Crissle’s Couch — Session 4 ft. Mandii B.

Podcast by CAKE MEDIA | December 2, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of Crissle’s Couch welcomes the vibrant and unfiltered Mandii B—co-host of the “Decisions Decisions” podcast, New York Times bestselling author, and all-around outspoken force—for an intimate, funny, and deeply honest conversation. Together, Crissle and Mandii explore the journey of self-growth in the spotlight, therapy revelations, changing relationships with money and men, and hard-earned lessons about self-worth and autonomy. With quintessential candor, they also take a listener question about love and boundaries, dishing hard truths and plenty of laughs along the way.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins of Their Friendship and Public Personas

• Meeting Story & Initial Impressions

  • Mutual friends and podcasting brought Crissle and Mandii together, despite initial mutual skepticism and blunt honesty.

  [00:59] Mandii B: “Who is this biracial y'all brought around me?”
  [01:08] Mandii B: “I was like, dang, y'all friend don't like me. And you probably said, yeah, I don't in front of my face. You were very, very blunt. That was before therapy.”

• Growth in Public Spaces

  • Both speak on evolving while navigating public critique and maintaining authenticity. Crissle reflects on being transparent about her journey:

  [05:19] Host: “There are 12 plus years of The Read publicly available for free, which is crazy... There is absolutely growth there. And you can't tell me that I can't have it. I do.”

2. Growth, Change, and Internet Scrutiny

• Dealing With Public Expectation

  • Mandii highlights the challenge of growing in public while the Internet preserves past mistakes:

  [03:54] Mandii B: “The unfortunate part with the Internet is…they hold you to the words you said so many years ago… I would much rather be doing this—sharing my life and being a true testament to what it's like to overcome things and change and grow—than be behind a computer doing accounting.”

• Standing Firm in Beliefs

  • Crissle comments on not compromising core values even if “the whole world can be against me.”

  [06:27] Host: “If I'm firm on how I feel about it, then all of y’all just gon have to hate me. I don’t care.”

3. Therapy, Self-Love & Healing

• Mandii’s Therapy Journey

  • Entered therapy in 2020 during a turbulent phase: pandemic, her first adult relationship, changing careers, overwhelming pressure.

  [09:06] Mandii B: “I needed help…with dealing with people…my frustration with myself in terms of being able to effectively express my feelings in ways of navigating business...I needed help.”

  • Focused first on the present, learning to manage anxiety, relationship patterns, and burnout before addressing childhood wounds and traumas.

  • Realization about growth:

  [12:03] Mandii B: “I was so proud of the growth I had reached...I started referencing my past self as a whole nother person.”

  • Reconciliation with her past self became crucial to integrating her healing.

• Honesty in Therapy

  • Both admit therapy’s hardest part is honest self-reflection and confronting the roots of behaviors—substances, sex, and the need for external validation.

  [14:11] Mandii B: “When I wrote this book…I start calling you drag yourself. Oh, I dragged myself.”

4. Relationships, Attachment, and Letting Go

• Toxic Dynamics and Side Chick Narratives

  • Mandii opens up about the cycle of returning to unhealthy relationships, the trap of being “the other woman,” and the realization of her own self-worth.

  [14:55] Host: “…you were like, yeah, this is what my stupid delusional ass thought. And once I got my heart broken, I realized how ridiculous that was.”

  • Discusses deep emotions and the struggle to detach, culminating in a pivotal moment of choosing not to revisit an ex and feeling victorious the next morning.

  [18:59] Mandii B: “I literally didn’t…Wasn’t gonna tell anyone I was going to see him. But I was going through all of those thoughts in my head, like, yeah, no…That could have backtracked me another—could have pushed me back 10 steps in therapy.”

• Emotional Intelligence

  • Therapy taught Mandii to recognize, name, and sit with her feelings (“the feelings wheel”).
  • Crissle and Mandii explore patterns of romantic attachment, often rooted in childhood abandonment and modeled relationships.

5. Money, Autonomy, and Changing Values

• Shifts in Self-Worth and Money’s Influence

  • Discussion on how growing up in scarcity shaped Mandii’s early relationships (“a flight meant something”). Now, self-sufficiency changed her perspective on sex, value, and emotional autonomy.

  [22:20] Mandy B: “When I got to a place where…I don’t need a man for money, it just became like, damn… you was letting this man into you for a pair of jeans, for a dinner. And just that made me feel shameful and worthless. Because now I view myself as more.”

• Financial Security: The Key to Liberation

  • Once women are financially independent, they can choose relationships out of want, not need.

  [26:28] Mandy B: “I genuinely get to have a healthy relationship with a man because I want to. Not because I need to.”

  • Critique of "trad wife" trends and the pitfalls of depending on a partner for security.

• Capitalism and Disagreement

  • Spirited debate about the ethics of wealth and success.

