher, who spent $43,000 on plastic surgery a...

When Megan Greenwell was 34 she landed a coveted job in journalism as the editor-in-chief of the sports and culture blog, Deadspin . Just over a year later a post about why she was resigning went viral – a private equity firm had bought Deadspin’s parent company, and was seeking "a quick cash-out rather than the growth that comes from a well-run business." Her experience led her to spend six years...

After two decades of making movies with his younger brother Mark, Jay Duplass has gone solo. This week, he tells Anna about all the factors that led to that decision: tricky union rules, his brother’s career taking off without him, and the need to provide for his family. They also talk about the resulting film, a tender and unique indie rom-com called The Baltimorons , which Jay co-wrote with the...

When comedy writer Tamara Yajia talks about her childhood, she’s sometimes unsure what tone to strike. Her new memoir Cry for Me Argentina: My Life as a Failed Child Star depicts a very fun nuclear family with parents and grandparents who are loud, crass, and sex-positive. There are hilarious moments and situations that seem wildly inappropriate. In this week’s episode, Tamara tells Anna about the...

They say moving is one of life’s most stressful events. We asked for your stories about why you’re doing it. Plus, Heidi Reinberg was priced out of a Brooklyn neighborhood she loved. Where did she end up?  Death, Sex & Money is produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus . Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slat...

Casey Johnston grew up in a family where being thin mattered. In college, the internet told her to eat 1,200 calories and do endless cardio if she wanted to lose weight. That habit followed her into her late twenties, until she came upon a Reddit post about weightlifting that changed her relationship to her body and just about everything else. Casey Johnston is the author of Physical Education: Ho...

Adonis Williams has been a mover in New York City for 20 years. He says he's moved about 3,500 people, and with each move, he catches a glimpse of a life in transition. There are the happy moves: getting a bigger place, couples moving in together, kids going off to college. There are also the sad moves: divorce, breakups, eviction. Adonis says he talks with his customers about it all. "You become...

Evan Osnos has spent nearly his whole life observing the habits, values, and norms of the wealthy elite, from his childhood in suburban Connecticut to the years he spent reporting on the mega-yachts and underground bunkers of the U.S.’s richest citizens.  This week, he talks to Anna about his new book The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich , and they get specific about what the mos...

N.D. Austin is not an event planner. He designs experiences, which he says are supposed to leave you feeling transformed. He’s designed hundreds over the years, from secret sewer speakeasies to coming-of-age rituals on deserted islands, to funeral board games that guide people through decades of memories. In this episode, Anna talks to skateboarding legend Tony Hawk about an experience N.D. design...

Actor-writer-director Seth Rogen discusses Hollywood's perpetual existential crisis, where art and commerce constantly battle for dominance. On the heels of the Emmy nominated Apple TV+ series The Studio, Rogen talks about finding humor in the industry's dysfunction, and how his lifelong friendships shaped him as an artist. This interview comes from the podcast Talk Easy hosted by Sam Fragoso.  De...

Brendan Paul co-owns the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, which claims to be the site of the world's first Elvis-themed wedding. Dressed in sparkly jumpsuits, Brendan marries sometimes as many as 75 people a day—in back to back 15-minute appointments. But while his portrayal of Elvis is generally a jovialone, his view on The King's life isn't entirely one of reverence. "That loneliness, that...

Silvia Camila Muñoz and Bradley Bartell had been married for less than a year when ICE stopped them at the airport on the way back from their honeymoon in Puerto Rico. Silvia Camila came to the United States in 2019 to work at a Wisconsin waterpark for one season. The pandemic caused her to overstay her visa and continue to work without authorization. That’s when she met Bradley, a local factory w...

Ray Christian joined the U.S. Army in 1978, as a way to get his life started. He became a paratrooper, an infantryman, and a drill sergeant. He also endured trauma and found that getting out of the service was more challenging than he expected.  This week, Ray discusses why he signed up in the first place, what it was like serving in-between major conflicts, and how he eventually transitioned into...

Alexandra Paul always loved connecting with fans. She had many, from her breakout role in the 1983 horror film Christine to her years playing a lifeguard on Baywatch . In 2011, Paul's career was slowing down, but it was also the year that she met her biggest fan: a woman who would come to stalk her for over a decade, costing Paul tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills, strain on her family, a...

On June 11th, actress Allison Williams joined Anna live onstage at the Tribeca Festival in New York City for a conversation that was equal parts introspective and hilarious. Allison talked about everything from botox and how it impacts her work (and the faces she’s able to make to her young son) to her very complicated and controversial film and TV characters, like the famously maligned Marnie fro...

In 2018, we followed eight listeners as they dated over the course of the summer. We heard about having sex for the first time, being ghosted, downloading and deleting dating apps, and grieving one partner while falling in love with someone new. In this episode, you’ll hear the final check-in with our eight daters (you can listen to the first and second episode here).  Death, Sex & Money is no...

At a time when inflation, tariffs, and stock market fluctuations are creating confusion and financial strain, we’ve assembled an unlikely panel of experts to answer your money questions, big and small.  Our panel includes: Bethel Habte, a financial coach and author of the Deconstructing Money newsletter; Mark Blythe, economics professor at Brown University and author of Inflation: A Guide for User...

Long before Celine Song was nominated for an Academy Award for her directorial debut, Past Lives , she was a struggling playwright in New York City with a side hustle: matchmaking. In this episode, Celine talks about how that experience inspired the plot of her new A24 movie, Materialists , starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal. This podcast was produced by Zoe Azulay.  Death, Sex...