Rerelease: Nikki Glaser

Summary

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Rerelease: Nikki Glaser
Release Date: Dec 31, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this deeply candid, laugh-out-loud episode, Dax Shepard and Monica Padman sit down with comedian, actor, and television host Nikki Glaser. The conversation explores themes of vulnerability, imposter syndrome, body image, addiction, and the nuanced messiness of being human, particularly in the entertainment industry. Nikki opens up about her insecurities, her journey with sobriety and eating disorders, her experiences with fame (including a much-discussed joke at the Golden Globes), and her perspective on growth and apology—especially how she made amends with Taylor Swift. The episode ebbs and flows between self-deprecating humor, profound insight, and relatable confessions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Imposter Syndrome, Performance Anxiety & Preparation

• Nikki shares the anxiety she feels before high-stakes events, often stacking her commitments to avoid overthinking:

  “Everything in my life is five minutes before every appointment. My assistant will be like, do you want 30 minutes between that? I go for what, to think about what I’ve just done?”
  —Nikki Glaser (05:14)

• Dax reflects on preparing for interviews (like Howard Stern) and managing personal insecurities during public events.
• The paradox of preparation:

  “I tend to under prepare so that when it goes poorly, I have an excuse.”
  —Nikki (05:57)

2. Navigating Roasts, Jokes, and Celebrity Feelings

• Dax and Nikki recount Golden Globes material and mutual anxiety about being roasted or offending others:
  • Nikki explains she cut a planned joke about Dax because it didn’t land as intended, reflecting sensitivity to others’ feelings.
  • Dax’s internal dialogue:

    “No one is as mean to me as me.”
    —Dax Shepard (08:27)

  • Discussing the fine line between comedic roasting and genuine hurt, and how both have learned from past gigs about the impact of their humor.

3. Insecurity, Body Image, and the Human Condition

• Everyone feels ugly sometimes:

  “There's nothing worse than feeling ugly. And I feel ugly a lot too.”
  —Nikki (10:13)

• Nikki’s childhood stories: bullied for teeth and appearance, leading to a desire to be invisible in school.
• The pressure to “fix” perceived flaws with cosmetic procedures and the cultural baggage attached to beauty.

4. Belonging & Self-Worth in Fame

• Imposter syndrome even at the top—from award shows to TV gigs, Nikki and Dax ruminate on never feeling like they truly belong.
• Notable exchange:

  “I can't accomplish enough to not feel that way 100%.”
  —Dax (11:24) “I was hosting the Golden Globes and was like, I’m a fraud. I don’t belong here.”
  —Nikki (11:47)

5. Asking for Things, Support Systems, and Emotional Patterns

• Dax explains his learned reluctance to ask for help due to childhood family dynamics (single mom, being self-sufficient).
• Nikki counters:

  "Everyone needs people, you guys, everyone needs. And people like being asked for things."
  —Nikki (14:46)

• The trio dissects why it's so hard to accept support and how needing things from others isn't a moral failing.

6. The Desperate Pursuit of Validation & The Cost of Fame

• Award show hangover: Nikki admits feeling low after “magical” nights, noticing the shared insecurity even among the most famous.
• Fame as a reflection of self-worth: Nikki discusses her early fixation on being on TV to prove she was “extraordinary.”
• The dangers of seeking validation externally—from looks, talent, or career milestones.

7. Addiction, Sobriety, and Self-Acceptance

• Nikki’s journey:
  • Used Alan Carr's “The Easy Way” to quit smoking and drinking.
  • Details her battle with eating disorders and the transition from anorexia to binge eating.
  • The importance of honest self-assessment and community (12-step) support.
• Dax reflects on addiction, recognizing that giving up substances is just the beginning—the reasons underneath must be addressed.

8. Apology, Regret, and Making Amends (Taylor Swift Story)

• Nikki publicly apologizes after becoming part of a negative montage in Taylor Swift’s documentary, realizing how jealousy and insecurity colored her words.
• Taylor’s compassionate response:

  "Wow, I appreciate this so much. One of the major themes of the doc is that we have the ability to change our opinions over time, to grow to learn about ourselves. I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve struggled with some of the same things I’ve struggled with."
  —Taylor Swift (112:24)

• Nikki finds freedom in admitting flaws:

  "I love apologizing now when I can really get down to why it happened and own it."
  —Nikki (68:32)

9. Comedy as Catharsis & Empathy

• The relationship between insecurity and humor:

  "You almost need to be insecure to be funny in this way…You have to have them to be able to spot them in other people."
  —Dax (22:05)

• Nikki shares she only “burns” people if she knows there’s consent (roasts, invites), and tends to avoid mean jokes unless they're gentle or have been cleared with the target.

10. Growth and the Joys of Aging

• The panel reflects on how age brings perspective and, sometimes, relief from the desire to please or impress.
• Nikki on hard work:

  "The difference between great and good is just hard work. Someone can be great, and some people are just naturals, but mostly anyone can reach those levels if you just work hard enough."
  —Nikki (56:53)

• Dax notes that, over time, the “freedom as a dude” means less obsession with appearance, but recognizes this is changing for men too.

11. The Universality of Human Messiness

• Final reflection: As vulnerable as Nikki and Dax are about their insecurities, shortcomings, and obsessive thoughts, the message is clear—these struggles are what make them (and us) human, relatable, and connected.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the cruelty of self-talk:

  “I’ve bullied myself more than anyone possibly could.”
  —Nikki (08:35)

• On imposter syndrome at the Golden Globes:

  "I'm embarrassed these people even have to listen to me. These are all a-listers. Ralph Fiennes has to know my name now."
  —Nikki (11:47)

• On belonging:

  “You can't help that we feel that way…That's your own feeling.”
  —Nikki (10:27)

• On apologizing to Taylor Swift:

  “...She just got it. She only got what I was doing. And I love apologizing now when I can really get down to why it happened and own it and be like, I was just insecure. I was jealous that you're thin. I want to be your friend. I didn't see myself fitting in and I lashed out.”
  —Nikki (68:32)

• On comedy and insecurity:

  “When I write roasts, I'm like, what would I want not said about me? And how do I say that about someone else?”
  —Nikki (22:29)

• On addiction recovery:

  “For me, I could have maybe white knuckled it over the last 20 years, but I would have missed out on so much shit. Learning how to be honest with myself. Learning what my fears were. Learning how to say sorry to people.”
  —Dax (77:51)

• On letting go of perfection:

  “The more exhausting it gets to be anyone but myself, the better. For me, that is the best thing about aging...”
  —Nikki (72:00)

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Significant Timestamps

• 04:12 — Nikki opens up about pre-interview anxiety and imposter syndrome.
• 07:11 — Dax worries about Nikki’s jokes at the Golden Globes.
• 14:15 — Dax discusses his aversion to asking people for things; Nikki insists people like being asked.
• 21:00 — Nikki describes the emotional toll of celebrity roasts.
• 41:06 — Nikki confides her childhood dream: fame as a marker of worth.
• 43:33 — Nikki recounts initial triggers leading to disordered eating.
• 54:30 — Dax and Nikki dissect a joke from Nikki’s special involving Dax.
• 66:13 — Nikki discusses her comments featured in the Taylor Swift documentary and the subsequent apology.
• 75:25 — Nikki describes using Alan Carr's “Easy Way” method for smoking and drinking cessation.
• 77:51 — Dax and Nikki discuss the purpose and benefits of 12-step and recovery programs.
• 83:47 — Nikki on selling out venues, imposter syndrome amid career highs.
• 105:15 — Monica and Dax discuss the phrase “gracious loser face” via Friends reference.

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Tone & Takeaways

The podcast maintains a vulnerable yet comedic tone, blending deep confessions with humor and camaraderie. Nikki Glaser proves refreshingly open about insecurities, flaws, and the loneliness that can accompany public success. Dax and Monica bring both empathy and humor, adding their perspectives on self-worth, recovery, and the ongoing search for belonging.

For Listeners:

If you haven’t listened, this episode will make you laugh, cringe with recognition, and walk away with new compassion for yourself and others grappling with human messiness. It’s a relatable, warm, and inspiring discussion about the paths to growth, accountability, and the glories of imperfection.

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For tour info and more on Nikki Glaser: nikkiglaser.com

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Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Wondry plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Modest Mouse.

[Monica Padman]

Hi.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you know Modest Mouse is going on tour this summer and I really want to see them.

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

They're not coming to the west coast.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, well, do you think they'll send us some merch? Because I would really love a shirt that says that.

[Dax Shepard]

Modest Mouse, will you send us some merch? We should just go buy some merchants. They were just here in the fall. I saw them. Oh, they were here in the fall? Yep. They did a good news tour. They're in a. They're doing a southern tour. I saw Asheville's on the list, so maybe while I'm in Nashville, I can go see them somewhere. Anyways, that's not who our guest is. It's not Modest Mouse. I do love Modest Mouse. Our guest is Nikki Glazer. This couldn't have been more fun. I am so delighted.

[Monica Padman]

So fun.

[Dax Shepard]

We decided to explore our history. Our history. It was so fun. I really, really, really like. She's a stand up comedian, an actor and a television host. Her credits include Nikki Glaser, someday you'll die. Great stand up routine. Fboy Island. Welcome home. Nikki Glaser. Not safe with Nikki Glaser Bangin and her tour. You can go see her right now live. She is coming by you. I've looked at the list. She's going everywhere. It's a huge tour. It's called Alive and Unwell tour. Go to Nikki Glazer.com for tickets and.

[Monica Padman]

She hosts of the Golden Globes G squared big event.

[Dax Shepard]

Please enjoy Nikki Glazer. We are supported by Apple Watch. All right, so here's a truth that made me feel way better about myself. Most people quit their New Year's fitness resolutions by the second Friday of January. They even call it Quitters Day, January 9th, which is wild. We all start the year with these big goals and then life happens, motivation fades, and we just quit. But here's the thing. This year, we're quitting quitting. An Apple watch is basically designed to not let you bail. It tracks your activities, sends you those little nudges when you haven't stood in a while, celebrates when you close your activity rings and keeps you accountable with streaks and reminders. It's like having a workout partner on your wrist that won't let you off the hook. So if you've been thinking about getting serious about your fitness goals or honestly just making it past January 9 this time, Apple Watch is the move. Let's do this. This is the year we all quit. Quitting iPhone 11 or later required. We are supported by quints. Winter in LA is weird. It'll be 75 degrees one day, then suddenly you need an actual coat. I've been rotating through the same three jackets for years, and honestly, they're looking rough. So I finally upgraded my winter wardrobe with quints. And the difference is wild. Their Mongolian cashmere sweaters are ridiculously soft. Like, I didn't know cashmere could feel this good without a mortgage payment. And their wool coats and Italian leather outerwear, they're the kind of pieces that actually last.

[Monica Padman]

They also have amazing homeware. Do not sleep on the homeware. And if someone's moving and you want to get them, like, a little housewarming gift, it's the perfect place. I got a friend some curtains.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you did?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, curtains, QCs, quince curtains do it.

[Dax Shepard]

What I love about Quince is they cut out the middleman. Bye. Bye. They work directly with factories and have ethical production standards. So you're getting luxury quality without the luxury market markup. We're talking premium materials, thoughtful design stuff that'll last you multiple winners, not just one. Refresh your winter wardrobe with quince. Go to quince.comdax for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.comdax free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comdax he's an option.

[Nikki Glaser]

In the hours and days before a podcast like this, I'm like, oh, people are just having to study me right now.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Does it make you nervous?

[Nikki Glaser]

No. It makes me feel bad because I have imposter syndrome that I'm not good. And I'm like, he's gonna know that I'm not good now.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

If he pays too much attention, he's gonna figure out that I'm a frog between the lines. Yes. If you just look at the things that are posted, you're like, oh, she's talented. But if you, like, get into it, you might, like.

[Dax Shepard]

Let me ask you, just a baseline. How nervous do you get for things? Obviously, you're brave as fuck. You go on stage. But, like, when you go to Stern, and I'm not comparing myself to that, just what's the nerves out of 10 for Stern.

[Nikki Glaser]

Well, I kind of set things up so that I can't be. Because I'm so worried about the roast or I'm so worried about the Globes that it's almost like, oh, I have to do Stern too. So it kind of takes away from that.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. You don't even have an opportunity to spin out about it because it's just too much shit's in front of you.

[Nikki Glaser]

I love when things happen last minute or they kind of just are thrust upon you. I don't like to have a lot of time to think about things. When I do, I freak out. So everything in my life is five minutes before every appointment. My assistant will be like, do you want 30 minutes between that? I go for what to think about what I've just done.

[Monica Padman]

So no.

[Nikki Glaser]

Everything's stacked.

[Dax Shepard]

The first time I did Stern, I laid in bed that night anticipating every single conceivable question. Whoa. And then planning what my response would be.

[Nikki Glaser]

That's good. I think.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, it was in some way. Cause I went in knowing, okay, I've slept with some famous women. I know he's gonna wanna talk about that. I have to have a game plan for that. I'm obviously not gonna talk about it, but I don't wanna piss him off or disappoint him.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah. You wanna be a fun guest.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. So what worked was I was like, I'm gonna pivot to addiction every time. Cause I know he also loves that. And I'm happy to give him that. And that's just me.

[Nikki Glaser]

It's like, either talk about anal or your addictions and your neuroses.

[Dax Shepard]

Who's virgin?

[Nikki Glaser]

The same thing. Really? Truly. Yeah, they really are. They're connected. Yeah, they're all connected. Absolutely. I tend to under prepare so that when it goes poorly, I have an excuse. I think that's also why I stack my life is so that I don't have time to prepare. So I always have an excuse for when I'm not good.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you have some kind of plausible deniability.

[Nikki Glaser]

But it never goes poorly. If I plan, planning does work. I should just do that.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you do what I do? Which is. And we'll go right to it. When I had heard. Did you hear us talking about the Golden Globes thing?

[Nikki Glaser]

I don't like to hear people talking about me, so I did listen. But I heard it was talked about almost.

[Dax Shepard]

You have to. Because people never relay it the same. I'll hear like, so and so was shit talking you. And then I listened to it. I'M like, that's not really what happened.

[Nikki Glaser]

No, you should listen back.

[Dax Shepard]

So my experience was bumping into Jesse Eisenberg, him telling me, did you hear we were in the New York Times yesterday? And I'm like, no, I didn't know we were in the New York Times. And he said, yes. Apparently, Nikki had written two jokes that were too hot for tv.

[Nikki Glaser]

Too hot.

[Dax Shepard]

And it was in the New York Times. So I returned to my seat before the monologue starts, and I'm thinking, she's gonna f me up hardcore. I'm sure the version she backed off of is still gonna destroy my feelings. So I. Hold on, hold on. This is not to make you feel guilty.

[Nikki Glaser]

No. I hate that you were, like, bracing for impact.

[Dax Shepard]

It was more like, I have to have a response that doesn't make me look like an asshole.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I've got to somehow find the humor in whatever mean thing she says about me.

[Monica Padman]

Gracious loser face, they call.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, graciously. So I'm, like, almost practicing.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, God.

[Dax Shepard]

Suffice to say, the whole monologue, every time it was about me, I was like, oh, okay. Whew. So nothing happened. Then reality hits you, and you're like, of course nothing happened. There's so many bigger people in this room to make a joke about. Why on earth would she even make one about me?

[Nikki Glaser]

That's not why I didn't.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. All to say, you do do Stern the following day. And then I started seeing in the comments of our episode that day, like, did you hear Nikki's joke about you? And I wrote to several people, no. And I hope to never hear it. But you must know what I then crafted in my head that your joke was, they were so fucking mean. They hurt so bad, because they were my deepest insecurities. And three days goes by, and Kristen finally went and listened. And she came in, she goes, the joke's nothing. Is that you were gonna ask everyone to be on your podcast. And I was like, oh, my God. Where my mind was at.

