Tuning into Delilah: Legendary Radio Host Reflects On Her Career, Money and Kids

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Tuning into Delilah: Legendary Radio Host Reflects On Her Career, Money and Kids"

Podcast: Here’s the Scoop
Host: Yasmin Vossoughian (NBC News)
Guest: Delilah Rene, National Radio Host
Date: December 24, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this heartfelt Christmas Eve episode, host Yasmin Vossoughian interviews Delilah Rene, the beloved late-night radio host known for her soothing advice and perfectly paired song dedications. Together, they explore Delilah's 40-year broadcasting legacy, her approach to helping millions navigate love and loss, pivotal career moments, financial lessons, the joys and heartbreaks of family, and living through deep personal tragedy. The episode is rich with personal anecdotes and sage advice, interwoven with humor and warmth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Unique Intimacy of Radio

• Intimacy of Broadcasting: Yasmin opens with a reflection on why radio—and Delilah’s program specifically—stands out for creating an intimate connection with listeners (03:09).
  • “You're in someone's ear. You're with them when they're cleaning dishes, when they're driving their car… when they're laying in bed, when they're feeling lonely.” — Yasmin (03:09)
• Delilah’s Impact: Yasmin shares personal memories of listening to Delilah during life’s tough moments, underscoring why Delilah’s voice is a national comfort.

2. The Birth of the Show & Career Lessons

• How the Show Began: Delilah explains the origin of her show, its request-driven format, and what made it powerful (04:10).
  • “People want to be heard, they want to be validated, and they want the song that they want.” — Delilah (04:10)
• Finding a Mentor: Delilah credits Victor Stredeke’s mentorship for teaching her not just about audience connection, but also the business mechanics of radio (05:23-06:42).
  • “He became my PR person. He became my advocate. He became my mentor.” — Delilah (06:10)
• Business Acumen: Delilah’s transformation from a $5.75/hr employee to the top-billed show demonstrates her drive to understand and leverage the business side of radio. She shares a formative story of demanding what she was worth—and walking away when promises weren’t kept (07:04-10:14).
  • “You lied. You're admitting you lied and you're ok with that? I don't wanna work for you anyway. You're a liar, liar, pants on fire.” — Delilah (10:01)

3. Philosophy of Connection

• Pairing Stories with Music: The duo explores the magic of coupling life stories with music, and Delilah articulates why music is transcendent in human experience (11:05).
  • “Music touches us like nothing else… And when you're able to take that song and pair it with a human experience, it does it all.” — Delilah (11:05)

4. Advice for New Broadcasters & Life Lessons

• Persistence & Financial Independence: Delilah urges aspiring broadcasters to persevere and shares her father's pivotal advice:
  • “Don’t give up. And don’t give in... Don’t ever go in debt, because the minute you go in debt, you have to work to pay the bills.” — Delilah (12:02-12:17)
• Learning from Financial Mistakes: Delilah deadpans that her “financial mistakes came in the shape of husbands” (13:19).

5. Memorable Listener Stories

• Humor & Heart: Delilah recounts unforgettable calls, including a comic bit about a woman with a “boyfriend away” (in prison for blowing up a truck), and a poignant Christmas Eve where her listeners helped a soldier stranded at the airport reach his terminally ill mother in time for the holiday (15:01-18:06).
  • “Somebody listening called and said, I have a snowplow... and he made it to his mom's porch Christmas Eve morning, all with the help of those listeners.” — Delilah (17:35)

6. Family, Adoption, and Personal Tragedy

• Motherhood: Delilah now has 18 children (15 adopted, three pending), most with medical or special needs. Her eldest is 46, her youngest is 5 (18:23).
  • “That's a lot.” — Yasmin (18:33)
• Loss and Grief: Delilah has lost three children, most notably her son Zach by suicide in 2017 and her adopted son Sammy from medical complications (18:48-20:39).
  • “You don't [recover]. You just learn to live with the grief... you grow your life around it.” — Delilah (21:00)
• Resilience for Her Family: After loss, Delilah vowed to stay emotionally present for her other children, unlike her own parents after her brother's death. She credits having young children and new grandchildren at home for anchoring her in life (21:43-23:13).

