Podcasts are the platform du jour for just about everyone who’s anyone. In a world that feels lonelier than ever, it’s only natural to want to hear from familiar, trusted voices who are willing to process everything from birth and death to TV shows to the latest pop culture happenings. Thankfully, Emmy-winning host and comedian Samantha Bee has a brand-new podcast called Choice Words With Samantha Bee to keep us company.
During her seven seasons as host and executive producer of the TBS late-night feminist force that was Full Frontal (which netted her 12 Emmy nominations and two wins) — and 12 years as the longest regular correspondent on The Daily Show during Jon Stewart’s tenure — Samantha Bee established herself in the zeitgeist as a voice to reckon with. With Choice Words, the Toronto native brings plenty more than pipes, charisma, curiosity, and compelling interview subjects to the podcast game — she brings a well-honed, fine-tuned, crystal-clear POV about what matters most to women and those who love them.
After Full Frontal was canceled — the day before the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, of all days — Bee took some time to consider her next move. “It felt like we had more stuff to say, so I was kind of like, ‘Uh-oh! What am I going to do?’” Bee tells Shondaland while on tour for her new live show, Your Favorite Woman (more about that later). “If this is a new phase of life, what are the things that are important to me? What are the things that I love to do? What are the skills that I’d like to take away from years and years of experience? What are the things that I love to do that I want to continue doing, that I will continue to do whether someone pays me or not?”
Her “pure love” of podcasts (she listens to The Daily religiously) and talking to people manifested into Choice Words. “I’m curious about people. I want to know their secrets, I want to know how they got to where they are,” Bee explains. “I personally would say I’ve adjusted to a big bunch of choices in my own life, so it got me thinking, ‘Wouldn’t I love to know about how other people came to the places they are at?’” The podcast uses those Sliding Doors moments, those crossroads in life that demand us to choose between paths, as a springboard for meaningful conversation with her guests. “I read recently that the average person makes 35,000 decisions per day, and I mean, that bears out for me,” says Bee. “There are pivot points in your life that can change everything for the better or for the worse. It’s such a great opening to a conversation, to be honest. It’s just a good way to start a really robust conversation about what people are made of.”
Indeed, the beauty of using the idea of crossroads as a springboard brings a built-in redemption arc to every story. “It’s the best feeling ever to have a great conversation with someone and walk away feeling more full, like my heart filled up a little bit,” Bee says. “It’s a gift, talking to cool people. I guess there are people who do, but almost no one sets themselves up on a course at the age of 5 and then just pursues that dream to the end with great success. That’s a boring conversation. No one talks to that person!”
Bee finds the roadblocks we sometimes crash into on our chosen paths especially compelling. “Everybody has made big swings of things that have failed — I love hearing about when people fail at something,” Bee elaborates. “It makes me feel so much better about my own! It’s like, how did you take that failure? How did it sit with you? How did you turn it around, or did you live in it, and what did that do? How did that resonate with you? How does the ripple effect live with you and change who you are — or not?”
Choice Words, produced by Lemonada Media, caused Bee to reflect on some formative crossroads of her own. “When I was a teenager, I was kind of a criminal for a while,” she explains. “In my early teens, I had a bad boyfriend who would steal cars, and I did it with him. It’s not something I’m proud of, but there was a moment in my mid-teens when I literally woke up one day and decided not to do that anymore, almost like waking up in someone else’s life and literally making the decision to cut that out of my heart completely and change everything about myself. And I did! That day, I went: This is not my life. I don’t want to do this — this is not sustainable for me. Who am I right now? What am I going to do? I remember it so well! I think life could’ve turned out so differently if I hadn’t been blessed with this weird revelation right after my 16th birthday, you know?”
Some of Bee’s illustrious guests, including Judy Blume, Rosie O’Donnell, Judd Apatow, and the mother-daughter duo of Diane Ladd and Laura Dern, shared their own stories that often surprised her. “It surprised me that Judd Apatow also had a criminal teenage life,” Bee laughs. “That was really funny to me. And his crimes were creative — much more creative than mine were! Rosie was great. She’s such a great talker. She totally drew me in fast. I feel like we were three sentences into our conversation, and I had tears in my eyes. And Judy Blume! She’s so meaningful in my life, and she’s so organically meaningful to my children’s lives. She spoke with great candor. She’s very open, really fun, and raw in a conversation — she’s not afraid to talk and say true things. I love that! The story of how she became an author is amazing to me. No one supported her work, ever! Her first husband was like, ‘I’ve sent your stories to a prominent children’s book author who wants to talk about this with you.’ That author sat down with her and was like, ‘You have no talent.’ She was like, ‘Well, f--k all of you!’ It’s such a horror story!”