[Nikki Glaser]

This is the worst part of my job, is that I make people feel this way.

[Monica Padman]

I wanna hear that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. None of that is to make you feel bad.

[Nikki Glaser]

No, no, no. I'm not taking it like that.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, good. This is all the racket in my head.

[Nikki Glaser]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

And so when I'm about to do Stern, I'm also preparing for things he's not gonna say to me, because no one is as mean to me as me.

[Nikki Glaser]

No one. Sometimes, okay, the Internet exists. I will say that sometimes I've done a roast and they'll find something about me that I'm like, I thought that was just a me thing that I say to my friends. And they go, no one else sees that about you. And then someone else has seen it. And so sometimes it can hurt a lot. But generally, I've bullied myself more than anyone possibly could. But that joke, the reason I didn't do it, you know, the joke was everyone from TV and movies come together for one common goal, to get out of here without Dax asking them to do their podcast.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a great joke.

[Nikki Glaser]

Okay, first of all, it doesn't work because everyone does want to do your podcast. So I was testing it out around town, and because you're not known as a podcast, that's like, oh, I gotta go do this. It's funny because your name is great. It adds a good joke texture. That sounds like a vape company. It's got a good mouth feel.

[Dax Shepard]

What did you say? Sounds like a vape company.

[Nikki Glaser]

Sounds like a brand of vape. We were really trying to rack our brains of who's a celebrity in that room, who people are trying to avoid a conversation with. And I don't even think we landed on it.

[Dax Shepard]

When I heard that was the joke, it didn't bother me at all because it's a shortcoming of mine that I won't invite anyone on, right? Because I'm so afraid they think I'm opportunistic. And then secondly, several people there had come up to me very nicely and said, I just want you to know that was one of my favorite interviews. So my self esteem in that category was so filled that it didn't bother me at all. But when it was going to be that I was too ugly to be with her and I'm riding her coattails and all these fears I have that.

[Nikki Glaser]

People think about me, oh, my God. Well, you're so.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm preparing for that. In my defense, there were many, many buzzfeedy type things of top 10 ugly guys with hot girls. And I.

[Nikki Glaser]

Why is that?

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so I just went to. Well, that's probably what's coming my way. You don't owe me an apology because you didn't do the things I was.

[Nikki Glaser]

Sorry that you gotta deal with that chick. There's nothing worse than feeling ugly. And I feel ugly a lot too. And for me to hear you say you feel ugly is probably the way that people feel when I say it, because I know I'm not like a total dog.

[Dax Shepard]

Neither of us are monsters, but we.

[Nikki Glaser]

Can'T Help that we feel that way. Because to me, I'm like, how could he feel ugly? But I don't get to tell you, you don't get to feel ugly because that's your own feeling. I wouldn't make an ugly joke about someone that was actually ug feel like is the thing. But you don't realize that people who aren't ugly feel ugly. So when you make the joke that you go, I only said you were fat because you're not or whatever it is.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Nikki Glaser]

But everyone feels these things that anyone else would say, no way, you are.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, the two things I hope that got to you were a. I thought you did a brilliant job.

[Nikki Glaser]

Thanks.

[Dax Shepard]

You did such a good job. And your jokes were so fucking fun.

[Nikki Glaser]

Even though you were probably blacked out during the whole thing. Just waiting.

[Dax Shepard]

It was like waves of relief.

[Nikki Glaser]

I know that feeling of they're going to say something about me and just waiting. You can't even hear. You're just kind of like.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm even self conscious that when they go to her for her category, I'm like, this is such a rough look for me to just kind of be half in or out of the frame.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah, what's wrong?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I'm like, should I bail out or should I commit fully? We're here together. I don't belong there. You know all these thoughts, oh, feeling.

[Nikki Glaser]

Like you don't belong there when you're a plus one. If it's your wife.

[Dax Shepard]

I can't accomplish enough to not feel that way 100%.

[Nikki Glaser]

I was at the Grammys last night and I felt that way.

[Dax Shepard]

I wanted to ask.

[Monica Padman]

You had a whole bit there, though.

[Nikki Glaser]

You had to rip off Benson Boone's claws. That was great.

[Dax Shepard]

But I almost wondered if you're relieved of it there. I feel like I could go to the Grammys and be fine. I don't belong there. Yeah, it's the. I almost belong there do. I don't.

[Nikki Glaser]

I could belong here, but I wasn't really.

[Dax Shepard]

Sometimes I did belong here, but I don't think anybody.

[Nikki Glaser]

I was hosting the Golden Globes and was like, I'm a fraud. I don't belong here. I'm embarrassed these people even have to listen to me. These are all a listers. Ralph Fiennes has to know my name now. My name is taking space up in Ralph Fiennes brain. Angelina Jolie had to, like, sit there and listen to me for nine minutes. When you start thinking about things like that, you're like, who am I to beg for these people's attention. Even backstage after I perform, I never really want to see the crowd because I feel like they will feel like they have to say good job if they don't want to. And then if they don't say good job, I'm like, what the.

[Dax Shepard]

You actually get great at delineating the difference between an obligatory good job and the real one.

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And now your standard of what a real one is becomes preposterous.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes. And there's almost nothing good enough that.

[Dax Shepard]

Anyone can say, I want to send you at some point. Someone sent me. It's great. It's from Garrison Keillor. And he talks about his faux humility. What a ruse it is. Because not only does he want people to talk about him and think about him, but he actually wants them to kneel and pray to him as a sun God that that's really what his ego desires. You just need to be a sun God or not even play the game.

[Nikki Glaser]

Nothing. Sun God or bust. Please send that to me. Because it's so nice when you find that other people feel these exact same things that you feel. So ridiculous feeling grody. I was backstage. The next presenter would be backstage as well, you know, Nicolas Cage or Harrison Ford. And I would stand at the bottom. They were like, you need to go up the steps. You're introducing them. And I go. I just stay down here because I don't want them to have to go, oh, yeah, good job. Like, they can't say nothing. They're gonna feel obligated to say something. Even when I'm on stage, I won't look people in the eye because I feel like when you do, they have to go, ha. I don't want to coerce someone into saying good job. I want them to have to, like, go out of their way or because they want to.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm doing all those tabulations too. How exhausting.

[Monica Padman]

So I, of course, got so many texts, and it was like, did you see Stern? I was like, whoa. God, I really hope he didn't see it. Also, Dax is obsessed with.

[Nikki Glaser]

Stern is his idol. Okay. I didn't realize that.

[Monica Padman]

I, too, went to watch, and I was like, oh, this is fine. But then I was annoyed because I was like, he actually doesn't do this, and now he's gonna do it even less, and I need him to do it.

[Nikki Glaser]

Exactly.

[Monica Padman]

And I DMed her. And I was like, hey, we really wanna have you on. Also, Dax isn't the one asking people. It's me.

[Nikki Glaser]

Come on. That's why the joke didn't work. I got the sense that that's not how you operate at all. And why don't you operate that way? This is one of the biggest things you can be on. Do you not realize that or do you just still feel like despite it, they still don't want to?

[Dax Shepard]

It's my foundation. Single mother, three kids. Everyone needs something. She doesn't have enough time. The way you showed people you love them is to never, ever, ever be a drain on them in any way whatsoever. The way you would show love is to be completely self sufficient and never need anything from you. This is a big issue in my marriage, which is she likes acts of service. And I'm like, me wanting you to do something for me to me reads is like, I don't even love you or value you. So I don't want to be be a pain in the ass to anybody. To a fault. Me needing things from you and favors. There's no way you would like me.

[Nikki Glaser]

Everyone needs people, you guys, everyone needs. And people like being asked for things.

[Dax Shepard]

I like being asked.

[Nikki Glaser]

I do too. So why do we think people are different than us?

[Dax Shepard]

Listen, I don't want to pretend that I've made no movement on this. I have. It started in a personal capacity where I'm really spinning out about something. I'm just now learning to reach out to someone who's been through this and say, like, hey, I'm going through this. What was your experience?

[Nikki Glaser]

People love that. Yes, I love it too. Everyone wants to be the sun God that people are asking. They really do. Well, last night I was at the Grammys. I feel like I don't belong there. I don't want people even noticing me to go like, why is she here? Even though I was nominated for a Grammy but I didn't win, I was so mad. I didn't win only because I wanted to bring my Grammy to hold it, to be like, I belong. I just wanted to have a reason to be there. So I was being very small. And then people were coming up to me, people I'm fans of. And my boyfriend had talked with me after. We were just kind of doing a debrief afterwards. He's like, I think you have to remember that you need to go up to people now. Next time you going up to someone will be the same gift as Olivia Rodrigo coming up to you. Because that was like the biggest gift of my life was someone I admire so much coming up to me to say she was a fan. He was like, but you could go give that to people. And I was like, I don't think of anyone thinking that they would want that from me. Did you talk to Taylor? I didn't. Everyone wants a piece. I will never be the one to be like, excuse me, ever. It's almost rude what I do when I'm in the same room as Taylor Swift because I won't even look her way.

[Monica Padman]

She's like, tapping you on the shoulder.

[Nikki Glaser]

It will take that because I just will never. And everyone goes. Go up and say something to her. No way that she's dying for that on a night like this where everyone's doing it. And of course she would be so nice. I know exactly how it would go down. But I don't want to take someone's energy away that I require their energy to be put into making great music. I don't want her to make a less great song because she had to be like, nice to meet you. Oh, and like, hold me as I'm crying. Give you the full swifty treatment. I can't bother her. I generally, after award shows, get pretty depressed, no matter what happens, because I'm around all these famous people that. That I put on a pedestal, and I kind of see the facade of it all and the desperation and they're all wearing uncomfortable clothes and have the fake hair in. And I'm like, we're all clamoring to be noticed and a little bit disappointed when we're not. It makes me a little bit sad. Cause I'm like, no matter how big you get, you kind of worry about who's in the room, who's looking at you, where you're seated. I kind of go through a depression afterwards.

[Dax Shepard]

It's seen the magic trick a bit. You realize, oh, there isn't any pixie dust.

[Nikki Glaser]

There is pixie dust. There's magical moments where you're like, wow, that person's so talented. They're so amazing. Just even watching Chapel Roan last night, Sabrina Carpenter Ray, who I had never heard of, but watching her was just transcendent.

[Dax Shepard]

Definitely musicians when they're doing their thing. And if you were watching the people in the room act, perhaps, yes. But you're just seeing them not lit in a. In a riveting drama, and they're just people.

[Monica Padman]

The reason I brought up the thing is because I wanted to do a full circle. And this is important to say because I was a little annoyed and I was upset on your behalf and upset on my behalf because I was like, ugh, this is going to be a problem for me. So. So Kristen is Hosting the SAG Awards.

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, my God, really?

[Monica Padman]

Yes. And she hosted them in 2018, and that's when I was her producing partner and creative partner. And so I wrote her monologue, and I did all that stuff for her then. And so she asked me to do that this time. So I went back to look at that original monologue. I kid you not. There is a joke that is about Marc Maron that Monica wrote that I wrote.

[Nikki Glaser]

We didn't have our show yet.

[Monica Padman]

That is literally the exact same joke.

[Nikki Glaser]

I loved that show.

[Monica Padman]

My jaw dropped. I had no memory of writing that joke. And also, I was like, this joke is fine, so that joke has to be fine.

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, that makes me feel so good.

[Monica Padman]

It doesn't mean anything.

[Dax Shepard]

And by the way, he killed his closeup. Kristin showed it to me. She's like, I mean, look at this. We did the same thing.

[Nikki Glaser]

It's so funny. That is. Makes me so happy.

[Monica Padman]

I was like, I wrote this exact same joke.

[Nikki Glaser]

It's so nice to hear that, because I think that happens all the time, where people get mad about something and you've just done it before, and no one will ever admit that they've done it before. But even when I get mad, everyone's such a hypocrite. Not that you were.

[Monica Padman]

No, I was.

[Nikki Glaser]

But unintentionally.

[Dax Shepard]

I hope that got to you in our debrief as well, which is as I was listening to the monologue, panicked that I was going to get made fun of. I was doing a personal inventory, and I was going, you have done this many times. I have been on Conan making fun of the cast of the Expendables because I had a movie coming out against them, and they're easy targets, and I can do all their accents. Maybe Sly was at home bummed. It's hard for me to imagine that, but maybe because, again, in that situation, I'm insignificant and I'm almost speaking in a vacuum. These people won't really hear me. And I was on Punk, where we put celebrities in very rough situations, and hopefully they acted poorly. And at no point did I act like I was above that. What I more was starting to feel was a kind of compassion for both of us.

[Nikki Glaser]

That's really nice.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to get invited to the party. And the way I got invited to the party was like, yeah, you can come to the party if you shit on these people. Unpunked. And I was like, okay, I'll do it.

[Nikki Glaser]

And then you get to the party, and the people you shit on are there for years.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm bumping into Timberlake, and he hates my guts. And I'm like, don't you understand, buddy? I was, like, dead broke, and that was my only chance.

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, my God. So he replaces you from that.

[Dax Shepard]

We've had him on and we talked it all through, but, yeah, I would see him for years, and it's like, yeah, that guy doesn't like me. And for good reason.

[Nikki Glaser]

You forget these people have feelings. And at Rose, I feel like everything's on the table because they've signed up for it.

[Dax Shepard]

We should make a distinction, because I heard you talking about it this morning, and it's great. You're like, Tom Brady's getting $25 million. He has consented.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Everyone that said yes to the Diaz, they. Am I saying it right?

[Nikki Glaser]

Diaz, The Deas. Yeah. Everyone who says yes to Cameron Diaz.

[Dax Shepard]

I go, is it the Diaz? And you go, yes, that's right, Deus.

[Nikki Glaser]

I just want to give you what you want.

[Dax Shepard]

Right back at you.

[Nikki Glaser]

Ultimately, that's going to track throughout this episode.

[Dax Shepard]

We have the same approach. There is consent. I have been invited to so many of those roasts, and I'm like, I just don't have thick enough skin. I'll just tell you, I can't handle it.

[Nikki Glaser]

Thank God. I don't even think about what's going to be said about me when I say yes to the roast. I put it out of my head. I did the Tom Brady one because it was like, tom Brady, I gotta do it. But the next roast that they threw at me, I was gonna say no to because I was like, I'm too old now. When I was 35, getting called old, it didn't hurt.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

I don't feel it.

[Monica Padman]

Not really.

[Nikki Glaser]

But at 40, I kind of feel it, and I'm starting to see it. I don't want anyone pointing out something about my face that I have to then go talk to someone about.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

In an office and have them draw on me and stare into my eyes and fix it. Which I've done and I continue to do. I just don't want people to pay too close of attention. But then the Tom Brady roast, you go, oh, good. I'm not the most famous person here. There won't be that many jokes about me, and that's how it ended up. But the next one, I feel like I'm a little bit more.

[Dax Shepard]

Bigger target.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah. Bigger target next time. So it's going to have to be someone really, really good for me to do it again. It hurts a lot.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm one of the only people who didn't watch the Tom Brady roast because I can't even enjoy watching it. I just think of myself hearing that. I'm very sensitive.

[Nikki Glaser]

I don't read any comments about myself. I've been sober from comments which I think should be a thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

I don't think the general public has too many trolls in their comments, but if you're a celebrity, you probably know you're a troll.

[Dax Shepard]

Or if you're a civilian, you prob work with that.

[Nikki Glaser]

You should have blocked your boyfriend's ex girlfriend ages ago. That's just a simple block. But I can post things now and not go back. How many likes does it have? Because I just go, it's none of your business anymore. And you don't get to read anything because I can't handle it. It will destroy me.