7. Coping with Anxiety & Fear

• Imagination as Power: Delilah reframes anxiety as misused imagination, encouraging listeners to envision positive outcomes instead of the worst-case scenarios (23:27).
  • “Why not imagine the best? Every time I've been fired…100% of the times I've been fired, I have ended up in a much better environment.” — Delilah (23:27)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Delilah’s Resilience:
  • “When you become the best friend of the sales manager, you will start monetizing your show… you will be able to ask for more than $5.75 an hour.” — Delilah (05:45)
• On Leaving Toxic Workplaces:
  • “You looked me in the eye and said if I would do this... I did everything you asked plus. He said yes, but you didn’t get it in writing, did you?” — Delilah (09:35)
• On Marital Lessons:
  • “All my financial mistakes came in the shape of husbands.” — Delilah (13:19)
• On Self-Love:
  • "To my younger self I would say, be your best friend. Stop being your worst critic. Be your own best friend." — Delilah (25:41)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Delilah’s Early Career & Mentorship: 04:10–08:25
• Negotiating for What You’re Worth: 08:25–10:14
• Magic of Music in Storytelling: 11:05–11:40
• Advice to Broadcasters—Persistence & Debt: 12:02–12:17
• Iconic Call-in Stories: 15:01–18:06
• Family Loss & Parenting After Tragedy: 18:48–23:13
• Coping With Anxiety: 23:27–24:12

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Lightning Round: Quick Favorites & Advice

• Most Romantic Song:
  • “Truly Madly Deeply” by Savage Garden (24:22)
• Favorite Song Ever:
  • “Home” by Michael Bublé (24:45)
• Best Relationship Advice:
  • “Don’t marry him just because he’s cute and funny… marry him if you like him, enjoy his company, and he’s supportive.” (25:14)
• Song to Her Younger Self:
  • “You Ain’t Never Had a Friend Like Me” (from Aladdin) —“Be your own best friend.” (25:41)
• Real or Fake Christmas Tree:
  • Both — “Real at the ranch, fake at the farm.” (26:08)
• Favorite Holiday Song:
  • "Polar Express – Believe", "Little Drummer Boy" (For King & Country), "Trans Siberian Orchestra – Christmas Eve” (26:35)

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Final Words

Delilah’s closing encouragements highlight her lifelong mission:
“Keep being that voice for those who are voiceless, who are powerless. Don't stop. Don't ever stop. They need you.” — Delilah (27:00)

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This episode offers an intimate, moving portrait of Delilah’s resilience, her ethos of connection, and her enduring hope, making it an inspiring listen for fans and newcomers alike.

Transcript

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Hey girl, what's happen Is that your antiperspirant? Uh, yeah. Let me see that can. Aluminum butane. I cannot pronounce that. You have to switch to native deodorant. Native's simple formula has only clean ingredients. It gives you effective 72 hour odor protection with no hydrocarbon propellants. Wow, this smells heavenly clean. Effective 72 hour odor protection isn't a myth.

[Delilah]

It's native.

[Commercial/Announcer]

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[Delilah]

Yeah.

[Commercial/Announcer]

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[Yasmin Vestugin]

