Wrong Turns with Jameela Jamil

Episode: Leah Rudick and Alyssa Limperis
Date: January 22, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode of Wrong Turns delivers a hilarious, vulnerable, and often mortifying romp through stories of personal disasters—particularly those centered on humiliation, sex, and the endless embarrassments of growing up. Host Jameela Jamil is joined by comedians Leah Rudick and Alyssa Limperis, who delight in mining their most cringe-worthy moments for comedy gold. The tone is candid, warm, and irreverent: the guests and Jameela swap tales with no pretense of finding silver linings or lessons—just comfort and camaraderie in shared disaster.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Concussions, Clumsiness, and Physical Mishaps

[03:00 - 08:22]

• Alyssa Limperis kicks off by sharing she’s fresh from a concussion, incurred when running from a coyote and smashing her head on an AC unit.

• Jameela shares her own long, embarrassing history with concussions—six in total—including a stupendously humiliating one caused by retrieving a 30-day-old cookie from beside her bed, only to faint and trigger a seizure at work.

  • Notable quote [04:17, Jameela]: “I’m like those NFL players, except I don’t have any of the money or the muscles or the bitches.”
  • Notable quote [07:58, Leah]: “Also the origin story of it all—I mean, grabbing a 30 day old cookie, that’s what led to all this. It’s beautiful.”

• The conversation spirals into a commiseration about the fragility of brains and the randomness of damage: “It’s shocking that we’re alive, 100%.” [08:23, Leah]

2. Humiliation as Comedians—and as Humans

[09:06 - 10:07]

• Jameela probes: Do comedians become comedians because of deep embarrassment and self-consciousness?
  • Leah admits to feeling "constantly embarrassed" and “extremely self-conscious and anxious.”
  • Alyssa posits that comics are “hypersensitive to humiliation and shame,” so they lean into comedy as a defense.

3. Family, Sex, and the Generational Divide

[10:18 - 17:29]

• Leah tells a legendary mortifying story about her Canadian mother-in-law, who, upon their first meeting, enthusiastically offers Leah an array of her own sex toys and latex bodysuits.

  • Notable quote [11:13, Leah]: “She brought me into her bedroom and showed me her sex drawer.”
  • Notable quote [13:08, Leah]: “She wanted me to please her baby boy. Which I did.”
  • Jameela and Alyssa are astounded; Leah took a couple of bodysuits home and sheepishly admits to wearing one “all the time.”

• The trio contrast their prudish, repressed family backgrounds (British, Greek Orthodox, Pakistani) with Leah’s mother-in-law’s openness. Alyssa’s parents confronted her about blowjobs via a newspaper clipping (“Promise me you’ll never do this”—[15:21, Alyssa]), and Leah recollects being told “It’s a gross thing that gross people do” when she asked about masturbation.

• Jameela details her lack of any sex talk, awkwardly waiting into her 20s for her first kiss and sexual experience.

  • Quote [16:45, Jameela]: “I became a real hoe…But I was too scared. I didn’t know what an orgasm was…any time it was starting to happen, I would stop it.”

4. Micro-Humiliations and Professional Shame

[17:53 - 21:28]

• Alyssa describes a recent job acting in a (simulated) sex scene, only to be gently corrected by an intimacy coordinator for not knowing how to “accurately have sex” on camera (she was “just doing the Roomba,” as Jameela puts it).
  • Memorable moment [18:49, Alyssa]: “She literally, this woman was just like, I can’t let this slide. You’re not accurately having sex.”
  • The group laughs about having too few favorite sex positions and not wanting sex to feel like “reformer Pilates.”
    • Quote [21:40, Jameela]: “I don’t want to feel like I’m at the gym.”

5. Leah’s Big Wrong Turn: People-Pleasing Disaster in College

[25:18 - 33:42]

• Leah’s “big wrong turn” is a multi-layered humiliation from her first semester at Sarah Lawrence College:
  • Desperate to fit in with her glamorous, rich roommate (Winnie) and friends, she invites herself on their trip to New York City.
  • She’s painfully out of her element (never had sushi—asks for a fork!), follows the group to get fake IDs and belly piercings. She’s the only one brave enough to get pierced…and then no one else does it.
  • The fake ID gets confiscated back home, resulting in Leah’s parents attending a comedy club show while she sits in the car with her fresh, infected piercing wound.
• Quote [30:55, Leah]: “Nobody else does it…they’re just like, oh, we don’t actually want to do this.”
• The segment closes with warmth and insight on how formative—and wounding—the desire for acceptance can be.