[Dax Shepard]

You almost need to be insecure to be funny in this way. The jock at my school never had a good burn on anybody in the prom Queen. Not only did he not need it, he honestly couldn't empathize enough. He couldn't see other insecurities because he didn't have. You have to have them to be able to spot them in other people.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Nikki Glaser]

That's so it. When I write roasts, I'm like, what would I want not said about me? And how do I say that about someone else? Like, how do I find the thing about this person that they look in the mirror and hate about themselves? It's a horrible way to think, but I'm able to go there because I go there for myself.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. And you can smell it. And your brain is really well tuned to it because you're constantly evaluating yourself. And even we had Vince Vaughn on. He was saying at a certain age, he realized he had to stop burning people because it was the kind of burns that would ruin them for two years. It's like. Well, yeah, you know, he just could see it because he had them.

[Nikki Glaser]

I don't burn people unless I'm hired to do it. Even the Golden Globes wasn't a burn fest because those people weren't signing up for a roast. So it was very gentle. I think the worst thing I said was to Benny Blanco. But I got permission. I got. I wrote to Eric Andre, who I heard knows him, and he put us on a text chat together. I sent him a voice memo of the joke, and he said, I'm cool with it. Let me run it by Selena. And so I got permission, but I would never have done that joke I said, you know, Selena Gomez is here with Benny Blanco, her new fiancee. And Benny Blanco is here because of the genie who granted him that wish. That was the mean one.

[Dax Shepard]

That was probably the only one. I thought you did a great job.

[Monica Padman]

I did not know that I would.

[Nikki Glaser]

Have done that on a roast if he was on the dais. He's just sitting there. He can't heckle me back. He knows the rules. Kimmel actually gave me advice saying, like, hey, reach out to people if you have a joke that you're a little bit worried about, because I just wouldn't have done it otherwise. There's no way I would have risked making him feel uncomfortable. And even when I told him the joke, you kind of feel like, oh, but I presented it like, by the way, I think you're awesome. I think you're hot. I'm talking about a thing that I think you are aware of, that I think you've even partaken. And I've heard him in podcasts talk about him with Selena. I think Santino went hard on him once, and so I think he was already aware. So I was a little bit nervous to even tell him it, but if I would have not liked him and really felt that way, I don't think I would have been able to say it. I think she scored with him. To be honest with you, I felt like it was a mutual thing, so it came from a good place. But people show up in my shows wanting to be roasted. I don't really like roasting people on the fly. It doesn't just come out of me. I don't just come at people without a reason to do it. But I think that's not just because I don't want to hurt them. That's obviously a part of of it, but I just don't want them to retaliate. I was quiet in high school.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't want to get stabbed. Don't start a knife fight. Well, you were picky Nikki in sixth grade.

[Nikki Glaser]

Thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

Nikki was picking her nose in sixth grade.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah. And I got busted. Like, a girl saw me and was like, why don't you stop picking your nose? You know, where you could tell it was bothering her.

[Dax Shepard]

And then she's like, she snapped.

[Nikki Glaser]

Screams it. And so there were a lot of moments like that in school where I would be quietly doing something disgusting, and then it would just annoy someone enough. Like, I was taking pencils from this kid. I never had my school supplies, not because my parents didn't provide it, but because I was Just add. So it's always borrowing pencils and paper from my friend Ray. He would always give it to me every single day. He never did it. And it was almost like I was annoying him. So one day I just took it. And I remember he saw me. Cause I was like, you're gonna give it to me. And he was like, why don't you get your own pencil? You buck tooth beaver, go in the woods and gnaw down a tree. Oh my God. And I had really messed up. My teeth were going out hard. And the whole class heard. Even my teacher laughed.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh no, your teacher. She validated how good.

[Nikki Glaser]

I was like, but I still need lead. I found some kind of inaccuracy in joke. I was like, it's a false premise because pencils are more than just wood anyway. And then I just learned just be invisible because people will call out, why you're ugly. And so I was quiet. This was fifth grade and seventh grade. And then by the time I got to high school, I was invisible because I just didn't want the boys making a joke about me.

[Dax Shepard]

What were your other things?

[Nikki Glaser]

It was teeth. That continues. I still see weird things with them.

[Monica Padman]

You have perfect teeth.

[Nikki Glaser]

Are they veneers? No, but I do a thing. Please, everyone listening, don't get veneers. My friends who have done it regret it. If there is an apocalypse or something, your teeth will fall out and you will have nubs and you have no one to fix it. Shark teeth, the nubs are disturbing. They fall out. A lot of people doing it and getting approved to do it way too soon. They're not trained to do it, you know.

[Dax Shepard]

Monica was on the painful verge of getting them and that was like our biggest battle. Monica, your teeth are fucking perfect. It is, dude.

[Nikki Glaser]

Monica, if you want to fix anything with your teeth, the thing to do is you get, what's it called?

[Dax Shepard]

Bonding.

[Nikki Glaser]

Bonding. Because I had like a chip on this tooth and I was like, can you just fix that? They filled it in with a tooth colored thing. And I was like, well this, this tooth is kind of too far back. Can you just put tooth on top of it? And he's like, yeah. I was like, did I just make something up? Because I was gonna have that tooth removed and a new one in, but I just put tooth on top of it to make it even with the front one.

[Dax Shepard]

I wonder they could build up this leaner.

[Nikki Glaser]

Build it up, just put composite on it falls off every month or so, but you get it put back. It's like an $80 copay. It's way cheaper than veneers. Every month it's less painful bonding, but it falls out.

[Dax Shepard]

My dentist is currently trying to talk me into doing some fix ups on the bottom here. And then he put the temporary one on there and he showed me the mirror. I was like, oh, I'll be at the bottom.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah. So teeth an issue for sure. Having a tall forehead. One time, a guy that liked me and I didn't like him back was just like, I just noticed your forehead goes on for a really long time. And so that stuck with me. And then I started seeing it. Didn't notice it before. Also, hair falling out. I was anorexic when I was 18, so a lot of it fell out then.

[Monica Padman]

And then.

[Nikki Glaser]

Since then, if a hair just gets caught on something and pulls out, like in a clip, I feel it all day long. It's an OCD thing where I'll like, feel the little spot and I look at the hair and I'm like, you weren't ready. I go like, this hair's been with me through so much. Like, this was did the roast, like, all my career moments. And I just go like, I can't believe it's right now and it's gonna take so long to grow that all back. Everyone who does my hair knows if I go, they're like, they just stop. I've gotten better about it because it's an irrational fear. And I often have my friends send me, like, how much hair do you pull out in the shower? Will you just send me a picture? I need verification because it only pops up, by the way, when I'm stressed out. It has nothing to do with the hair.

[Dax Shepard]

You're looking at a haircut that is two days old that I gave to my son myself.

[Nikki Glaser]

What? Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I cut my own hair, but it generally starts in periods of anxiety, which I've been having. So I started trimming, trimming, trimming. You saw the progression. Anyone watching would see the progression. It's a total tick. Till finally Sunday, I'm like, now we're shaving the sides.

[Nikki Glaser]

Will you do my boyfriends? That's a really good cut. I love that cut. I was literally. I should have said it. Damn it. I was literally gonna take a picture of you later to show because it's good.

[Monica Padman]

I'll send you a picture of my hair wall. I do a hair wall.

[Nikki Glaser]

If you were my friend, I would never ask to see your hair wall because I can't compare it because you' lose bunches and bunches of Hair.

[Monica Padman]

I lose so much hair.

[Nikki Glaser]

Not to take anything from you. You can feel bad about losing hair, too, but you don't deserve to. I won't hear from you.

[Dax Shepard]

It's going to be hard to feel bad.

[Monica Padman]

I won't be sending you my hair wall.

[Nikki Glaser]

That's a to blow dry, right?

[Monica Padman]

The only time I ever blow dry it is if I'm getting it done.

[Nikki Glaser]

You don't have to because it air dries glossy. So much volume, so good.

[Dax Shepard]

Anyone that's been hired by Herbal Essence to be a mermaid in a commercial for your hair?

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

That's the stamp of approval.

[Monica Padman]

I didn't mean to turn this into.

[Nikki Glaser]

You know what, you're allowed to have something that is just perfect.

[Monica Padman]

Okay? Speaking of insecurities. It is the only thing I am secure about.

[Nikki Glaser]

We're all allowed to have one.

[Monica Padman]

One, yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I know you want me to say I love my boobs.

[Nikki Glaser]

I hadn't noticed yet, but I was like, I think I have three things.

[Dax Shepard]

Many pieces of artwork that say I have perfect tits and great opinions.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So when people are buying you those kinds of paintings, I think you could.

[Monica Padman]

Have, say, Monica doesn't get naked very much, but. But one time I was with her and she was changing and she took her bra off and her boobs went up.

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, my God, Chris is so funny.

[Monica Padman]

She is.

[Nikki Glaser]

Great tits over there. But you're not proud of those.

[Monica Padman]

I'm proud of them when I'm naked, but I don't love it in clothes.

[Nikki Glaser]

Got it. I'll agree with you. When I have a bra that makes me look more stacked, I feel a little bit chunkier. Exactly. It, like, distorts your body. It does. Okay, I hear that. And then just, you know, body. This week it's my leg skin. I, like, saw some pictures from my tour that were backstage. There's a crepiness starting.

[Dax Shepard]

What is crepey?

[Nikki Glaser]

Like an old circus tent that's been weathered. It's okay. It has to happen. People can't lie to me and say it's not. My girl's chat is like, it's not. I don't see it. And I go look. And I give evidence.

[Dax Shepard]

We would say in the automotive world, if the paint is kind of orange peely. Is that what we're talking about?

[Nikki Glaser]

Picture like a wasp's nest.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

You know, that's like kind of like a saggy texture.

[Dax Shepard]

Droopy paper mache.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes. That kind of crepey ness. Skin on the thigh. And then the skin above the knees is starting to fold. Over. And there's like a deep line here that bothered. I heard they do. But then I'm looking at my schedule. I go, when am I getting a brow lift? When am I getting my knees done? My knees done. I'm never gonna get my knees done.

[Dax Shepard]

I hope we get submissions from you knee surgeons.

[Nikki Glaser]

Please.

[Dax Shepard]

The reason you were able to host the Golden Globes was you had cleared your schedule in January for a month to do some operative.

[Nikki Glaser]

To do whatever Dr. Diamond told me would make me look like I hadn't done anything.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So you had already kind of scheduled this little buffer in January and then got the call. I feel like that's very serendipitous.

[Nikki Glaser]

It really was. I would have canceled anything for it. But it was nice that I didn't have to because I never take a break. My vacation would have been just healing with, like, straws in my face.

[Dax Shepard]

Have you seen the pictures of those flights home from Turkey? I want to fly there. Just to fly back with all those guys. For anyone who's not seen it, please google this. Yeah, 90 some percent of the passengers on these flights home from Turkey, the men are all bandaged up. They've gotten hair transplants. I guess it's affordable there.

[Nikki Glaser]

And now they're all starting chin surgery too. Now just yet.

[Dax Shepard]

Chin implants in Turkey.

[Nikki Glaser]

I don't know if they do it in Turkey, but that's the new male plastic surgery thing. Everyone's going to be doing it. Like, if you've seen some leading men starting to look a little bit more leading, that's probably what's happening. Because it's a subtle adjustment that makes face look more masculine. And that's kind of what it's trending towards. There are nine year olds who are like, mewing now to get that jawline. It's sad when men start to have the same insecurities that we've all dealt with as women for so long. But they've always been there.

[Dax Shepard]

We've always had them, but they're just evolving. For us, it was all, like, body and strength and Schwarzenegger and lifting weights and trying to be big and strong. I'm still dealing with it, obviously.

[Nikki Glaser]

And you guys don't get makeup.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

You just have to be what you are. So it makes sense why we are. Like, why do they just get to be who they are? Because they don't really have a lot of options, so they might as well accept themselves. That's a great take. I just came up with it.

[Dax Shepard]

That's really good. I really did yeah. When you're a dude and you look in the mirror and you go, that's that.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

The story.

[Nikki Glaser]

You have so many options. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I was even watching this and I'm like, God, my nose has gotten so bulbous. I think most women would shade and it would not look bulbous. And I'm like, then I'm not gonna do that.

[Nikki Glaser]

You can't. There would be options. If you have a zit you can't cover, you just have to have a gaping wound. And we get to stuff it with dirt, clay and wonder why it keeps reinfecting and coming back.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[Steve Nash]

Hey, basketball fans. Steve Nash here, ready to elevate your basketball IQ? I'm teaming up with LeBron James to bring you the latest season of My Mind the Game. And we're about to take you deeper into basketball than you've ever gone before. We're breaking down the real game, the X's and O's that actually matter. In every episode, we'll share elite level strategy, dive into career defining moments, and explain the why behind plays that changed a game, a team, or a championship. LeBron and I have lived this game at the highest level for decades. We've been in those pressure moments and made those game changing decisions and learn from the greatest basketball minds in history. Now we're pulling back the curtain and sharing that knowledge with you. Time to go beyond the highlights and get into the real heart of basketball. Watch Mind the game now on YouTube Prime Video or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[James Austin Johnson]

Mom and dad, mom and mom, dad and dad, whatever parents. Are you about to spend five hours in the car with your beloved kids this holiday season driving old kids granny's house? I'm setting the scene. I'm picturing screaming, fighting back to back hours of the K Pop Demon Hunter soundtrack on repeat. Well, when your ears start to bleed, I have the perfect thing to keep you from rolling out of that moving vehicle. Something for the whole family. He's filled with laughs. He's filled with rage. The OG Green Grump. Give it up for me, James Austin Johnson as the Grinch. And like any insufferable influence influencer these days, I'm bringing my crew of lesser talented friends along for the ride. With a list guests like Gronk, Mark Hamill and the Jonas Brothers, whoever they are. There's a little bit of something for everyone. Listen to Tis the Grinch Holiday podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

[Nikki Glaser]

That sucks for men with acne that they don't have Makeup. Even though we look like it's like a little ant hill. Yeah, you can still see it, but it's preferable. I used to pick up my skin because when I was malnourished and had anxiety, it was just open sores around my face. I used to be bulimic, too. That's why I quit throwing up. Like, thank God it was a vanity thing, because I was sick of cleaning toilets. And I was also sick of having mouth acne that I would pick at. I would be nervous backstage before going on. Pick at it. I could feel it bleeding because I'd do the check and I'm like, oh, my God, there's blood. I'm walking with blood. Then I put something on it to, like, cake it up, and I'm like, okay, I hope it stays. And then you walk out and you're like, good evening, Milwaukee. And you smile in a way, it's like crack. And it just starts running down on your face. It would happen so often. Thank God acne is behind me. In my life, that was a huge struggle for a really long time. And seeing my sister never have to deal with.

[Dax Shepard]

How much younger is she?

[Nikki Glaser]

She's 18 months younger, but perfect, silky, thick hair. Never had to get braces. Born with straight teeth, veneer teeth. Never had acne.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, but does she have a good personality?

[Nikki Glaser]

She does. Like, she doesn't even know she's hot. Like, she could have been a model, actress, all these things, and she's just like, yeah, she's pretty amazing. I don't know if she's content.

[Monica Padman]

That's good.

[Nikki Glaser]

She's like a mom of three. Just making it work.

[Dax Shepard]

She's a teacher.

[Nikki Glaser]

She was teacher. She actually stopped teaching, and now she's having. Okay, that was rough. Taught for 10 years Spanish in our old high school, and she was great at it, but it was just too hard. She has insecurities just like everyone else. But I had a rough time growing up with that.

[Dax Shepard]

Was she outgoing?