Of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network spizzy. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com hey everybody. A very special holiday. Welcome to here's this group from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Vestugin. This time of year, we are all spending a lot of time on the road. And if your road trips are anything like my family's, well, we're fighting over who gets to control the radio. And after my kids get to listen to their K Pop demon hunters and my husband catches up on his sports podcasts, it is finally my turn to tune into Delilah. Delilah. Renee Luke, host of the eponymous nationally syndicated radio show Delilah. Every night, this woman gets on the air for five hours. She takes calls from listeners about matters of the heart, offers advice, and dedicates a song to them or someone that they love. Delilah show has been around for 40 years and with millions of weekly listeners across 160 stations, she is the most listen to woman in the history of American radio. When she's not on the air, Delilah is busy, very busy. She's a mother of a veritable pack of children, most of them she adopted with serious health conditions. And like many of the listeners who call into her show, she is no stranger to tragedy. In 2017, Delilah went off the air for a bit after one of her sons, Zach died. But she's back in the mic now, and this Christmas Eve, I wanted to bring Delilah on to talk about how she built a business around helping people through all of life's moments with music and how that's helped her get through the dark times as well. Here's my conversation with Delilah, one of the core memories that I have of you. And there's so many.

[Delilah]

But one of them, I love that of club that we grew up together.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

But who doesn't about you? I mean, that's the thing. Like, you have affected so many people in this country just with the sound of your voice. And you and I were talking before we actually got into this kind of formal interview, interview space. And I said to you how I feel like, you know, I've been a news anchor on television for so long, but being in the audio space is so much more intimate. Right. You're in someone's ear. You're with them when they're cleaning dishes, when they're driving their car, when they're, you know, they're.

[Delilah]

When they're laying in bed, when they're feeling lonely.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Exactly.

[Delilah]

When they're feeling overwhelmed.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

There's something so much more special about it. And I remember driving on i95. I've been married twice. I'm in my second marriage now, and my first marriage. I was driving back and forth from D.C. to New York literally daily, working up here. My ex was living down there. And it would be one o' clock in the morning, I'm falling asleep. Rainstorms, snow showers. And there would come on Delilah.

[Delilah]

And I'd get you through the storms.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

And you would get me through the storm.

[Delilah]

I'd get you through the rain, I'd get you through it all.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

And I would be yell. I would, you know, be yelling at the radio, like. Cause some person would call in with.

[Delilah]

A story and you'd say, don't do it. Don't fall for it.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Don't do it. And then the sound would come on, or I'd be laughing or crying or, you know, singing along. What inspired you to the premise of your show, the advice followed by the song?

[Delilah]

Well, the show was born 18 days after my son was born. So I gave birth to my firstborn son. And 18 days later, my boss finally gave me permission because everybody used to call the request line. We got 500 calls, you know, a day on the request line, really. I would say people want to tell their story, they want to be heard, they want to be heard, they want to be validated, and they want the song that they want. And that's how it was born. And within one ratings period, we went from number 18 in the market to number one. Wow. And there was a man named Victor Stredeke, who wrote for the Seattle Times, who became my champion. The man loved me, like, with a unconditional, no strings attached, no expectations, no romantic relationship. A love that blew my mind. And he mentored me. He understood the ratings cycle. He understood Arbitron. He understood how it worked. He understood billing. I had no idea how radio stations made money. I'd been on the air 10 years. I had no idea how radio stations made money. And he said, you are going to become the best friend of the sales manager. I said, why? I work nights. He said, because when you become the best friend of the sales manager, you will start monetizing your show. And when your show is monetized, you will be able to ask for more than $5.75 an hour, which is what I was making at the time. He said, you're going to go on every sales call. You're going to go to every car dealership. He would come with a yellow notepad. Like, once a month. We'd go have lunch, and he would have a list of, like, 50 suggestions for me. Potential clients, potential advertisers, people to talk to in the media to get stories out. He says, do a special for Valentine's. Invite a special guest on. Invite. You know, Kenny G was a local star. Invite Kenny G on for Valentine's. And then have the newspaper write about it. Have the TV station cover it. Have him. He became my PR person. He became my advocate. He became my mentor. And within my show went from being bonused at night, meaning if you bought a commercial in drive time, you got a free commercial in Delilah show, to billing more than the morning show. Wow. And so when all those things started to change, he said, now make your.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Move, because you became in charge, you weren't just a player anymore.

