Death, Sex & Money

Chaim Levin and Benjy Unger desperately fought their attraction to other men by signing up for gay conversion therapy. They rejected the therapy together, but saved their friendship.

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Orange is the New Black's Diane Guerrero has been on her own since she was 14, when her parents were deported. What followed were years of financial and emotional struggle. 

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Your stories about life after near death. 

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Amanda's husband Sam had a lot of secrets, most of which she discovered after his death. That made grieving, and moving on, a lot more complicated.

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During times of big change, family often keeps us grounded. Meet the people who played that role for Rosie Perez, Hari Kondabolu and Mahershala Ali, from our live show in Brooklyn.

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Danny Oquendo put his life on hold when his half brother, Avonte, disappeared from his New York City school in 2013. Three years later, his life is dramatically different.

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Susanne and Mike met and fell in love with each other...and heroin. They stuck together through addiction and recovery, but things haven't fallen into place the way they had hoped.

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Comedian Michael Ian Black has been steadily building his career since the '90s. But he says he's tired of not finding mainstream success. 

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You've been sending us your anthems of change. Now, we want to see you rock out to them. 

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At 63 years old, musician Lucinda Williams is more successful than ever. But with age has come a lot of loss.

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Jeb Corliss is a BASE jumper and wingsuit flier who's learned to very carefully control his emotions. It's made him fearless and, he says, "impossible to be in a relationship with."

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Brooke Shields' two longest relationships have been with her career and with her mother. But she says she needed one to end for the other to thrive. 

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Living alone has its perks: no one to tell you what to eat, how to decorate, or when to go to bed. But there's also no one to split the bills with.

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Last year, Rashema Melson became known as "the homeless valedictorian" with a full ride to Georgetown. Now a sophomore, she's tired of that label and is questioning where she belongs.

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When we posted an article on Facebook about deciding to have children, Diane Gill Morris told us, "If someone had told me this is what it’d be like, I never would have had kids."

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Actress Holland Taylor built a reputation by playing self-assured characters who keep others at a distance. But at 72, she's finally ready to take a chance on love. 

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We asked you why you're not having sex—right now, or ever. These are your stories. 

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In this episode taped before a live audience in New York, writer and original Real World cast member Kevin Powell talks about confronting the anger and violent impulses in his past. 

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The 93-year-old writer and producer behind shows like The Jeffersons and All in the Family talks about his childhood and how it shaped the way he's raised his own six kids.

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On the air, Yesi Ortiz is a warm, flirty host for a popular L.A. hip hop station. Off the air, she's a single mother of six adopted kids. Managing both roles is a more than a challenge.

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Dr. Jonathan Clark lost his wife, astronaut Laurel Clark, in the 2003 Columbia space shuttle explosion. As he grieved, he also learned how to be a single parent to their son. 

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Emma's a single mom and supports her family with the income she makes from sex work. The money's good. But she struggles with the secrecy, and the shame.

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For 44 years, Sonia Manzano explained letters, numbers, and life to kids on Sesame Street. But her own childhood left her with a lot of questions that lingered into adulthood.

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Dr. Jeffrey Rouse is the Orleans Parish coroner—a job he describes as the “interface between law and medicine.” A decade ago, he was preparing for a life in academia, not public office. 

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Dr. Kiersta Kurtz-Burke spent Hurricane Katrina inside New Orleans’ Charity Hospital. Now that she's got two kids, she keeps her gas tank full in case they need to evacuate.

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Big Freedia is a reality TV star and fixture on New Orleans' bounce scene. But days after Hurricane Katrina, she was sleeping on the street outside of the city's convention center.

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Simone Bruni started her career in hospitality, and dreamed of eventually being a stay-at-home mom. But when Katrina hit, she was 32 and single. So she started a demolition company. 

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When Katrina hit, Terri Coleman was a troublemaker—burning cars and getting stoned. She recalls, “The storm allow[ed] my weird adolescent destruction to be socially acceptable.”

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Cindy Chupack came into her second marriage with a house on the beach and an Emmy. Her husband came in with a lot of debt.

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As her Grammy-winning duo The Civil Wars was publicly falling apart, Joy Williams was privately dealing with a rocky patch in her marriage, a new baby and her father's cancer diagnosis.

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We check in with Caleb Wilde, the sixth-generation Pennsylvania funeral director who told me about his struggle with depression last year. 

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After hearing from more than 200 listeners about their siblings, it's clear that the people we spend our childhoods with aren't the easiest ones to act like adults toward.

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Ken Eurell became a cop for the steady paycheck. Then, he figured out how to make money by stealing from crime scenes, taking payoffs from drug dealers, and selling cocaine. 

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We gathered two married couples, one Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, a dog, a rock band, and a turquoise couch onstage for our first ever live show. Hear what went down.

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After a dozen albums, Texas country musician Robert Earl Keen doesn't chase sex or booze like a younger rock star, but he does pay his band salaries with retirement benefits.

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Heidi Reinberg left New York after thirty years because she was priced out of her Brooklyn apartment. A year later, she's back in her old neighborhood, with a 25 year-old roommate.

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After his television show Totally Biased was cancelled, comedian W. Kamau Bell is balancing the work of rebuilding his career, earning enough money and being a dependable family man.

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John Cameron Mitchell created Hedwig and the Angry Inch when he in his 30s. Now he's playing the title role on Broadway, and says aging and loss have given the show new meaning.

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Giulia Lukach was three years into her marriage when she began experiencing symptoms of bipolar disorder. She and her husband talk about how her illness has reshaped their marriage. 

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After years of working as a physician, Ken Jeong quit to pursue acting. Then his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and he found himself needing to think like a doctor again.

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You've heard Lisa Fischer singing backup vocals for everyone from the Rolling Stones to Beyoncé. But after decades of touring with rock stars, Fischer lives in a far more humble reality.

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There's the cliche: someone cheats, crockery is thrown, lawyers are called. But your stories about cheating were much more varied, with some unpredictable conclusions. 

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Sometimes love fits neatly on a card. Sometimes, it spills over into rehab, divorce, or a call from a former Wyoming senator. 

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Teddy and Kami Thompson followed in the footsteps of their musical parents, Richard and Linda Thompson. But they remember their childhood and its lessons about family very differently.

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Comedian Margaret Cho frequently jokes about her wild sexual adventures. But now she says she wants something less X-rated and more like a middle school romance. 

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Akhavan’s debut feature film, Appropriate Behavior, mines the details of her own life—particularly the most uncomfortable moments. It also earned her a spot on this season of Girls.

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Living alone has its perks: no one to tell you what to eat, how to decorate, or when to go to bed. But there's also no one to split the bills with. 

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Lawrence Bartley has been in prison for 23 years on a murder charge. Now, he's wondering what he'll say to the parole board—and to his sons, who are still too young to know of his past.

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Liam and Marisa fell in love as college students. Then, Liam began his gender transition. Here, they speak candidly about staying committed through serious change.

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The best-selling author of The Color of Water lived large, and he lost his creative focus. Now, he drives a pickup and teaches music in Brooklyn, and he's happier than he's ever been.

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