[Nikki Glaser]

She was much more popular than I was. The boys in my grade liked her and had crushes on her. She'd be the type of girl that I'd have all my girlfriends over, and my sister would come in and talk to us. And then my sister would leave, and they'd all go, oh, she's so pretty. God. A reaction that I would never get. Just that kind of thing of like, wow, that's what I want. Just strangers telling my mom, mom, that this child should model. And then I'm just standing there, rude things. And I was just Sensitive. So I picked up on it, like, that's your value and I don't have it. And so just really resenting that I was born not as pretty as I could have been. My parents DNA made that. Why did it fuck up this way? I used to yell at my mom, be like, you knew there was ugly in your family tree and you risked it with me. And she's like, you shut up. Yeah, she would be so mad at me. But I used to get really venomous about how mad I was and people saying, you look nothing like your sister. Like that. Over and over, always getting told I look like my dad. Dad. Which no matter how hot your dad is. Yeah, you don't want to hear. You never want to hear you look like your dad. I see it now and I'm like, okay, I'll take it because he is a gangly guy. And you saying your hair is the thing. My legs I used to be really insecure about because they're more muscular and my sisters were just model thin. But now I love my legs. I get a lot of compliments on it. And people are like, what do you do for them? And I'm like, it's just my dad's like, like, I just got lucky. And it made me realize that so much of what I resent women for having is just same as my legs. Of like, I didn't do anything for them. I just was born with this. And I just got lucky in this one. I have a dad bod for half my body. It gave me some perspective of when I attribute perfection onto people. I shouldn't hate that girl for being hot. She didn't mean to be.

[Dax Shepard]

She didn't choose it.

[Nikki Glaser]

It's not her fault.

[Dax Shepard]

None of us chose any of it.

[Nikki Glaser]

Just got it exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Went to the store and picked it up.

[Nikki Glaser]

And that's what I like to remember when I'm feeling ugly is like, nikki, okay, so there's a lot of action going on when you wiggle your arm. The other day I looked at my arm in the mirror. I just saw a straight on and it looked like a scrotum hanging a ball sack. And my friends are like, no, it doesn't. And I sent them a picture and they were all quiet afterwards, like they couldn't say no does and that's okay. But I was like, if I could snap my fingers and not have that, I would. Clearly, I'm not choosing this. It's not my fault. Why do I have to feel like I failed in some way or I'm a Bad person. I didn't choose this. I wouldn't want this. Yes, there's probably exercises I could do to make it go away, but I don't have time for them. That doesn't make me a bad person. I just get wrapped up in all the things I should be doing. You can afford the facelift, why aren't you getting one? You can afford this laser treatment. Why aren't you doing it? Even the more money you make and the more opportunities you have to have avenues to look hotter if you don't do them, you feel you're failing in some way. And I hate that feeling.

[Dax Shepard]

It's wholly unfair, which is, I think I had all the same feelings you did growing up, but I had the freedom as a dude to go, yeah, that's not going to be your thing. And girls, thank God, did date guys, largely because of how confident they presented and how funny they were. And so that is the great injustice. I was able to transcend it in some way. Not that I ever fell in love with how I looked. I just was like, oh, we're not going to think about this anymore and we're going to just do this other thing. And that's work.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a gift of being a dude. Decreasingly so, I think.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, decreasingly so, yes, thank God it's evolving.

[Dax Shepard]

But in the 80s, yes. I could kind of make that proclamation.

[Monica Padman]

Men and boys did the choosing back then. But that's why I think it's changing. Because now girls, women, all of us ladies, we are, you know, more educated.

[Nikki Glaser]

Like you're making more money, more things. Yes. Than sex objects. Exactly.

[Monica Padman]

And so I don't have to just say yes to your proposal.

[Nikki Glaser]

And it used to be like, oh.

[Monica Padman]

This guy is asking me out. I guess I have to say yes.

[Nikki Glaser]

You're waiting to be asked. Yeah, that's a really good point.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a ton of stuff going on. There's like, evolutionary stuff. There's how the society has run for the previous 300 years. A guy that was confident and had a good personality was going to probably achieve high status because he would be able to do that through work if he was super smart. So he would be able to climb the status. Wrong. Whereas for women, the status rung wasn't fully available for anything other than being gorgeous.

[Nikki Glaser]

Who could make the most babies for the village? Who could watch the pot boil? Who could take care of the kids? It all leads itself to. Do they have the hip to waist ratio that suggests they can carry more children? You want to get Mad and think it's so vapid for men to assess us that way. And yeah, I appreciate you saying it's because I was a man and I was able to shift like that. I never arrived. I was like, I just have to keep pursuing being hot or talented in some way, which I wasn't talented. That was the other thing I didn't find because I wasn't able to get big and loud and funny because I didn't want people to go, well, you're also ugly. That wasn't an option to be big. So I just waited till I found a talent. And I didn't have one until I started stand up comedy. Literally tried everything. And that was really frustrating.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you think you were just biochemically anxious? What led to, do you think the annex. It sounds like you had pretty good parents.

[Nikki Glaser]

I have the greatest parents imaginable. I think it's. I had a mom that just never liked the way she looked and was never pretty, never thin enough. But I was really tuned in with celebrity culture, so all that stuff got in. I wanted to be famous. So it's like, I need to look like Paris Hilton. Jennifer Aniston.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I want to go there. And you have to look a certain way to go.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah. There's no option. But is it because you wanted to.

[Monica Padman]

Be famous so that if you were, that's the world telling you you are hot.

[Nikki Glaser]

Not even hot. Very uncomfortable. When someone's, like, lusting for me, I want the approval that comes with it. Outside of someone actually putting anything in me. Yeah. Attractive. I just want people to be like, I want to be her. I guess that's what I wanted. Oh, that's so embarrassing to admit. No, we all know I used to want that. My parents, we love watching tv. I wanted to be on tv. I wanted to be seen by them in that way and be like, wow, that's extraordinary. I'm an enneagram3. So my worth is determined by if I am extraordinary. I do things that people go, holy shit, how could she do? I was always, like, looking for that in terms of looks. I felt like that was the only way to achieve that. I was a fine actress, but just didn't get cast in things in high school and was like, that's the only way to be on tv, is to act. And so auditioned for theater school, didn't get into any and was like, what am I gonna fucking do? I've said this before. I was like, I'm just gonna have to kill myself someday, because that is a failed life. If my only dream in life is to be on TV and be a personality, like a performer, and I don't do it, and I just have to watch people do it forever, I'll eventually have to kill myself, and that sucks. Ugh. I have to do that someday. It was kind a thing I have to do someday. Like, yeah, it's not now, but soon is.

[Dax Shepard]

Boulder, you did it when you're 18 for the first time.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And you're only a Boulder for what, a year?

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah, a year. The first thing I was really good at was not eating. That was the first thing that I was like, whoa, talk about getting confidence from something. Because this just came to me a couple months ago when I was trying to, like, think about what led me to do that and why did I stick with it and why did I get such a rush from it. Because when you're coming up in diet culture in the 90s and early 2000s, being able to not eat is maybe the best superpower imagine imaginable for a woman. Every person around me is trying not to eat the brownie, not having dressing on the salad, and I have no problem doing that. I get high from it. I struggled with my weight earlier on, was trying diets, was never fat, but needed to drop probably 10 or 15 pounds. I worked at a pizzeria and just ate too much and stopped playing field hockey and stuff. So I got a little bigger and people were starting to notice. So I tried stuff to lose weight. It was hard. I remember being like, I wish I could get anorexia. The same joke that most women make. And then it happened because I got nervous about a boy who liked me. I had been really scared of boys and sex, and I hadn't kissed a boy. I was my senior year of high school. I think I'd kissed one boy, and it was a truth or dare thing, so it didn't count. It was a guy I really liked for so long. I won a date with him because I rigged a singled out type contest at our school where I had my friends tell me who to pick, because I wanted to pick this guy Mike. And so I had them kind of do a signal to me of, like, who to eliminate. So I got a date with him, and then he seemed to want to go on this date that I won for this charity school thing. We had, like, a date planned, and I was so nervous about it, I just couldn't eat that day. And that shows up quickly on me, in my face. And someone said something the next day that was like, you look great. And it was a girl whose opinion about me meant so much. And I was still nervous. And so I just kept going as long as I could. And then it was just, let's just never eat again. I was just too young to understand this isn't going to work forever.

[Dax Shepard]

So this is the fun kind of overlap with Moni. Moni had this very specific event in her life.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah. Dairy Queen. I was in sixth grade and a boy said he couldn't date me. He liked me, it seemed, but he couldn't date me because my parents. Parents worked at Dairy Queen. They didn't work at Dairy Queen, but.

[Nikki Glaser]

A lot of Indian people worked at Dairy Queen.

[Monica Padman]

So he couldn't date me because I was Indian. So then that was obviously the moment where I was like, oh, so no one can date me. That's a fundamental thing about me. That's a no for people.

[Nikki Glaser]

He represents everyone because why wouldn't he? You're in sixth grade.

[Monica Padman]

And I liked him.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You know, so it's like the people I like don't like this about me. So this is going to be a fun life.

[Nikki Glaser]

His parents worked at Culver's. Was it a Capulet Montague's thing?

[Dax Shepard]

Like, they were at a Foster's. It was a competition.

[Nikki Glaser]

Did you even say like. But they don't. Did you protest it at first or did you know what it meant?

[Monica Padman]

He didn't say it to my face. He said it to a friend. A friend was like, why don't you ask Monica out? Oh, this is important. He said I would, but. So it's not like I just don't like her. It's like, I would, but I can't because she's Indian, basically, and not because she's Indian. Like, I don't like the culture. That would make me feel different, probably. You know, that's the subtext if I'm being gagged.

[Nikki Glaser]

Does that stay with you? To this day, I am fucked up for life from that one thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Her thing, to paraphrase it was any boy she would like wouldn't like her because she was Indian. So she shifted to being in love with people. She knew that issue would never present itself. So it was Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, you never have a chance with them. Yes, exactly.

[Monica Padman]

It's like they're so unavailable, so they can't rebuild. Reject me.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

I'm picking the quarterback of the football team when I'm a sophomore.

[Nikki Glaser]

Never even have an interaction. Just unavailable men. You can never get rejected by them.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

Does this go on for you now?

[Monica Padman]

Now, really? I'm just like, if it falls into my lap, that's great. I do so little pursuing of dating. But still, it's because rejection is still so horrific for me.

[Nikki Glaser]

It's not worth it. I understand being that guarded because it can destroy. Destroy you for decades without it.

[Monica Padman]

I'm good. I'm thriving. Am I? I don't know.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah. Obviously people have asked you out through this. When you're pursued, do you feel like they're flawed in some way for liking you?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

They have bad taste.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Nikki Glaser]

I get it. Totally.

[Monica Padman]

I need someone with good taste.

[Nikki Glaser]

So we're in a bad. Oh, my God, you're so wrong. Like, you are such a prize. My boyfriend, I've been with him for like 13 years off and on. And I'm not even joking you. It was just this past May that I accepted that he had great taste and he likes me. And I have to trust that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

And he chose me. I didn't trick him in any way. And that I am really spectacular. It only was this last minute, and that's why I liked him for so long, too, is because I thought I was winning him over. He was better than me. So it takes forever, but I think just one day, you'll get it. I have no doubt we were breaking up, but it was funny because I was doing it in public so it wouldn't get too heated. I just didn't want it to end in us yelling. Not that we're yelly people, but I felt like it could go that way, and I just didn't want to go on too long. But then the restaurant closed, and so we didn't have time to break up, and we were supposed to go to a concert right after this. So we still go to the concert because we're in this nebulous stage of it seems like it's ending. But at the dinner when we're breaking up, I go, I'm bored. And he was like, okay, but you're one of the most boring people I've ever met. This was the week right after the roast, by the way, when I was one of the most googled people on earth. So it was kind of funny to me that he said that, because I'm like, that's not my insecurity. I kind of laughed when he said it. I know what he meant, because I don't like doing things. I'm kind of like a homebody. And I don't really like socializing too much. I don't like Outdoor activities and sports and he likes all those things. And I'm always insecure about not liking that stuff because my mom's like that and my dad is like a really big go getter. And my dad always punished my mom for that unintentionally, but made her feel bad about. You just like to sit on the couch and watch TV and nap and why don't you ever like to do anything? And I always was like, I don't want to be like that, but I am like that. But Chris said to me, you're one of those boring people alive. By the way, if you're bored, it's because you're boring. That old trope. And he said to me, even though you're boring, I accept that about you. I'm never going to throw that in your face. I'm never going to make you feel bad about not wanting to do things. And for whatever reason, I don't know if it relates exactly to realizing I'm lovable, but it does. Because I was like, I can't change the fact that I like to lay on the couch and watch TV and be on my phone. I've always felt guilty about that. And I always felt like he was going to at some point just get fed up and he should be with a girl who likes hiking and likes jet skiing and likes to go meet people and talk to the waiter about how their weekend was. He deserves that. And I used to say that to him. He's like, stop saying that. And he's like, I don't want that. And I just trusted him for the first time, like he's not going to use it against me like my dad has with my mom.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, what's really sad is it's all self fulfilling prophecies. You're almost forcing him to leave you.

[Nikki Glaser]

I was. Because he loves me unconditionally. And I just felt like there was some conditions that I was holding back, that once he finds this thing out.

[Dax Shepard]

They were yours though, which is crazy.

[Nikki Glaser]

And I've since let him know those conditions and he's just like, yeah, I know you smoke weed sometimes and hide it from me. He's like, you're not tricking anyone. Like, and by the way, I know I told you I quit smoking weed.

[Monica Padman]

But like I do.

[Nikki Glaser]

And he's like, you're not hiding it well, I've noticed. I just figure it's your thing. I don't need to be involved. It doesn't seem to be ruining your life. The whole time I'm thinking I Can't believe I'm hiding this thing from him. I feel so bad. We still don't talk about it. That's the thing. I'm trying to figure out a way to work on stage. Because pot smoking for me is like this thing I can't quite let go of in my life that I come back to. And I feel, oh, it's not great for my life, but it's not too bad. So I have a lot of guilt about it and I don't tell him when I do it. And sometimes I'm around him and I'm a little high and he doesn't seem to notice. And maybe he does, but he doesn't confront me.

[Dax Shepard]

Maybe he doesn't care.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, maybe not.

[Nikki Glaser]

He used to in the past, I think. And that's why I have it in my head, because he's broken up with me over it before because I was like, I want to be someone who gets high before a Fleetwood Mac concert. And he's like, when are we going to Fleetwood Mac? I'm like, I don't know if we're like at a Wilco show. I just want to be able to, like, smoke a joint that someone passes me. He's like, I don't know this person because it wasn't who I am. I was just trying to push him away. But anyway, I was thinking about him like, am I allowed to do this thing that I don't need to tell him I'm doing every time, even though I feel guilty about it? I don't tell him every time I shit as far as he does. I don't shit. I close the door every time. We don't talk about any of my issues in that area. Maybe it's that, but I'm rationalizing it.

[Dax Shepard]

This may be helpful. We had this incredible sex therapist on, Alexander Cattahawkis. She was incredible. And my question was, should people who have been sexually abused who now des, for lack of a better word, some kind of kinky sex? Should they feel guilty? It's not their fault and if that's what they enjoy. And she goes, no, it's totally fine. And there are a lot of sexual abuse survivors who will be in like, sub dom relationships. And it's very crystal clear if you have shame and secrecy around it, it's a problem, and if you don't, it's not a problem. So I would argue all you've got to do is be honest about it and there will be no issue.

[Nikki Glaser]

What if I'm honest on a podcast? Cassie doesn't listen to that. But he could listen to.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he and my wife could bump into each other and have no idea this conversation took place.

[Nikki Glaser]

All the places I talk about it openly, he doesn't listen, but he could. Like it's there. We talked about it in therapy and I've cried about it because he doesn't want to know why is it bad? He's never had any drug in his life. He's never drank. He's never done anything. It's not even a Christian thing. It's a control thing. He notices friends being drunk and he's like, I don't want to look like that. And so he just never did. And I think it's a little bit of the dare program. There's a reefer madness type of like, yes, you're a loser, a little bit. He doesn't want a girlfriend from hitting a bong and it's dirty.

[Dax Shepard]

But there has to also be a little bit of the fact that you had a problem drinking.

[Nikki Glaser]

And that is what he would say. Nikki, why don't you say that part to them?