[Delilah]

Exactly. He said, what you bring to the table brings the station more value than they're gonna let on. He said, but now is the time to make your move. Go in and ask for a raise. And he was that way with me for years, just mentoring me and helping me. And I got fired from that station, and I went to another station. He did the same thing.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Hold on. You got fired?

[Delilah]

I got fired.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

And when you got fired, what did you say to yourself?

[Delilah]

I said, you're gonna miss me.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

So even that wasn't.

[Delilah]

When you went through your divorce, didn't you say, oh, dude, oh, no.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

I cried for a couple months.

[Delilah]

Yeah. But I did.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

And I hugged my dog real tight.

[Delilah]

After you hugged the dog and cried, didn't you go, dude, yeah, you are so gonna miss me. Oh, y. I am so gonna kick ass. And one day, you're gonna turn on the TV and you're gonna say, what did I do. And it's gonna be too late. Cause I'm gonna be so long gone. Yeah.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

And you said the same thing to yourself.

[Delilah]

I said the same thing to myself. I went across town, I did a great job, and that station went in the toilet, and they had to fire everybody. They brought in a new general manager. They brought in a new program director. They called me up, they asked me for a date. We went to lunch. They said, we'll pay you more money. We know the former managers were not good to you, but we respect you, and we. And they rehired me. So I had to say goodbye to the station I was at, and they let me out of my contract. And I went back and I worked my ass off for a year because he said to me, I cannot pay you what you deserve, but I am going to offer you $24,000 a year, and if you bring the ratings back up to where they were when you left, I will double it. It was $24,950,000 something. You will make $50,000 next year. And mind you, this was 1986.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

No. It was a lot of money. And you were how old?

[Delilah]

27.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

We're like, cha Ching, Cha Ching, Cha Ching.

[Delilah]

I am full in. I am all in.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Of course.

[Delilah]

So I worked my butt off. I went to every freaking appearance. I signed autographs. Victor had a photographer take pictures of me. He paid to have cards printed, and I paid to mail them out. And I answered every listener letter. Everybody that called that wanted an autograph, I sent it to them. I worked so hard, and at the end of the year, my ratings were through the roof. And I walked in. I didn't have a. I didn't know about lawyers, but I walked into the next contract negotiation, and I'm like, okay, here we go, Cha Ching. And I was ready, you know, with the champagne to celebrate. And he said, I'm so sorry. You know, you did bring the ratings up, but across the board, the station's still in the toilet. I said, you didn't tell me I had to bring the station up. You told me I had to bring the show up. Yeah.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Focused on my own work.

[Delilah]

Focused on. I stayed in my lane. And you said, yeah, but revenues haven't followed, so all we can give you is a 5 cost of living increase like the rest of the staff.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

And.

[Delilah]

And I said, you looked me in the eye and said, if I would do this. And I had the ratings in my hand because Victor had printed them for me. If I would do this, I would make $50,000. And I did everything you asked. Plus, he said yes. But you didn't get it in writing, did you? Mm.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Mm. Now you know about lawyers.

[Delilah]

I. I had no comeback. I'm like, you lied. You're admitting you lied, and you're okay with that? I don't wanna work for you anyway. You're a liar, liar, pants on fire.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

You left.

[Delilah]

I left. Wow. Took my son, moved to Boston.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

That takes courage.

[Delilah]

And made more than $50,000.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

But why? You know, I just see it here in studio with me, you have this, like, special connection with human beings. Like you and I. I feel like we connected pretty immediately. But you do it on the radio as well. It's not just about the fierceness I feel like, that you possess as a businesswoman and what you're doing in this industry, but the way in which you do it, right? The people that you connect with through the radio. You know, what I always used to say to people about why I became a journalist was because I said I wanted to provide voice to the voiceless people that weren't able to. I could help tell their stories. I think, Delilah, what's so unique about you is coupling that sharing of someone's story with the music, right? The emotion.