  [28:38] Mandy B: “There’s ethical human beings.”
  [28:40] Host: “That’s not true. There’s no ethical way to amass a billion dollars in worth.”

6. Healing From Betrayal & Setting New Standards

• Rebuilding Trust After Toxic Relationships

  • Mandii discusses moving from anger at her ex (and herself for staying) to learning from her experiences and raising her standards for future partners.

  [32:36] Mandy B: “Now…I have no problem asking for what I want. If you gonna come to my house, you gonna take my trash out...I don’t have to shrink myself anymore.”

• Crissle Relates Her Own Story

  • Crissle recounts the difficulty of leaving an abusive relationship—challenging the narrative of what “strong” women do.

  [34:21] Host: “I always thought that if somebody put their hands on me, I would be gone immediately…Disconnecting was so much harder.”

• Addressing Past Patterns & Family Roots

  • Both unpack how their childhoods informed their attachment styles and relationships.

7. A Listener Letter: Boundaries, Love, and Reality Checks

• [43:57] Host brings a relationship dilemma from “Sarah”:
  • Professional athlete boyfriend, a mishap with a stolen suitcase, feelings of guilt and obligation, and requests to tell his mother about the incident.

Advice & Tough Love:

• Mandii and Crissle unravel the delusion of the “healthiest relationship ever” when it is, in fact, full of red flags: lack of safety, communication issues, financial imbalance.

  [45:54] Mandy B: “I think maybe there was a desire to be with a professional athlete…You’re attaching this belief that this is the best relationship you’ve been in, because maybe you got what you wanted, but it’s not really packaged the way you wanted…There’s nothing healthy about a relationship where you can’t tell somebody what’s really happening.”

  [48:46] Host: “Just because it’s the healthiest relationship you’ve ever been in doesn’t mean it’s a healthy relationship, period.”

• Their ultimate, blunt advice: Stop caring for a grown man, re-examine the relationship, and recognize your own value independent of the “fantasy” of who your partner could be.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [06:47] Mandii B: “You only get to that place, though, when you genuinely love who you are, when you like yourself, when you’re confident in yourself, when you’re proud of yourself.”
• [24:53] Mandy B: “When you reach a place of the financial security to pay your own bills, to travel with your friends, to go and eat how you want to eat without needing it from a man…the way you are able to show up for yourself…the way you’re able to lean into your romantic relationships with men because you like them, not because you need them, is one of the most powerful, most liberating things.”
• [41:09] Host (quoting Mandii’s book): “It wasn’t until I felt true love and heartbreak that I could grow out of my selfishness. Experiencing love and finding self esteem allowed me to realize I was so comfortable being number two…because I lacked morals and self worth and allowed myself to be an easy target for men seeking a woman who would accept the bare minimum.”
• [42:21] Mandy B: “I have the control to just not let anything, any of the outside forces affect how I want to feel that day…So what I know now is that I have the power to feel how I wanna feel.”

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:02 — Meeting and first impressions
• 03:54 — Navigating growth under public scrutiny
• 08:51 — The catalyst for therapy and early revelations
• 12:03 — Integrating growth and reconciling with past self
• 13:54 — The hard truths of therapy and self-dragging in writing
• 14:55 — Side chick stories and patterns of settling for less
• 18:59 — Withholding from returning to toxic relationships
• 24:53 — Financial security as liberation for women
• 28:38 — Ethics, capitalism, disagreement
• 32:36 — Mandii on healing and setting new relationship standards
• 34:21 — Crissle’s story of leaving an abusive relationship
• 43:57 — Listener letter: athlete boyfriend, boundaries, self-worth
• 48:46 — The myth of “healthiest ever” relationships
• 51:03 — Marital roles, sacrifice, and why women should think twice

Original Tone & Language

The dynamic is lightning fast, sharp, real, and honest—full of laughter, swearing (“bitch,” “hoe,” “y’all”), and quick-witted banter. Both women are unapologetically candid, blending humor with serious self-examination and truth-telling.

Conclusion

This episode encapsulates what makes both Crissle and Mandii B. such magnetic personalities: bracing vulnerability, real talk about the messiness and triumphs of personal growth, and a deep commitment to empowering listeners (especially women) to claim their own worth—regardless of what society, partners, or the past might suggest. Whether unpacking their own journeys, debating capitalism, or dishing out tough love to listeners, they invite us all to take a seat on the couch, get uncomfortable, and come away just a little bit healed.

Find Mandii B:

• Book: No Holds Barred: A Manifesto of Sexual Exploration and Power
• Podcasts: "Decisions, Decisions," "Horrible Decisions" (Behind paywall), "Selective Ignorance"
• Radio: Hot 107.9, Atlanta
• Twitch: Streaming under Mandy B

For more Crissle’s Couch: Tune in weekly for more sharp truth, candid advice, and real talk.