[Dax Shepard]

Right. Which, of course, I'm going to be deeply interested in, because I don't drink either.

[Nikki Glaser]

Do you have a weed issue? Have you ever.

[Dax Shepard]

Have I. Yeah. Leading up to a big relapse.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

It was a tricky one. And I can relate to everything you're saying because alcohol is cut and dry for me. It's black and white. I have a drink on Thursday night. You will see me Sunday, and I will have gotten coke and all these things will happen, happen. Very predictable. There was some period where a gummy. I don't know, I go to sleep, I sleep better. There's no wreckage. There's no out of control in this. I don't crave it like the other stuff I crave. And then having been clean and sober for 16 years and going. And I also don't like that I would need anything. Yeah, right. So I know the racket.

[Nikki Glaser]

What's that? You need that nicotine.

[Dax Shepard]

But I am at total peace with this. There's no secrecy.

[Nikki Glaser]

I love that you're holding it out because I could be friends with people for years and I'll see a dual. I go, when did that start? Years. They can hide it so well. So there's a shame around the stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

If I'm hiding, there's something to be looked at. If I can't do it out in public, then that's kind of my clue that I need to get comfortable with one or the other, not do it Or I got to just own it. And then people around me I guess I'll trust to tell me. I just can't have the zone where it's like, I have a secret. Because then you can't even evaluate the thing. Because actually you're evaluating your feeling of having a secret, not even your feeling of using weed.

[Nikki Glaser]

The way that I was able to stop smoking as much weed once was to when I did it, you know, I was smoking from, like, pipes during COVID It's dirty, and it felt bad, bad. These are like crack pipes. They're the same. I one time went out before a set on Hollywood Boulevard to smoke a little pipe, and I turn around and a homeless man. We have the same pipe, smoking rock, the same green color, like we're both.

[Dax Shepard]

Blocking the wind, hoping no one sees you.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah, it was a real eye opener. And then I kept doing it for months after that. But if I just go, I need this. You know, it's bad, but you're not a bad person, and you're doing your best.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't think you can even evaluate what the weed is until you detach the secret from it. The pit of disapproval and angst is more about the secret.

[Nikki Glaser]

You're right. Because when I'm honest about what weed does for me, it's the one thing I still have guilt over in terms of all my addictive behaviors. I was like, what does it give me? To be honest, it just gives me instant relief from depression, from suicidal thoughts, and it medicinally offers that to me in a short term. It can sometimes backfire and I say a dumb thing or I wouldn't do it before something like this, and I have in the past.

[Dax Shepard]

I think it's a harder one to evaluate for people because it doesn't have the kind of wreckage that other stuff does. You get DUIs, you smack your friend. You fall down in an elevator and pee your pants. None of that stuff happens.

[Nikki Glaser]

That's the tricky part of it. It picks me up out of a depressive state like almost nothing else I've ever found can. Alcohol used to, but it's so obviously sloppy. But weed, I can function. No one calls me out for it. People don't really notice. I can see it, and I'm sure people do notice. It affects me, being smart and funny. But then sometimes it sense makes me smarter and funnier.

[Dax Shepard]

What if you're the third or myst and funniest and not the second or first?

[Nikki Glaser]

No, see, that's unacceptable. But it's.

[Dax Shepard]

You're Taylor Swift. Of comedy.

[Nikki Glaser]

That's the only thing I've ever wanted to hear in my life.

[Dax Shepard]

You are. Women love you. The amount of people have asked us to have you on. The amount of people that had seen.

[Nikki Glaser]

Someday you'll die.

[Dax Shepard]

Someday you'll die.

[Nikki Glaser]

I talk about you in that, by the way.

[Dax Shepard]

I know.

[Nikki Glaser]

And I hope you don't think that's an ugly joke, because I want to be very clear about that. Because I say that I'm a rangy broad in terms of my looks. If I have enough makeup, I can look like Kristen Bell. But my boyfriend every day wakes up to Dexter Shepherd. That's a woman looking like a man joke. But you are a hot guy. So I felt like I could say that and not thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

But yes, of course I watched it because I am narcissistic enough to know if there's a joke that has me in it. I'm certainly going to find out was it the thing I'm fearing. And I saw it. I didn't care at all. I took it as a dude joke.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah, okay. Because as you were saying the stuff before, I'm like, oh, my God, that other joke. But he interpreted. Because it wouldn't even occur to me that you could. But I'm glad you did it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, I watched it. I thought it was a great special. But I just want to say, so many people had immediately taken to our comments. That's when I had the sense, oh, Nikki's really. There's some connective tissue with you and Taylor in that. You have worked your fucking ass off. You decided, I'm going to be this thing, whether you think I'm going to be it or not. Bad news. I'm stubborn and I'm going to be this thing. There's something very relatable, and I think people can see themselves in you. I see how my oldest daughter, the gift Taylor Swift has given my family. When I watch the women in my life, the impact that she has on them, how she can make them feel in the confidence in. In the Jubilee. It's such a crazy gift.

[Nikki Glaser]

It's awesome.

[Dax Shepard]

And it's because in some way you could be her. I mean, you can't, but also you can.

[Nikki Glaser]

Taylor had something to prove, even showing up on the scene, coming out as a country artist and then making it into pop music and winning album of the year for Fearless. And then people saying, like, other people wrote that. And she's like, well, the next album I'm going to write all by myself, and look how great it does. She definitely Is inspired by people doubting her. I wish someone would have told me earlier on, whenever someone's like, what would you tell your younger self? Any young people listening or any people with kids listening? If your kid isn't good at something right away, way like a natural, please know. And you might not even know this because I don't think I would have known this as an adult had I not experienced it. And I think we all hear this, but we don't let it sink in. The difference between great and good is just hard work. Someone can be great, and some people are just naturals, but mostly anyone can reach those levels. If you just work hard enough, you can catch up to anyone who in high school is the quarterback. Just work hard enough and you can be Tom Brady. That was all work he put in. I just wish someone would have told me that, because I always thought growing up, it was like, either got it or you don't. Yeah, I was just reading a book called the Anatomy Me of a breakthrough because I just felt stuck after the Golden Globes. I took a month off and was just like, how do I even write again? Like, I don't even know. It has really been helping me. There's this one part about the guy that RA climbs. I haven't seen that movie because it just makes my legs feel weird even thinking about him, but reading about how when he approaches a climb, everyone's like, what if you don't do that one? He's like, I've done it so many times before with the ropes that there's no chance anything bad will happen. There's no room for error. And if the wind is off that day or that temperature or there's rain or I'm feeling weird, it won't happen. It's so practical that it can't go wrong. And I realized, oh, my God, I totally free soloed the Globes and the Tom Brady roast, which I didn't even intend to. I was just like, oh, just do the set as many times as you can to try out which jokes are best. I said, the Globes monologue so many goddamn times that it was locked in. And people are like, are you nervous? And I was like, no.

[Monica Padman]

Because it's like, it's just one other time.

[Nikki Glaser]

It's just one other time. There's no room for error. I don't like doing things that are room for error. That's why I don't like doing improv. That scares the shit out of me. Crowd work is a struggle for me. I need to know it'll go the way I want it to.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure. I'm a control freak as well. And I was very OCD as a kid and lots of tics. And I have a lot of control things, but I love these zones where I surrender to no control. It's so pleasurable because I'm fucking strangleholding so much of life. My routine and my schedule is psychotic and sadistic. And so when I have these pockets, these things I can do where I actually surrender to it. It's bliss. Do you have anything in your life?

[Nikki Glaser]

I know that sexually, I like baby girl style stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, tell me, what's baby girl?

[Nikki Glaser]

You. The movie Baby Girl, where she likes to be talked to like a dog, Trained, like, good girl. That kind of stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, kind of a submissive.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes. Not that I'm a hypersexual person anymore. Things are changing hormonally. But things that I've been into and things that I watch, it's the girls out of control. She's not telling anyone what to do. She's being told what to do. So I find it there. But any other.

[Monica Padman]

Doesn't pot sort of do that?

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, my God, you're so right. Because sometimes, just because I want to feel adrenaline, I'll smoke before I go on stage. Because I'm like, you got to try. Like, you can't go on autopilot. You got to think about what you're doing. You're high. Are you going? Remember even what you're talking about right now to finish this sentence.

[Dax Shepard]

You said you smoke pot to give yourself anxiety, which I found interesting.

[Nikki Glaser]

I like anxiety. I think you might too.

[Dax Shepard]

Do I like being awake? Yes. And that's why I like the chaos, because it brings me to a level I can't reach normally. Improv, like you're saying the element of failure is so present that a new zone of my brain wakes up. I get the extra dopamine and adrenaline and norepine and all this stuff. I can access a part of myself, the survivors in me. And I love it.

[Nikki Glaser]

I love being like, oh, my God, I don't know the end of this joke. And I'm telling it right now. Is it gonna come to me?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Nikki Glaser]

The craziest moment of my life. I don't even like to think about it. You know, you have those moments where it's like near death moments. You don't even like to think about when you almost walked in front of a train or something because you're like, oh, it was at the I Heart Awards or something. And usher was hosting, and he pulled me up to dance, which was really awkward. It was hell. I got, like, last on Dancing with the Stars. A really deep insecurity of mine is that I can't dance. And so I just don't like to be forced. And with Usher, like, the best dancer in. And it was in front of Machine Gun Kelly. And I remember Megan Fox is sitting next to him, and they're all kind of watching this awkward thing. And I brought as my date my Dancing with the Stars partner, who had seen me fail already. And I'm dancing in front of him. I'm trying to get some kind of control back in this narrative of dancing. And I'm just thrust into this. And Usher was singing a song right before. It was a Michael Jackson song. I just didn't know the words to. Everyone else seemed to. And he put the mic in my face. Usher, if you would have given me one of your songs, I would have nailed it. But I don't know. This obscure. It was. To me, this is literally a B track. So that already happened. This is not live on tv, but it's the whole audience. It was at the Dolby or something. It's thousands of people, and it's kind of after the show, and Usher is just dancing. And so I had to do this awkward dance. And then I was like, usher, can I just have the mic? I just need to do one thing I'm good at, which is talking into a mic. So I was like, can I just say how embarrassing that just was? I got last on Dancing with the Stars. I did my Dancing with the Stars bit. I always say on Dancing with the Stars, I got first voted off. And I say in front of my dance partner, Gleb Savchenko, who is as hot as his name is disgusting. And I have my bits. I wasn't trying to make it about me. I was just trying to get a couple jokes in. And I go, everyone in the audience, I want you to know what I'm feeling right now. The thing you're worst at in the world that has been determined on ABC that you are terrible at. You have to do it in front of Usher. And I go, machine Gun Kelly.

[Monica Padman]

And.

[Nikki Glaser]

And I forgot Megan Fox's name. As I'm saying Machine Gun Kelly. I'm going. And it was probably, to me, 20 seconds of, like, what is her? And at the last second, it just Megan Fox. But it was so close. And I go, what would have happened had I not remembered? That's why I can't fucking just riff. Like I can't be trusted. It's like your life flashes before your eyes of not remembering Megan Fox's fucking name. But thankfully it came out. But one of those moments.

[Monica Padman]

You're always putting yourself in bad situations.

[Nikki Glaser]

Have you though risky even last night.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

How about this? I did a live show for a Formula One podcast I had. It was a disaster. We have done many, many live shows and they go great. They're so fun. We did this one in Vegas. A bunch of drunk people. No one knew who the fuck we. It was terrible. And we had to do a full hour. That's what we were hired to do. And I, at least at this age and having done enough stuff, about 10 minutes into it bombing, I go, oh, this is great. This is going to be so memorable for all of us.

[Nikki Glaser]

That's what I learned from the corporate gig I did in October. That was the worst I've ever bombed in recent memory.

[Monica Padman]

Tell us that.

[Nikki Glaser]

It was more money than I've been offered for a gig ever. You know, can't turn it down kind of money.

[Dax Shepard]

You said that it looks like a telephone number.

[Nikki Glaser]

It looks like a phone number. Amazing. Like, yeah. And I even think I said this doesn't seem ideal because it was for a vague hedge fund. Not even a hedge fund. It's like a group. It was like a conference for rich people to go and do fireside chats and just different activities to learn how to destroy the earth and profit from it. And it was just a bunch of media moguls. But I didn't read the fine print. I was just like, yeah. And then it shows up way sooner than I thought it was like, oh, well, that's in October. I think I said yes to it in August. That seems forever. And then it was like the day before. I hadn't done anything for it. I had shows all week and I just was like, I'll just write some jokes right before it. So it underprepared for sure. And then I'm trying to memorize all the jokes that I'm writing before. And because I saw it going bad, because they sent me a picture of the setup and it's on a beach and it's in the round. People don't realize it's so important for comedy. You need a ceiling. You need dark in the room so people can laugh at inappropriate things and not feel like their co workers or their peers or their wife is gonna be like, you relate to that or you think that. So they need to be in the dark. Stand up comedy. I think shouldn't be a surprise. I don't think anyone's ever excited about a standup comedian coming in. At the end, it was like 9:30 at night before the DJ, they just wanted to get drunk and get loose. The end of the long day of all these meetings. And they're like, and we have a special guest. And I'm doing an hour comedy should really never go more than 40 minutes. And Kevin Hart's there, but he just has to do a fireside chat. I actually ran into one of the guys that was at the show at the Golden Globes party, and he was like, I was there.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, no.

[Nikki Glaser]

He was like, I booked you. He's the guy that booked me. He's like, I want to have you back because we didn't nail it for you. It wasn't good. I'm sorry. It was. I did the same thing. You say, I want the redo for the story. Because now I told the story of this gig on Kimmel and it made it all worth it. This would have just been a thing.

[Dax Shepard]

I would have never been telling the story if it went well, and I.

[Nikki Glaser]

Wouldn'T have grown from it. Now I can accept those gigs and not have fear because I know what needs to go into them to do well. So Kevin Hart was there. I say hi to him before it, and I'm like, this is going to be bad. Don't watch. He's like, no, I'm going to stay. By the end of it, he was gone because I was like, let me do some Kevin Hart roast jokes I didn't do at the Tom Brady Roast. And he was long gone. I walked. Kevin, what's his name, the host of the Bachelor was there, the one that was canceled. Chris Harrison was there. For some reason. He didn't say hi afterwards. It was so lonely. You have to walk through the crowd. If it would have been nice to just go back to stage. And they literally, after I said good night, couldn't hold the applause. The stage was as big as this table. I just stepped two feet, and by the time I hit the sand, the pause was over. And then it was just crunch, crunch, crunch through the sand, my heels just digging in. I don't mind if an audience actively doesn't like me or is, like, that joke's inappropriate because I'm like, I know it's not. And you're just tight and you need some kind of identity, which is to be offended and I can come at you, but when they're just, like, embarrassed for you, they're right when you can feel it, the pity. The guy at the party was like, well, I will say you were doing jokes about molesting your nephew. And I go, wait, no, no, no, no. I did it about the idea of molesting. And he was like, what's the difference? And I go, well, there is one. It's nuanced. I go, you're so right. The material was so inappropriate for that event, but that's what my act is right now. So next time I do these gigs, I would love to do them, but I want to be hired to roast the people. And then I will have a plan. I won't have to go into my dumb act.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. Okay, I want to go to two things before we wrap up because you've given us a lot of time already.

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, my God, I could see her all day.

[Dax Shepard]

You went to 22 Taylor Swift shows on the eras tour.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So Richard and you have this history. I don't know if we can do it. Like a really short.

[Nikki Glaser]

I can take that.

[Dax Shepard]

I went once, I took my 11 year old to leave Lisbon and it was the greatest.

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

But you did 22 and you have this history. And I'll just do one second because I wasn't even aware of it. But in some buzzfeed thing, you made fun of her in some capacity and ended up in the dock. Now, I saw the dock and I loved it, and I don't remember that part at all.