[Delilah]

Music touches us. What touches us like music? I mean, art comes close, but music touches us like nothing else. Instruments, you know, what is prettier than a saxophone? What is more exciting than a marching band? What gets your blood pumping more than a tango, you know? And when you're able to take that song and pair it with a human experience, it does it all.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

That's one in the morning, Yasmin driving up i95, crying her eyes out, taking a listen to Delilah play a Journey song.

[Delilah]

Yeah.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

After someone just called in. You know, if you're talking to a young broadcaster who is looking for advice, who's on the uphill right now, what do you say to them?

[Delilah]

Don't give up. Don't give up. And don't give in. One of the other gifts my father gave me, in addition to thinking I was, you know, superwoman was, he said to me, sis, don't ever go in debt.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Don't ever go in debt.

[Delilah]

Don't ever go in debt. My parents were not in debt. We had nothing, but they had no debt. My dad said, don't ever go in debt, because the minute you go in debt, you have to work to pay the bills. He said, so long as you're not in debt, you get to control your destiny. If you don't like the way somebody treats you, you are free to move on to the next situation. What a gift that was. What a gift that was. Because every time somebody thought they had me up against the wall or over a barrel because I was a single mom, because I had bills to pay, because I, you know, whatever.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Yeah, but you walked and you still had bills to pay. You may not have been in debt, but you probably didn't have a lot in the bank. When you're making $24,000 a year, you'd be surprised. Okay, so for those that didn't necessarily have the guidance that your dad gave, which is never go into debt, there are folks that have made a lot of financial mistakes mistakes over the years.

[Delilah]

All my financial mistakes came in the shape of husbands.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

And you've had a couple of them more than me.

[Delilah]

Only one that I cried over though, and played sappy songs for years.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

We are going to take a very quick break. More with Delilah when we're back.

[Commercial/Announcer]

Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy live and uncensored. Catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues and bodily ailments. With that kind of drama that seems to follow me, you never know what's going to happen.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

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[Delilah]

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[Yasmin Vestugin]

Is there a story that stands out to you? Someone calling in a listener that you always think about?

[Delilah]

There was a girl that called. This was years ago. She had a little southern accent and she wanted to play a song for her boyfriend who was away. Do you know what it means when somebody says they're away?

[Yasmin Vestugin]

In prison? Yeah, in prison. Right.

[Delilah]

And if it's not followed up with at college or because he's working on the oil rings, you Know that he's wearing orange, right?

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Yeah.

[Delilah]

So I said, okay, baby, why is Mr. Wonderful away? And she said, well, he made a little mistake, but I love him. I said, what kind of little mistake gets you sent away? And I'm thinking he wrote checks on an account that didn't have any funds or he accidentally borrowed a credit card.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

You worried about where this is going?

[Delilah]

Yeah. And she said, well, he got real jealous over my ex boyfriend, so he built a bomb and he blew up his truck, Okay? I said, sweetheart, that's not really a little mistake. That's a big mistake. She goes, I know, but I love him. Okay, you love him? You want to get back together with the man that blew up your ex's truck? Was your ex in it? She goes, no, that's why it was just a little mistake. Okay? I got just the song for you. And I was working with Janie, my producer. And I have been. We were roommates for 10 years and she's my best friend and she's been with me for 35 years. Years. She said, you're not gonna do it. I said, oh, yes, I am. She goes, no, you're not. I said, oh, yes, I am. Boom. You dropped a bomb on me, baby. We almost got fired over that one. Broke format a little bit, but. Oh my God, I got so many beautiful, beautiful stories. There was one Christmas Eve, probably 20 years ago, a young man called Ugly crying. A man ugly crying, that gets me every time. He was in the military, stationed in Iraq, wanted to be home for Christmas. His mom had been diagnosed with cancer, was able to get a flight out. The military let him go home. He got a flight out. And he lived, I want to say, in upstate New York, someplace that it was really cold and really snowy. He was able to land at the airport, but there was no way, no way in hell he was going to get from the airport to his parents farm, which was out in the country. And he called me and we put him on the air. Somebody listening called and said, I have a snowplow. Tell him to stay at the airport, I'm on my way. No, they got to the airport. We stayed on the phone line. They got him to within a mile of his house. Somebody else was listening and said, I've got a snow, you know, snowrunner, Snowmobile. Snowmobile came and got him. And he made it to his mom's porch Christmas Eve morning, all with the.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Help of those listeners.