Bee’s ability to elicit these personal, profound stories from her guests is, perhaps, a welcomed reprieve for someone who, while on Full Frontal, mightily bore the burden of serving as a conduit for our weekly catharsis. She lent a voice to our innermost thoughts and fears about what it means to be female in this country, and so many of us processed myriad frustrations and atrocities with her in real time. “We’re proud to have made television history in a couple of different categories,” Bee says when asked about Full Frontal’s impact. “I got to say the things I wanted to say. It was a really uniquely ballsy show. We were pretty untethered. I actually think you’d be hard-pressed to find a television show right now that could speak so openly and truthfully. There’s been a real pushback against that, actually. I don’t know what’s going to come along in the very near future that would take as many risks. I never thought we’d be on the air that long, so I wanted to take as many risks and say as many true things as possible before I eventually got canceled. That ended up being about seven years’ worth, and I think that’s a miracle, really. It’s actually amazing to me how much we talked about abortion and Roe and all that stuff. It’s so much more in the public consciousness now. I’m so happy to have been a part of normalizing health care. I’m proud to have put a stake in the ground and have planted a flag on certain issues that mean a lot to me. Now I’ll do that in a podcast form.”
During Full Frontal, it wasn’t always easy for Bee, her writers, and her co-hosts to find humor in some of the political travesties they commented on. “That was always a challenge with the show,” she admitted. “We often didn’t feel like it. To be perfectly honest, we had to rally the troops a lot. We had to acknowledge that we needed to think about an issue happening in the moment, and nobody wanted to — including me. You got tired. It felt like we were shrieking into the void. We’re a political comedy show, and we follow the news cycles; we’re a topical show, and this is the topic. It’s got us all mad. We’d be like, can’t we just do a show where we crack an egg on a celebrity’s forehead? But it felt like we had a unique platform and opportunity, and you don’t want to squander that.”
Despite the grueling nature of the work, Bee remained committed, even expanding her platform via another podcast, Full Release, which was a natural extension of Full Frontal. “It was nothing more complicated than I truly loved making it so much — it was always a pleasure,” she says. “I think making the TV show was incredible, and it was stressful, funny, creative, and a lot of different things all at once, but I never felt stressed out doing Full Release. I never regretted sitting down and doing an interview. What is left in life but to speak the truth as I know it, speak from the heart, have a good time, and have a smile on my face?”
On the topic of chatting with people, Bee is thrilled to be engaging with live audiences again while touring the country with Your Favorite Woman, her one-woman show. “This is so new to me — I’ve never toured a show before!” she says. “It feels like an elegant communion. I really missed meeting people from all over the country. Once the pandemic hit Full Frontal, we never had an audience again. We switched studios, and we didn’t go back to having a live audience at the end. Even standing onstage kind of separate from everyone, I always felt like it was a very shared experience of something. I always really felt and loved and appreciated the presence of the audience, and tried to make it feel special for them. I tried to show them their presence was meaningful to the content, and the way it was delivered was we were in this together.”
Her goal is to bring a “we’re in this together” vibe to Your Favorite Woman, a show that’s “really personal,” she says. “There’s something about being live in front of an audience that makes me almost feel like a whole person. I feel their release. It’s pretty raucous. I talk a lot about menopause. I feel the audience clench and release multiple times through the show. It’s like surfing the biggest wave. It’s so fun just to be in a room that understands what perimenopause is and people who are ready to f--king laugh about it because menopause is comedy. It’s ridiculous! Fifty percent of the population is going to experience it no matter what, so why is this not something we are happy and proud to talk about at any given moment? People are still squeamish about it, and the only way to break that is to talk about it constantly.” With Choice Words, we can’t wait for Bee to pick up — and drop — her mic as much as she wants.
Vivian Manning-Schaffel is a multifaceted storyteller whose work has been featured in The Cut, NBC News Better, Time Out New York, Medium, and The Week. Follow her on Twitter @soapboxdirty.
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