[Nikki Glaser]

I'm so glad I did some interview ages ago. But when I get jealous, I think mean things. I was really into her at the time and I just saw the friends she kept. I was like, oh, I don't fit in there. So I just said something about how she just has model friends and commented about her size too. And then in the document comes out, she was struggling with eating issues, which.

[Monica Padman]

You have as well, which I had.

[Nikki Glaser]

Already been through in my life. But at the time I was also not in recovery for eating stuff. So I got myself to a good place, weight wise, that no one would know I had food issues, but I was still chasing that and I wasn't good at it anymore. Looking like that I couldn't do it. And so I resented it. I mouthed off on a thing that I thought no one would hear, which doesn't excuse it because now I know it gets out and it ends up in her documentary. And I felt just so bad. Not because I'm busted, people know I'm mean or something. It was just. She Saw that maybe she wouldn't have seen it had it not ended, ended up in the doc, but she definitely saw her own documentary. Like, she's seen me say that. And that's the person I like the most in this world that brings me the most joy. I made them maybe feel sad, couldn't handle it.

[Dax Shepard]

I heard you say that you were unable to listen to her music.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah, it was embarrassing. If you have a bad run in with someone or you make someone uncomfortable.

[Dax Shepard]

They remind you of your fuck up.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

You haven't made any amends.

[Nikki Glaser]

I was like, you don't deserve her music. You hurt her. You contributed to her wanting to go away.

[Dax Shepard]

Way. You wrote her an apology and tried to get it to her through agents.

[Nikki Glaser]

And their response when I first was like, hey, I think I'm in this documentary because I just heard my voice in the trailer and my friends were like, that's not you. You would never say that. And I go, yes, I would. Because I say it about you. They're like, you love her. And I'm like, I know, but you should hear what I say about you. Anyone I'm jealous of, this is the old me. I really have done so much to not be a gospel.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, you learn lessons through hurting people, feeling really bad about it, and then.

[Nikki Glaser]

Deciding to make mistakes. I allow that for myself. Now it's. At the time, I don't think I even allowed it as much, but I learned from that because I knew that a letter wasn't going to get to her or I wouldn't be able to know it. So I was just like, I'll just put out a public thing and that's the only way. And I didn't even know if she would see her or not. But as soon as I did, I was like, I put out apologies. That wasn't just trying to let the public think I'm okay again. I knew it was about me letting go of that because I could listen to her music afterwards. I was like, okay. I repented. I really do feel bad. I owned it. I said everything that I needed to. To not excuse my myself, but to explain myself and actually say why this won't happen again and be honest. And I just felt like now I'm finally, in the words of Taylor Swift, clean. Yeah, I love that I'm finally clean. Yes. And then she commented on it.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that's what I wanted on a.

[Nikki Glaser]

Date later that night. And I put my phone away just to pretend like I was a girl that doesn't check her phone. And like, Oh, I don't need it. He was a comedian, went down to go do a set, and I instantly check my phone when he goes down, and I have dozens of text messages being like, did you see? And she wrote something back. I only read it once because I can't handle it. It was very nice. From my memory of it, it was just something of like, this means so much to me. And it's a great example of being able to explain your vulnerability. She just got it. She only got what I was doing. And I love apologizing now when I can really get down to why it happened and own it and be like, I was just insecure. I was jealous that you're thin. I want to be your friend. I didn't see myself fitting in and I lashed out. And that's what it is. And it's nothing more. It's nothing to do with you. Sometimes I find myself, when I slip up, if I am really close to someone who maybe works with me, they're working with me because I want them to friends with me, and I obviously want their expertise with me. But then they kind of grow up and they're ready to spread their wings and fly. I've in years past said things that would maybe make them feel insecure. And they called me out and I go, what is this? And I go, because I don't want them to leave. It's because I know they're so talented for realizing it's a thing I have to check because I've had it done to me.

[Dax Shepard]

Back to the boys. A confident version of them wouldn't want to be friends with you.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes. Or unless I pay them, they're not going to need me. And it's just not true. I've been able to keep those friendships, but it's just the more I can admit my flaws, like you said, if I'm not ashamed of it, if I can say, yeah, I was jealous of Taylor Swift for being skinny. I went on this podcast and I talked about JLo. I watched JLo's documentaries and I used to be not a hater, but kind of like a lot of society or culturally. So things about she can't sing or can't act or can't dance, whatever. Like a lot of hate because everyone's so fucking jealous of her. Look at her. She's so beautiful. She actually can sing really well. She's a passionate, fearless creator and performer. She made a documentary with her own money to tell the story of her rekindling romance that ended up not going well. She knew it could have maybe not put this out there for people to consume and judge and people did. That's ballsy. And I'm actually kind of jealous of that kind of risk taking. And so what do I do? I have to shit on it. And then I watched her documentaries and I was like, man, she's fucking cool and I'm lame. Any kind of hate I have for her is pure jealousy. And I talked about on podcast, she reached out to me and now we're friends.

[Dax Shepard]

Get out.

[Monica Padman]

I love that.

[Nikki Glaser]

And now I couldn't love her more. I see totally through every preconceived notion I had about her. And it's freeing to admit when you're insecure.

[Dax Shepard]

For me, me, it's two sided. It's either I'm jealous or they're displaying a side of myself I hate so much. So like, my issues with JLo maybe in the past are like, why are you at the super bowl game in the front of the road? I've been like, why do you need so much attention?

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes, because I need secretly want it. But you're not willing to do what she's doing to get it.

[Dax Shepard]

Endless attention. And I hate that about myself, by the way. I don't even know if she needs attention.

[Nikki Glaser]

Let's say it's the same motivation. Well, she went and got it. You are scared. People are going to go, he needs attention. So what do you do? You shit him on her so that you sell yourself the story that people are going to say that about you if you do it, which causes you to not do it. I always make fun of people who do cringe things online. Not always. I used to. If someone's doing something comedically and taking a chance or showing their stomach fat or doing something that's really vulnerable that.

[Dax Shepard]

You told yourself you wouldn't be lovable if you did.

[Nikki Glaser]

I'll make fun of that person to my friends behind their back. Because then when I want to do something like that, I'll go, nikki, don't. Because people will make fun of you. I have to create a narrative so that I don't take those chances. Usually everything that I hate on is jealousy. Yeah, it's kind of fun to unpack it and kind of go, oh, it all whittles down to that. The more exhausting it gets to be anyone but myself, the better. For me, that is the best thing about aging is that it just becomes too tiring to try. And then people end up liking you so much more when you don't.

[Dax Shepard]

And you Go.

[Nikki Glaser]

I could have just been doing this the whole time. But you really can't because you can't get there any sooner.

[Dax Shepard]

That's when I go tell my younger self something. I don't even play that game. I didn't listen to anybody. That was part of my charm. Even if it was me who came back, I wouldn't listen.

[Nikki Glaser]

Like, you try to tell your kids stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

Pretty much. I don't. I try to avoid that. I'm living, I'm modeling. They'll pick some things up. They'll see other things don't work. They're very bright. I think it'll work.

[Nikki Glaser]

That's good.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. So have you, though, ever had one on one with Taylor?

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah, I actually met her before. I was a huge swiftie during her Red tour. I got invited because a show on mtv and they invited us backstage and I got a moment with her, but nothing post.

[Dax Shepard]

Apology?

[Nikki Glaser]

No, nothing post.

[Dax Shepard]

And you probably don't want that.

[Nikki Glaser]

Not even. I want to just be a fan. I just really like being a swiftie and I want to keep it that way. I like putting her on this pedestal that she probably doesn't even want to be on. I like feeling like a little girl when I'm at the show. That's why I go to 22 shows. It's four hours of the best dopamine release I've ever had in my life. I feel like the happiest person I've ever felt. I can't risk losing that. So right now, what we have is so perfect of her being this pop star that I admire.

[Dax Shepard]

As you get more successful, it's harder to be a fan. It's still fun to be a fan, and I think that's worth preserving.

[Nikki Glaser]

I love being a fan. It's one of my favorite things.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. And I, I. So I'm gonna preface this by saying, truly, you must know. I don't care how anyone gets sober. I have zero judgment about how anyone does it. I am intrigued, fascinated that you read a book.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

12 years ago and quit drinking. Alan Carr.

[Nikki Glaser]

Alan Carr. The easy way. Everyone loves that.

[Dax Shepard]

So what happens? Because I'm just curious.

[Nikki Glaser]

I think I heard Ellen on Jay Leno's Tonight show talk about quitting that way. Quitting smoking. I heard maybe Ashton Kutcher. It was. A couple celebrities had talked about it, and I was like, oh, I'll just get the book to see what happens. And then I was ready to quit smoking, and I just was like, I'll read it. Because you get to smoke while you Read it. That's the thing that made me go, okay, great. And then by the end of it, he goes, have your last cigarette, but I bet you don't want one. And he's right, you just don't want one. And I could not have explained that to my smoking self, but I promise you, it just worked on me. And so drinking, I wasn't ready to let go of anytime soon. At that point, I quit smoking, I think 2009. So I needed two more years with drinking. And then I hit a bottom in Cleveland after a weekend of shows. I was supposed to go see the Rock and Roll hall of Fame one morning, but I was hungover and I couldn't go. And I'm like, oh, this is affecting me. Seeing Britney Spears sequined outfit from the 2000s VMAs. This is becoming unmanageable. Like, if I can't see John Lennon's sunglasses or whatever. And so I was puking all day, and I had already bought the book because I just knew I was circling the drain. And I just needed that one moment to go, I'm going to read it. So as soon as I flew back to New York, I grabbed the book and I started reading it. The drinking one, if you're interested in this, people go, which one? Because there's lots of them. Just whichever one. The one for women, the one for controlling drinking. Whatever you want to do. I don't think you can really control drinking, but give it a whirl.

[Dax Shepard]

They're all by Alan Carr.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah, Alan Carr died of lung cancer, oddly enough, because he smoked for like 30 something years, but eventually created this method. Quit it robs any reason you have to do it. Any excuse you have of, like, it makes me more social. Let's piece that apart, actually. We're gonna prove to you without a question of a doubt that it doesn't make you more social. It makes me more brave. Okay, well, then firefighters would be getting loaded before they ran into burning buildings. They're not. It's not bravery. It makes you dumb. That's the bravery. You're saying things that you wouldn't normally say.

[Dax Shepard]

Your frontal lobes offline.

[Nikki Glaser]

Exactly. You're becoming dumb. It's domining you. And so all the excuses that you had, it relaxes you. Then it proves that it doesn't. It actually causes way more anxiety. So you're kind of left with no reason to do it. They found that for a lot of people's addictions, I guess when they have no reason to do it, they don't need to do it because you're always making excuses of why you need it. And that's why I haven't read the pot book yet, because I'm not ready to give it up because I know it'll work.

[Dax Shepard]

You probably know enough about aa. You come in, you quit drinking, and then you're left with the reason you drank. And then the meetings and the steps are. Are about addressing, not the symptom. You've quit the symptom. So did you find that you were now someone without their medicine?

[Nikki Glaser]

It went to pot, it went to sex. Just things that weren't as detrimental. It was really the hangover that I was avoiding more than anything. So it was food mostly because of my history with anorexia. After I gained enough weight to, like, not be at death's door, I just went to, like, binge eating. And bulimia was always in some kind of eating disorder state. Then it was like 10 years. It was Covid where my life got small. And then the food just filled up. So my life was so busy because it kept me from eating all the time. And then I was just uncontrollable around food, Unmanageable. And that's when I was like, I need help for this, and got back into a thing and realized, oh, I didn't look at the spiritual element of it.

[Dax Shepard]

So would it be fair to say the drinking, for whatever reason, on the continuum, that book was sufficient, but that the eating. You couldn't have read a book.

[Nikki Glaser]

He has a book for emotional eating. And it did kind of work. It did kind of work. But it is a spiritual problem that I have. I don't think people know that if you're starving yourself or if you're bulimic or if you're overeating or whatever it is, there's a place for you. There's a 12 step for you. That might not sound like the place you should go because you might be an undereater, but there's a blank anonymous that has a place for you that I didn't know about and didn't consider because I was like, that's not for me. But it helped so much. And I've been sober from starving myself for four years. I've been off gum for four years. Gum was a big thing for me. I would get sores in my mouth. It was like cigarettes, two packs a day of this trident. It's this trickier thing because you have to find your own sobriety.

[Dax Shepard]

Is it like SLA in that you define your bottom line?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

You define your own thing. So mine for a while was don't eat in bed. And then I was like staying in hotel rooms where it was like, well, there's no table, so let's amend this one. Now mine is if you're hungry, you don't get to keep going. You have to eat. So the first second that I'm like, I'm hungry, I don't get to be like, yes, yeah, let's ride this out. That's not negotiation.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't get horny at the time.

[Nikki Glaser]

Because I used to get like, oh, my body is eating itself. I'm doing something productive. Let's ride this. You don't get to do that anymore. Other girls get to do that. That's a very common thing I hear about all the time of like, I skipped breakfast. I don't get to do that.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't have that luxury.

[Nikki Glaser]

No, I can't be trusted with starving.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't have any opinion on whether people should go or not to a 12 step program. But for me, I could have maybe white knuckled it over the last 20 years, but I would have missed out on so much shit. Learning how to be honest with myself. Learning how to my fears were learning how to say sorry to people.

[Nikki Glaser]

I think that's a big part of it too, is just hearing people. You would never ever hear their stories and just learning how to be just vulnerable around strangers and feeling in a safe space. It's good for everyone. I'm always like, I wish there was one for just a normal person. And there is. It's called Al Anon because everyone can qualify. Everyone has someone in their life. So there is a room for you.

[Dax Shepard]

One of the early premises of this show was me going, can you have an AA meeting in public? Because I feel bad that people can't experience this. This is wild. You and going, I'm not like anyone. I hate all these people. I'm not like them, I'm different. And then they start talking. You're like, no, I do that. Oh, yes, I've done that exact same thing. There's a human quality to it that since I'm not religious, I don't get it there. I don't know where else I would have experienced that. What a thing to experience.

[Nikki Glaser]

Teaching you empathy. It's amazing. It's a lost part of our culture to share and to be a part of a community. And yeah, it gives you that, but it's a lot of work. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's the problem I have. But man, when you're doing it, it feels good. It's like meditating. It's always like, I have time to work out or medit. And they say you should just meditate instead of workout. And sometimes it's just so hard to sit and meditate, even though I always feel better after it. Do you guys meditate?

[Dax Shepard]

I do.

[Monica Padman]

Same situation. I'm like, I should. And then sometimes I do. And you're right. I always feel better after. But forcing it. And same with working out, you know, you will always feel better.

[Nikki Glaser]

You've never left the gym being like, why did I do that?

[Dax Shepard]

Never happened in the history of the world. I do tm because Howard did it and talked about it. So I do take up things that I hear, people I admire.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

Howard sold me on that big time. That really helped with my depression for a while until I stopped doing it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah. Weird.

[Dax Shepard]

I can't figure out why it wasn't.

[Nikki Glaser]

A permanent solution because I wasn't doing it. Oh, God.

[Dax Shepard]

Daily reprieves. It's annoying.

[Nikki Glaser]

You, like, take the medicine, and then you're like, I feel great. And you're like, I don't need to take this anymore. Why do we all do that with everything?

[Monica Padman]

It's a big deficiency for human brains.

[Nikki Glaser]

I'm prescribed ADD meds, and I feel so amazing on them. I feel like it's cheating, and so I won't take them because I feel like I can't Lance Armstrong life like this. I'll feel guilty. I can't be proud of my accomplishments because it's a pill. I tell my doctor I can't take it because I feel like it makes me feel too good. And he's like, isn't that good? And I'm like, but I just feel like I'm tricking you. He's like, you aren't tricking me. You didn't want this. I am a doctor. Don't insult me like that. But I kind of like feeling bad, I guess. Or I feel like I deserve it.

[Monica Padman]

That's what it is.