[Delilah]

Yeah.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

That's so incredible. Yeah. You've also lived your life out loud. And what I mean by that is, you are a public personality. You have 15 kids, right?

[Delilah]

18 now, but I haven't adopted the last three, so 15, 18 now your youngest is five. Five.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Your oldest is 46.

[Delilah]

Yeah.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

That's a lot.

[Delilah]

That's a lot.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

A lot of built in babysitters.

[Delilah]

No, not really, no. No, they want nothing to do with that.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

They want nothing to do with the five year old at this point.

[Delilah]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. They tapped out long time ago.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

You've also faced a lot of tragedy throughout your time. You've lost three children. Your son Zach committed suicide 2017. That must have been impossible. The worst thing in the world ever.

[Delilah]

Face in your entire life, bar none. We lost my son Sammy in 2012. I adopted him from an orphanage in Africa, thinking I would give him a better life, a better opportunity at life since he had sickle cell anemia. Expecting that. I wasn't prepared for that. I mean, never in my wildest imagination was that a possibility. And most of my adopted children are medically fragile or have special needs. So, you know, they counsel you this is a possibility, but it doesn't enter your brain. Like it never entered my mind. And my son Zach had become very close to Sammy. First he was very jealous of him, and then they became close and he never really got over that. And then when he was a senior in high school, he wanted to go live with his dad. He had never lived with his dad. His dad and I divorced when he was a baby and I tried to talk him out of it, but he had this whole notion that I'm an adult now. You can't tell me what to do. I'm going to go do this. And it did not go well.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

So how do you recover from that?

[Delilah]

You don't. As a parent, you don't, you don't.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

You're still not.

[Delilah]

You don't, you don't. You just learn to live with the grief. You cannot cut your leg off and ever recover it. It doesn't grow back.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

You always feel like it's still there.

[Delilah]

It hurts every day as long as you're alive. Until I'm not.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

You were off the air for a.

[Delilah]

Bit when your son's. It's the only time I've ever been off the air. I stayed on the air with Zach when I was pregnant with him. I delivered him at 1:23 in the morning and I went on the air at 7:00 that night.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Well, how do you survive then after losing a child? How do you go on? How do you put your shoes On.

[Delilah]

So there's this great picture that somebody gave me, my grief counselor gave me, and it was a mother with a huge hole in her heart, like your whole body is empty. And she said, we used to think that grief would diminish over time and the hole would get smaller and smaller. She said, what we've discovered is the hole never diminishes, but you grow your life around it. But there's all this great life around it if you choose that. I lost my brother. He was in his 20s, and my mom and dad didn't have the luxury of grief counseling or any support. And My dad died eight years later, and my mom died 10 years later. They could not go on. It destroyed them. And I said to my kids, after my second or third grief counseling, I came home to my kids that were still at home. I said, I will not do to you what my parents did to me. They didn't do it on purpose, but we became orphans. The day my brother died, they just checked out. They couldn't function. And I said, I will not do that to you. I will stay as emotionally present as I possibly can despite my pain. And God was pretty clever. I believe that he works everything out. And three months before Zach left, he placed a baby in my home that needed a mom. And I had no choice but to get up and make a bottle. I had no choice but to get up and change a diaper. I had no choice.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

And you also found out that your daughter was pregnant, too, at the time, right?