6. Alyssa’s Big Wrong Turn: Sex, Naivety, and Childhood Repression

[36:13 - 44:34]

• Alyssa shares a series of vignettes about her sexual naivety and desperate efforts for approval:
  • In middle school, she misreads the phrase “Nick loves cock” scratched into a cafeteria table and loudly jokes, “You can just call me cock,” not knowing it meant “penis.”
    • [39:02, Alyssa]: “I literally announce to the table, call me cock. And everyone… was very similar to the reaction here—kind of stunned confusion.”
  • Her first attempt at sex “didn’t take”—she realized you can’t just “decide it’s time,” your body has to agree (wisdom echoed by Jameela).
  • A mortifying teen memory: her finished basement (the stuff of 90s American lore) as the scene of her dad walking in on her makeout session with a boy, then delivering a cryptic, traumatizing warning: “Men don’t always have the best intentions.”
  • Other humiliations: a carpool kid loudly asking, “Why does Alyssa have a mustache and she’s a girl?”

7. Misery Loves Company: Listener Disaster Story

[47:06 - 49:49]

• Jameela reads a listener submission from Shanice, who agreed to let a boyfriend “brush her ass” (assuming it was a euphemism) — only to have him fetch a literal hairbrush and proceed to brush her butt for five minutes.
  • [48:07, Jameela, reading]: “He ran to his bathroom to get an actual hairbrush. And he got behind me and I learned this is literally what he had in mind.”
  • The hosts are bewildered (“How hairy is my ass?!”), and Jameela expresses lasting gratitude: “2026 can never be bad now because you shared that story.”

Memorable Quotes & Moments With Timestamps

• Concussion tales

  • “I’m one concussion away from brain dead, I think, which I think shows. If you listen to the podcast, you hear I’m rapidly declining.” — [04:34, Jameela]

• Family sex talk chasm

  • “She brought me into her bedroom and showed me her sex drawer.” — [11:13, Leah]
  • “Promise me you will never do this.” — [15:21, Alyssa's mom, about blowjobs]
  • “I’m still not supposed to have had sex. I am still a virgin.” — [16:16, Jameela]

• Intimacy on camera

  • “You did Rihanna when we needed Mia Khalifa.” — [20:02, Jameela, describing Alyssa's "Roomba" sex scene performance]

• Adolescent tragedy

  • “I tried to get into a comedy club with my parents…sat in the car while my parents went.” — [31:33, Leah]

• Micro-humiliations

  • “I was figuring it out.” — [44:10, Alyssa]
  • “Call me penis.” — [39:44, Alyssa, continuing her confusion]

• Listener moment

  • “He ran to his bathroom to get an actual hairbrush…And he got behind me and I learned this is literally what he had in mind.” — [48:07, Jameela reading Shanice’s story]

Notable Segments With Timestamps

• [03:00–08:22] — "Concussion club" stories: physical comedy, embarrassment, brain injury humor.
• [10:18–16:43] — Cultures of sexual repression and the generational minefield of sex ed.
• [18:02–22:04] — Alyssa’s (in)accurate on-screen sex, sexual imposter syndrome.
• [25:18–33:42] — Leah’s epic journey of people-pleasing and humiliation in college.
• [36:13–44:34] — Alyssa’s history with sexual confusion, finished basements, and deeply awkward first love moments.
• [47:06–49:49] — “Misery Loves Company” listener disaster: the literal ass brushing story.

Tone & Vibe

• Effortlessly funny, endlessly self-deprecating, and warm; the trio create an environment of strange but profound support for each other’s most embarrassing moments.
• No lessons, no judgment—just the joy (and relief) of mutual humiliation, honesty, and recognizing disaster is universal.

Final Thoughts

• The episode is a non-stop parade of wrong turns, from terrifyingly frank family sex talks to adolescent longing for acceptance to weird sexual misunderstandings as adults. The audience is left both cringing and laughing, reassured that life’s disasters make for the best stories (and company).
• As Jameela says near the end:
  • “Thank you both so much for bringing such a feeling of warmth and sisterhood. There’s been such support around this table. I almost feel like we’re sharing sex toys…My sex toys are still just my sex toys.” [46:17]

Find the guests:

• Leah Rudick: leahrudick.com
• Alyssa Limperis: @lissalimperis on social media

Summary by [Your Name], for listeners who want the full flavor of the episode's glorious disasters without risking their own concussions.