[Dax Shepard]

You might have a story that if you're not working so hard.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

That you're just not worthy of anything.

[Nikki Glaser]

I saw Jesse Eisenberg talking on CBS Sunday Morning about volunteering during COVID He moved back to Bloomington and worked at, like, a shelter. He was the happiest he ever was.

[Monica Padman]

We had him on Tuesday.

[Nikki Glaser]

So why did he go back to this then? Because I was like, oh, I want. I want to go just do an animal sanctuary. I have enough money that I'd Be fine the rest of my life. Why don't I just go rehabilitate goats and teach pigs how to walk again?

[Dax Shepard]

When we had Jeff Bridges on I'll Miss this, we talked about getting crazy religious about exercise and then crazy religious about lethargy. You would expect this from him, but the peace he had when he goes, yeah, man, that's what life is. Just ride these waves. Yes, sometimes you're going to volunteer and sometimes you're going to go make a. Sometimes you're gonna smoke pot, sometimes you're not. That's okay.

[Nikki Glaser]

That's okay. Yeah, you're not a bad person.

[Monica Padman]

No, I think you have a lot of bad person.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes, there's a lot of bad person driving you because you say a shitty thing about someone you love and then people point out even that Taylor Swift thing. I'm like, I am a bad person. If I would have just seen that as a swifty, I'd be like, that girl, she's a mean girl. And it's like, am I secretly a mean girl? And I'm like, I don't think so. Like part of my brain thinking I might be a sociopath, but I've learned that sociopaths don't question it and they don't want to fix it. So I can't be.

[Monica Padman]

Instead of you thinking you're a bad person, you could channel it to whoever else is probably not a bad person. The other swifty, the other person who's writing something shitty about her instead of saying, I'm a bad person because I did that instead, it's like, I'm not.

[Nikki Glaser]

A bad person and I did that.

[Monica Padman]

So they're probably not a bad person either.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes, that does help me. I think I do that a lot.

[Dax Shepard]

We also had an OCD expert on who was explaining the majority of OCD isn't what you see in the movies. It's not washing your hands repetitively and it's not checking the law block. It's people who are convinced they're a pedophile, but they are not. They have never done anything, but they're so worried they are. They won't watch TV shows with children. So in some way I think there's a little bit of compulsive. You're so afraid you're a bad person. Yes. Even though there's no proof that you are, other than a couple of fuck ups that everyone has.

[Nikki Glaser]

That's why I like to explore on stage as my darkest thoughts. And then hearing me people laugh, I'm like, oh, you thought this too.

[Dax Shepard]

All right, so I guess that wraps up. That's interesting about the book, and I dig it.

[Nikki Glaser]

And it really has been easy. It's the number one advantage I feel like I have over people sometimes. Not having a kid is another one, I have to admit, has freed me up to do a lot of stuff in my late 30s and now into my 40s that I wouldn't be able to do.

[Dax Shepard]

Although, ironically, the time you're most grateful you don't drink is when you have kids and you're around other parents early in the morning with your fucking kid because they wake up early. And I'm looking at these people, dude, if I had to be doing, doing this, which is already hard, hungover, I don't know how they're doing.

[Nikki Glaser]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

That's the times I've felt the very most grateful.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't know how my mom, 5am waking up if he went to bed at 3 o'. Clock.

[Nikki Glaser]

Now I know why my mom was cranky and chugging Diet Coke like she was hungover. I'm gonna cut her some slack. That is rough, dude.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, Nikki, I had high hopes for this. I was quite confident this would be great. And it was way better than I really anticipated.

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, my God, that's so nice. It really felt like a hang good. I was in the middle of it, just like, why am I so comfortable? It doesn't usually go like this.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, this is a blast. I hope you'll come. Oh, I really want to tell people, people should go see the Alive and Unwell tour. It's in the height of it right now.

[Nikki Glaser]

We just started. Really. I've never performed in front of this many people in my life.

[Dax Shepard]

The theaters are also beautiful. Right. It's a special honor to be able to play at those places.

[Nikki Glaser]

It really is. This is new to me. I was doing theater tours for the past five years and you'd sell 70%. Sometimes you sell out. It's a big deal.

[Dax Shepard]

And now you're adding dates.

[Nikki Glaser]

Adding dates. And there's a little bit of, I'm the same person I was before. Maybe these people are wrong that are coming out, but it's actually really exciting because I'm trying to embrace no more people should see me. This is the right thing. I'm having imposter syndrome problems, but for the first time life. I'm working so much harder on my standup than I ever have. It was always just something that kind of came naturally. I didn't have to really focus that hard. And now I'm kind of doing the same thing I did with the Golden Globes and the roast. And I'm looking at my material that way. Let's punch it up and make it as hard hitting as those because I can do it. It's just more work. And so I'm taking this very seriously. This isn't just any standup tour. And I'm roasting every city I go to.

[Dax Shepard]

You're doing like six Boston dates, which it's insane. Nuts.

[Nikki Glaser]

Eight.

[Dax Shepard]

They're almost all sold out. Yeah. So go to www.nikki glaser.com with an S. And go quick was just there. And so many of the shows are already sold out. Congratulations. You so deserve it and I'm really happy for you. And you're going to make so much money. And I hope you buy something obnoxious in St. Louis.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah. And you don't have to spend it on your kids.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

But Taylor's not on tour anymore. You're going to save so much money. That's a good point. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

All right, Nikki, this is a blast. Come back. Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong, the current confusion, and I get it, but I feel like we've said it, which is like, I'm conf. Why are Mondays now on video? Right. Oh, and then I say, oh, we offer to the guest, if they. If they're up for video, then that's fun. And then they go, well, you said it. You wouldn't never do that. Cuz it wouldn't be vulnerable. To which I reply, I did think that. And then we had Adam Scott on and it was like one of the most beautiful, connected, vulnerable episodes. And I said, that's not true. I found that out.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I mean, also, you can listen. You can keep listening. No one has to watch this. If you. If you prefer to listen, you should listen. But some people really enjoy seeing a visual. And we've enjoyed it more than we thought. We've enjoyed doing it more than we thought. So we figured, you know, why not offer that up when we can.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Also we do have guests coming up that are on video because of that exact thing where it just.

[Dax Shepard]

They don't want to be on camera.

[Monica Padman]

They don't want to be on camera.

[Dax Shepard]

I get it.

[Monica Padman]

Slash, even we've made some decisions like this specific person is probably better to not.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right.

[Monica Padman]

Because it's more intimate for them.

[Dax Shepard]

You're right. Should we get right into the sim stuff?

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Me and you have. Both have sim stories and we've been dying to tell each other.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Because it came up yesterday when we were doing intros.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And we were mad we weren't recording the fact check because I had the ultimate, ultimate SIM experience.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, boy.

[Dax Shepard]

I kind of want you to go first.

[Nikki Glaser]

You do?

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Because. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, just mine has a visual component.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine to go first. Mine isn't.

[Dax Shepard]

Your stories are also better. They are. They, they're so twisty and turny like I never know. As we've said, you're like the M. Night Shyamalan of just normal pedestrian life. Oh, is that what we were saying?

[Monica Padman]

Seinfeld.

[Dax Shepard]

Seinfeld. Yeah. It's way more Seinfeld. I don't know where I'm.

[Monica Padman]

Sean, I get it. It's like you don't, you really don't.

[Dax Shepard]

Know until the last frame.

[Monica Padman]

That' right?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, so my SIM story is our last fact check. We were talking about dating and.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, the matchmaker.

[Monica Padman]

The matchmaker.

[Dax Shepard]

And the ghosting.

[Monica Padman]

The ghosting. You saying, I, I, I wish you would just go talk to people.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And you know, be in the calling.

[Dax Shepard]

Business, not the exactly nothing business.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. So we had that whole conversation. The next day I was on Instagram, the Instagram app, and there was someone whose story I saw that I thought was fantastic. I follow this person and really, really like this person from afar. I don't know, I don't know him, but our paths have crossed many moons ago.

[Dax Shepard]

Interesting.

[Monica Padman]

And so I follow him and in.

[Dax Shepard]

The driveway while he was visiting his daughter. That would be Sean Penn.

[Monica Padman]

Oh no, no. He is so funny. I just find him to be the funniest person.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And so anyway, I'm watching these videos and I'm laughing and, and I, I text a friend who I know, sort of knows him.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, great, great.

[Monica Padman]

And I said, oh, wow. Hey, Blank. Hey. This person's name.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Is he straight and single, do you know?

[Dax Shepard]

Uh huh.

[Monica Padman]

She said, I'm pretty certain he's straight. I don't know if he's single.

[Dax Shepard]

That's pretty certain.

[Monica Padman]

We don't always know. We don't always know.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, okay.

[Monica Padman]

She said, I'm almost certain he's straight. I don't know if he's single.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Hurdle number two.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

And she said, the last time I saw him, I was walking around the reservoir. So we should start walking around the reservoir.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Monica Padman]

I was like, oh yeah, that's great. That's fun. We made some jokes. Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Was he, he or she joking or sincere?

[Monica Padman]

I Mean, I guess, like, it's sort of half joking. Like, we're not really.

[Dax Shepard]

But maybe let's. Anyways.

[Nikki Glaser]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Because it'll be funny anyways. Because we're doing this thing.

[Monica Padman]

Sure. The next day. The next day, I was walking down the street and I walked past him.

[Dax Shepard]

No.

[Monica Padman]

I, like, had such a visceral reaction for so many reasons. One, it was.

[Dax Shepard]

This is a big challenge at the time, the universe put, like, I'm.

[Monica Padman]

I. I know. Oh, I know you're not going to, like where this goes, but it was.

[Nikki Glaser]

It was. It was like the.

[Monica Padman]

What's the universe doing? Is it. Is it telling me, like, go say.

[Dax Shepard]

Hi is what it's telling. There's nothing to interpret here. This is. This is as linear as it gets.

[Monica Padman]

And I walked past him and I went to the store and in person.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you get a PQ or you're like, oh, wow. Yeah. In person.

[Monica Padman]

Well, I didn't want to stare.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I got a. I got a shock to my system because of the overwhelm of the coincidence.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

And I did not want to make a thing, but I. And so I went to this store and just, like, jumped into this.

[Dax Shepard]

To hide.

[Nikki Glaser]

Store to hide.

[Monica Padman]

Collect yourself and text my friend. Of course.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, right.

[Monica Padman]

And she said. She said, did you say hi? And I said, no, I don't. I didn't.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't know how to say hi.

[Monica Padman]

I said.

[Nikki Glaser]

I said, I don't know how.

[Monica Padman]

And then she said. And then this is why things get kind of confusing. Because then she was like, okay, yeah, maybe that is best. Maybe. I know. I know you wouldn't like that part.

[Dax Shepard]

Give me her number.

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

She said, do I already have her number?

[Monica Padman]

I think so.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

She said, maybe you should. Like, an introduction is better. And so then I was like, yeah, I don't know. Anyway, I shopped at the store. I probably bought something nervously. Yeah. And then I walked back out and back past.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, great. This is like the girl with the cowboy hat. I was trying to take Panet over.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, exactly. I walked back past and I, like, shook my head a little bit to.

[Dax Shepard]

Try to get a little pheromones so.

[Monica Padman]

My pheromones could spread.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to play like a dog wedding.

[Nikki Glaser]

Dog tail.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And that was it.

[Nikki Glaser]

It was just wild.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And I. Okay. And then I told Jess about this, and he was like, you told yourself if this happened again, you would say something. And I forgot. I did do that. Like, remember the guy I saw in New York who I thought was so hot And I thought, oh, I should just say, hey, you're so.

[Nikki Glaser]

Hey.

[Monica Padman]

Just so you know, you're so attractive.

[Dax Shepard]

I love looking at you.

[Nikki Glaser]

Have a great day.

[Monica Padman]

Remember after him, I was like, I should have said it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And then I. And the guy at Farmer's Market at Brentwood Country Mart's.

[Dax Shepard]

The bracelets at the Tower, you couldn't get your bracelets on.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, that's separate.

[Dax Shepard]

There was. Nobody had a guy put them on you.

[Monica Padman]

There was no guy. So.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, we can't count that one.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that doesn't count. But the other guy at Brentwood Country Mart, that was so attractive.

[Dax Shepard]

How many streetcars are you gonna watch go by?

[Monica Padman]

I know. I am starting to think you gotta.

[Dax Shepard]

Get mad at yourself. That's a good motivator. Like, that's when you. Like, you're fucking. I've had enough of this. I'm gonna live my whole life like this.

[Nikki Glaser]

Fuck this.

[Monica Padman]

I'm like 4% there.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, geez. I thought this would take you into the 40s.

[Monica Padman]

It was.

[Nikki Glaser]

Well, I didn't know how I could.

[Monica Padman]

Take it as I'm mad at myself. I should have said something or, wow, the universe loves me. Gave me something. I'm not. I didn't do anything about it.

[Dax Shepard]

But it's only going to give. It's only going to try to help you so many times. Yes. If you don't want its help, it's.

[Nikki Glaser]

Going to stop a universe.

[Dax Shepard]

You need to be way fuck above 4%. I just. As your friend, I need to yell at you a little bit.

[Nikki Glaser]

40.

[Dax Shepard]

You need to be in the 48. I'm going 82%. He knows you. You're a comedy girl. You got this popular podcast. We're on a very popular podcast. That's why we're staying at this hotel. Mr. Customs man in India. I got.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Still haunts me. I'll think about that. That's like the Nev Campbell thing.

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I'll be thinking about the.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Wait. Okay.

[Nikki Glaser]

What happened again?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you told the Indian customs man.

[Nikki Glaser]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

When he didn't believe I was staying at the nice hotel. And he wanted the. First, the phone number, then he wanted the address, then he wanted, like, I don't know what he wanted. He did not believe that.

[Monica Padman]

What are you doing here?

[Dax Shepard]

I have a very popular.

[Steve Nash]

So.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I'm one of the hosts of a very popular podcast and we're in town to interview Bill Gates and I'm like, he didn't know what podcast was. He didn't know what popular was. And I don't think he knew what Bill Gates was.

[Monica Padman]

He didn't give a.

[Dax Shepard]

About three strikes and you're out. We're so lucky I got let into that country.

[Monica Padman]

I know. That was so funny. Okay. Anyway, so that was just. That was so sip.

[Nikki Glaser]

The next day.

[Monica Padman]

The next day, the next.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. You got to listen, girl.

[Nikki Glaser]

I know he's at Maru a lot, too.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my spray. He's probably a pervert. Probably wants you to on Rob, if you see him, ask him if he likes girls to. On a glass coffee table. People are trying to guess. And tell her your friend's open to it. As long as there's not been like 10 other people who have done it. As long as she's the first.

[Monica Padman]

Exact.

[Dax Shepard]

And well, you could be up. Up to the.

[Monica Padman]

No, I want to be the first.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. You have standards. Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Now you have a SIM moment, too. Now, let's hear it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. I pray that you think this is as insane as I do. So my friend Oliver apparently is in Toronto and he goes to a museum. And then he sends me these two photos from a museum.

[Nikki Glaser]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And I will explain to the listener, this is in a museum. And it is an Ames chair that was made between 1948 and 1950. Designed between 1948, 1950. It's called Dax armchair, which Dax isn't a fucking word in 1948. Not only is it a Dax armchair, it was designed at UCLA and manufactured in Michigan. Oh, are you fucking Dax armchair?

[Monica Padman]

God.

[Dax Shepard]

Does that not zap your brain in it? That's not possible in a museum Dax armchair. They should write fucking expert after it.

[Monica Padman]

Well, I thought when this first popped, I thought it was something for the show. I thought something in the museum.

[Dax Shepard]

This is in a museum of an Eames chair, by the way. Affordable. It was 20 bucks. It was meant to be a cheap.

[Monica Padman]

And we're cheap.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, I'm a cheap. I'm a cheapie Dax armchair. Why did they use that word? That wasn't a word. That's not a name. It was made at UCLA. It manufactured in Michigan.