[Delilah]

I did. Just a few weeks after Zach left, I found out Shayla was expecting. What a joy and what an amazing daughter she has. My granddaughter. So those things helped me. They were like an anchor. Paul, Adam, the baby, which I later adopted, and Rosalie Bud. I call her Rose Bud. Rosalie Belle became the anchors that kept me fighting.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

It seems like a lot of folks are having a lot of anxiety these days. If you talk to anybody on the street, what is your sage advice for anybody that is feeling uneasy during the holiday season?

[Delilah]

Well, whether it's the holidays or not, anxiety comes from our imagination imagining the worst case scenario. So if you're going to use that beautiful imagination, why not imagine the best? Why not rewrite the script? And instead of getting fired and losing everything and being homeless, why not rewrite the script to getting promoted, finding a better job, telling your boss to go, you know, take a hike? Every time I've been fired 100% of the time, not 90%, not 80%. 100% of the times I've been fired, I have ended up in a much better environment. Why not? Imagine the best.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

And then I want to do a lightning round with you. And then we're.

[Delilah]

And then I'm going to wrap it with Delilah. Okay.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Your most romantic song of all time.

[Delilah]

Savage Garden. Truly madly diva. I want to stand with you on a mountain.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

I wanna bathe with you and.

[Delilah]

Your.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Favorite song ever, ever, ever.

[Delilah]

Oh, I don't know. The best of favorite songs.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Is there just one thing that you're like, Oh, I gotta listen to this.

[Delilah]

I could listen to anything Michael Buble sings, But home I've probably listened to 5 million times.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Oh, that's really good. I love home. Let me go home.

[Delilah]

I had my.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

With all of your marriages under your belt, your best relationship advice?

[Delilah]

Don't marry him just because he's cute and funny.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Marry him for what?

[Delilah]

If you like him, if you enjoy his company, if he cares for you, if he's supportive. I always fall for the sexy, funny.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Oh, that never turns out well.

[Delilah]

Never, never turns out well.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

If you could dedicate a song to your younger self, what would it be?

[Delilah]

Hmm. Something about friendship, probably. You ain't never had a friend like me.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

I'm in the mood to help you, dude.

[Delilah]

You ain't never had a friend like me. Because to my younger self I would say, be your best friend. Stop being your worst critic. Be your own best friend. Be your own best friend.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

I love that.

[Delilah]

Yeah. You ain't never had a friend like me.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Real or fake Christmas tree? Both.

[Delilah]

Both. Both. Got a real one at the ranch that the kids have picked out and cut down on my property. And at my farm where I'll be be going, we have a Balsam Hill Christmas tree that doesn't require cleaning needles up off the floor.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

I just got one of those.

[Delilah]

Oh, they're beautiful.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

They're beautiful.

[Delilah]

They're beautiful.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

And your favorite holiday song on this Christmas Eve, maybe?

[Delilah]

Polar Express. Believe that's a top one. The one that gets my blood pumping out. There are two for King and country. Little Drummer Boy and Trans Siberian Orchestra. Their Christmas Eve song.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Delilah. It has been an honor and a privilege.

[Delilah]

Thank you.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

Thank you.

[Delilah]

Keep being that voice. Keeping the voice for those who are voiceless, who are powerless. Don't stop. Don't ever stop. They need you, Delilah.

[Yasmin Vestugin]

But don't sing it. Keep my day job. All right. And that is going to do it for us on this episode of here's the Superman. We see news. We are going dark tomorrow, but we'll be back in your feed on Friday with a deep dive on tech and AI. Which tech presence are worth keeping when you should ask for that gift receipt and what to look for in 2026, especially when it comes to AI. I'll be talking to Wall Street Journal senior personal tech columnist and NBC contributor Joanna Stern, who is writing a book about her year living with AI. It is going to be a great conversation, so join us for that. And happy holidays, everybody.

[Delilah]

El programa nacional de vecas hacer the McDonald's. Illumina, El camino parallos quesigen esta de suna historia de progreso, il siguerte capitulo, los Cribesto Apparendemas and McDonald's Punta com Yagonal Acer.