[Monica Padman]

The Dax listed at about $20 each.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm gonna read the whole thing. A modern Dax armchair designed 1948-1950 by Charles Eames and Ray Eames with staff of the Engineering Department, University of California, Los Angeles. This model, made from 1955 to about 1972 by Herman Miller Furniture Company, Zealand, Michigan. Molded polyester, fiberglass, composite steel, rubber. I used to wear rubbers when I was single. That's a stretch. The chair Design shared a second prize. Of course, I never win either. I never win. My birthday's the second. The chair design shared a second prize. Loser in the 1948 International Competition for low cost furniture design sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. One of my favorite cities, the Dax, listed at about $20 each, or $100 in modern terms. You have $100 in the French name for it is Fatoul. Dax.

[Monica Padman]

Fatoul.

[Dax Shepard]

Dax. Wow. Monica, would you agree this is insane?

[Monica Padman]

That's insane.

[Dax Shepard]

Dax armchair.

[Monica Padman]

We gotta get one, obviously, for sure.

[Dax Shepard]

20 bucks.

[Monica Padman]

Who won in Modern?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, 100.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, never mind.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to contact this museum and just sit next to it so people can crack.

[Monica Padman]

Where is it?

[Dax Shepard]

Toronto.

[Monica Padman]

We're not going there.

[Dax Shepard]

That was my first place I ever went in a hot tub. The Harbor Castle family vacation. I read that in bed yesterday morning. And I, like, I couldn't. I'm like, when is it too much? I'll cry. Maybe I'll. I'll cry a bit tonight about everything.

[Monica Padman]

You didn't cry about this. I was just stunned.

[Nikki Glaser]

How.

[Dax Shepard]

How crazy could it get before you have to go like, I don't understand.

[Monica Padman]

I know. That's how I am feeling, like. Yeah. How explicit do they have to be this engineers. They're begging. I think they wanna. I'm getting nervous, though, because Eric says the more we're on to it, they'll unplug. They'll start unplugging.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. They'll get suspicious of us and start, like, hampering our speech. I'm shook by that chair and I must own it. It doesn't look terribly comfortable.

[Monica Padman]

No, but we still.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm not either. What if I just like on it ever, no matter what? It's round. I'm round. It has four legs. I do too.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, we need that in here. A hundred percent. So this is a ding, ding, ding. Ish. Because my favorite podcast. Nobody's listening.

[Nikki Glaser]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

With Elizabeth and Andy. Elizabeth loves signs like this. She lost both of her parents when she was quite young, so she often sees them in the universe in ways.

[Dax Shepard]

They're winking at her.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, she loves that. And I. And. And I like it too. And that is a sign from the universe.

[Dax Shepard]

I know.

[Monica Padman]

It was a sign. It was a sign to, like, keep going. Like, it's all going to be fine.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. And it is all fine.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I told you this about Lared Hamilton. Gabrielle said that he looks at her. She's like, I love his presence in my life because he's Just unflappable. Right. And she said that once in a while, when she's frazzled, he looks at her and he goes, it's gonna be fine. It is fine.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You did say this.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Or it's gonna be okay. It is okay.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Right now it's okay.

[Nikki Glaser]

I love that. Yeah, I really love that.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a very steadying also, you know.

[Monica Padman]

We have a friend who did hypnosis, and I think I've said this before, but I think about it all the time.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you the friend in the strikes room where you did hypnosis?

[Monica Padman]

No, it wasn't me.

[Dax Shepard]

In the attic.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I do.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Listen to that episode. That was an interesting episode.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

Very good.

[Monica Padman]

I got hypnotized real time on this show.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Now this friend got hypnosis to stop vaping. Part of it is you say, I used to do that. I don't do that anymore. Never again.

[Dax Shepard]

I used to do that. I don't do that. Never again.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I hate that sentence.

[Nikki Glaser]

I love it. I think it's so.

[Monica Padman]

I think the I don't it do do that anymore.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Is so strong.

[Nikki Glaser]

It's actually.

[Monica Padman]

It's like the past, the present, the future all in one thing, right?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

But the present is the one that is the most impactful, and it's similar to. It is okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

I don't do that anymore.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. My thing is to go, like. What has been helpful to me is to go like, whatever. When I quit dip or any of the stuff I quit, which is all the time, I go like, oh, my God, I want it. I want this so bad. And in 10 minutes, I won't. Yeah.

[Nikki Glaser]

Like, it doesn't help me.

[Dax Shepard]

It doesn't for me. Like, knowing it. Yes. This is an urge. It'll be passing and then, believe it or not, in 10 minutes, this. You're not. You won't be fighting this.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

It is very comforting to me because generally when I get that strong compulsion to do something I don't want to do, I. My brain tells me I'm going to feel that way forever until I do the thing I want to do.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. But it's tricky because some things.

[Dax Shepard]

Some things never change.

[Monica Padman]

Some things, I guess, depending on your addiction, some things don't go away. There's something to me about the mantra, if you're really trying to quit something of just like, not, like, I won't want this, because I think that's a lie for certain things, for certain people and certain addictions, like I think it's not like, don't worry, you won't want this soon.

[Dax Shepard]

Because that's not a reality.

[Monica Padman]

It might not be a reality. It's just like, yeah, I used to do that. I don't do that anymore.

[Dax Shepard]

I will say, though, I don't. I don't want drink.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Really? That. That is a miracle, my love.

[Monica Padman]

I'm you.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a miracle.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

That I was, as they say in the program, like, relieved of the obsession that was kind of unimaginable the first. First year.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I'm just gonna. Every time I walk by a bar for the rest of my life, I'm gonna want to go inside, and I gotta talk myself out of not going inside for the rest of my life.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But I don't think about it ever.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I could be, like, surrounded by Jack Daniels bottles, and it doesn't even. I'm just like, oh, yeah, that is lucky. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I don't know if that's for everyone, though.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Experts if you dare.

[Monica Padman]

This is a ding, ding, ding. Cause this is for Nikki. And we do talk about addiction.

[Dax Shepard]

I love this episode. I gotta say. I told her it was like, we have these episodes every now and again. They really fill my tank up, and they make me really, really excited for our job. Not that I ever don't like our job. I always like our job. But sometimes I'm really turbocharged and really hits me, like, no, I love our job.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

To get to, like, have something in your head and then can, like, work through it with the actual human being that we have access to that. And then they're so incredible and fun. Yeah. I just. I. Let's put a real spring in my step this episode.

[Monica Padman]

Not to brag.

[Dax Shepard]

Go ahead and brag.

[Monica Padman]

Not to brag.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a sign of really good friends.

[Monica Padman]

You can brag.

[Dax Shepard]

I think it is.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. But not. I mean, I. I guess the armchairs are my good friends.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I got two numbers that week.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Big week for me.

[Monica Padman]

Hers was one of them.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And that was pretty cool. I played it really cool and.

[Dax Shepard]

Too cool.

[Monica Padman]

Well, no, because you exchanged numbers and, you know, I didn't. I sat back.

[Dax Shepard]

We had a. Oh, right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Great.

[Monica Padman]

Like, as she was leaving you, you got her number. And then I. You know, I. I went in the corner during that part.

[Dax Shepard]

Peed in on a. On our tree.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And then. It's a little animal.

[Dax Shepard]

You are.

[Monica Padman]

And she was like, oh, God, what's she.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, that's a thing she does. It's a good luck thing for us.

[Monica Padman]

She does that at the end of the day.

[Dax Shepard]

Every single one.

[Monica Padman]

And then she reached out to me.

[Dax Shepard]

That's wonderful because it quiets any voice in your head that she didn't want to give you your number.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah, I don't.

[Dax Shepard]

Because once in a while we exchange numbers with the guests.

[Monica Padman]

You do?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I don't. Like. I will, like, five times if they. I will never instigate it ever.

[Dax Shepard]

Most of the time, I want their number. Like, I like them. And I'd love to at some point in my life, if I want to say hi to them, I want to be able to do that.

[Monica Padman]

This is. This is back to me and you at the bar.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You get the. You always. You're just like, give me your number.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Because I might want to say hi. I might see you in something and I want to be able to tell you I loved it or whatever it is. But it's perfect for you because you didn't.

[Monica Padman]

I don't.

[Dax Shepard]

You didn't ask for it. And then she reached out to you. Yeah, we love her. We love her.

[Monica Padman]

We love her.

[Dax Shepard]

We're the number one fans.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, She's. She's so great. She's so great. Okay, a couple little facties. Gracious Loser face.

[Dax Shepard]

Gracious.

[Monica Padman]

That's from Friends.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, why did they have to confront that?

[Monica Padman]

Because Joey.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, he's nominated for a daytime drama soap opera.

[Monica Padman]

Soapy, Soapy Sudsy.

[Dax Shepard]

A sudsy.

[Monica Padman]

And Rachel is teaching him about Gracious Loser.

[Dax Shepard]

And did he have a. I'm guessing he probably had a really preposterous look on his face.

[Monica Padman]

He got actually mad.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, he did.

[Monica Padman]

When he lost.

[Dax Shepard]

When he lost, yeah. Oh, that's great.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah. God, it's a good.

[Dax Shepard]

I wish someone would do that. They're on their face and it's not their name. They go this. Stand up and walk out. That would be awesome. I feel like some of those people. And some of those people deserve to like. Some of these people have been nominated 15 times in the same category and not one.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Stop inviting me.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly. Okay. Do they do knee tucks? Yes, a knee tuck, also known as a knee lift. Cosmetic procedure that improves the appearance of the knees. They can address loose skin. Skin, excess fat and other signs of aging. Speaking of skin, I did the thing. I haven't done it in so long, but I did the thing you're never supposed to do where I. I, like, felt something sort of under the skin just a tiny bit.

[Dax Shepard]

And I'm A hint of a pimple.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. But I don't know if it's a pimple because it's been there for a long time.

[Nikki Glaser]

It's under.

[Monica Padman]

It's, like, under. But it's not a cyst. It feels like I can, like.

[Nikki Glaser]

I can, like, feel it more.

[Monica Padman]

Like a pin prick.

[Nikki Glaser]

Like a splinter.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And so yesterday I started fucking with it, and now I created a whole issue on my face.

[Nikki Glaser]

And we're about to.

[Monica Padman]

Kristen's hosting the SAG Awards. By the time this comes out, it will already happen also. Ding, ding, ding. Nikki. Golden Globes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And I'm there to help her write her stuff, and so I'll be there. And now I have a whole.

[Nikki Glaser]

Ish. Whole thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Where is it?

[Monica Padman]

Right here. You can see it.

[Nikki Glaser]

That's okay.

[Dax Shepard]

No money.

[Monica Padman]

It's okay. I was just like, why.

[Nikki Glaser]

Why don't we learn these lessons?

[Dax Shepard]

The face stuff is impossible. I can't tell you how often I'm pushing on something going, don't do this, don't do this. This is a mistake. Oh, my God. I think I'm almost there. I am gonna get it. I'm gonna stop doing this. Okay. You're gonna finish this. And you are not allowed to look in the mirror and start touching this again. Like, I go through this madness all the time.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

All right, now, we talked about baby girl.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Talk about baby girl.

[Monica Padman]

Baby girl has two meanings, okay. Baby girl is a slang term used to describe an attractive man, often a celebrity or fictional character. It's a term of endearment that's become popular with Gen Z. Like, a lot of people are like, austin Butler is baby girl. Timothy Chalamet is baby girl.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. We would have said in my era a pretty boy.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, probably correct. Attractive, cute or vulnerable. Oh, vulnerable also, it's this sexual dynamic.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh.

[Monica Padman]

Based on the. Well, not ba. I don't know if it happened first, but the movie Nicole Kidman, Baby girl, there's milk. She drinks milk like a kitty or. Well, she does drink like a cat. And I don't know if it's different from when she also drinks milk, because they've made that joke a lot on all these shows. And I fell asleep during, like, 10 minutes of the movie, so that might have been when she drank the milk.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. This is like when you fell asleep. Sleep during. Or you shut without a pedal off. Or you fell. Took a shower in the middle. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

We had a recording.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I understand. I had to get to you timed it perfectly. You missed my racist.

[Monica Padman]

I missed your racist thing.

[Dax Shepard]

That was my racism.

[Monica Padman]

But that was probably my dad saying, go to shower now.

[Dax Shepard]

We'll take a quick one.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

So anyway, Baby Girl is like a dominant woman being treated as a sub sexually. Like, dominant in life.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Being kind of subordinate sexually, I think, often to a man who might be subordinate to her in life. You know what I mean?

[Dax Shepard]

Like kinky.

[Nikki Glaser]

Well, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And baby Girl, she's the boss and he's the intern.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh.

[Monica Padman]

See, I wanted to be hotter and I didn't find it hot.

[Dax Shepard]

What if she was coughed up a hairball? Like, she got too into the role that she was hacking and stuff.

[Monica Padman]

I wonder if you'll think it's sexy, because I. I, in theory, could see it being sexy, but then when I was watching it, I was not really.

[Dax Shepard]

For me, I wouldn't, like, tie me up. No, thank you. Handcuffs? No, thank you.

[Monica Padman]

What about.

[Nikki Glaser]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

At one time you dated this kind of older model.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, huh.

[Monica Padman]

Were you kind of subordinate there?

[Dax Shepard]

No, no, but it was. That was. I would say more like two equals. Wrestling match.

[Monica Padman]

Interesting. You mean physically or.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, like, she was aggressive.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

I was equally aggressive back.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it was like. But it was. There was not. No, she had a mat. She had a wrestling mask on.

[Nikki Glaser]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Have you ever been a sub?

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I don't. Even with bringing up my molesting?

[Nikki Glaser]

No. Oh, my God. No, I was not.

[Dax Shepard]

The darker the better.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, so you've never subbed?

[Dax Shepard]

No.

[Monica Padman]

You've never been a substitute teacher?

[Dax Shepard]

No. Truly, no shade to anyone. I've explored everything in my mind.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm, like, up for anything and everything, so I would try it. Yeah, I don't care. I would try that. If Kristen's like, I want a hand. Handcuff you and hit you with a fucking horsewhip or whatever, I'd be like, yeah, okay, great.

[Monica Padman]

What if she asked you to drink milk out like a cat?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, great. I would do anything. There's nothing I want to do that's fun. But when I imagine whether I'd be enjoying it or not, it's kind of hard for me to lock in.

[Nikki Glaser]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, all right.

[Monica Padman]

Baby girl.

[Dax Shepard]

Baby girl.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. What did Taylor Swift, good old Taylor Swift, say to Nikki in response to her apology? Her apology said, I love Taylor Swift. Unfortunately, I am featured in her documentary as part of a montage of asshat saying mean things about her, which is used to explain why she felt the need to escape from the spotlight for a year. It's insanely. Ironic because anyone who knows me knows I'm obnoxiously obsessed with her and her music. The sound bite was from an interview I did five years ago and I say in such a shitty tone, she's too skinny. It bothers me. All of her her model friends and it's just like, come on. This quote should be used as an example of projection in Psych 101 textbooks. If you're familiar with my quote work at all, you know I talk openly about battling some kind of eating disorder for the past 17 years. I was probably feeling fat again. That's in quotes. Feeling fat that day. And was jealous. And I was only bothered by her model friends because I'd like to be her friend and I'm not a model.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a strong apology.

[Monica Padman]

It is. Very. Then Taylor said, wow, I appreciate this so much. One of the major themes of the doc is that we have the ability to change our opinions over time, to grow to learn about ourselves. I'm so sorry to hear that you've struggled with some of the same things I've struggled with.

[Dax Shepard]

Sending a massive hug a that's very sweet. That's as nice and repairing as a thing can be.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Aspirational.

[Monica Padman]

It is.

[Dax Shepard]

All right.

[Monica Padman]

All right.

[Dax Shepard]

Love you, love. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey.