Podcast Summary: Wrong Turns with Jameela Jamil – Zach Noe Towers and Jacquis Neal

Release Date: September 11, 2025
Host: Jameela Jamil
Guests: Zach Noe Towers (comedian/actor/writer), Jacquis Neal (comedian/podcaster/actor)

Episode Overview

This riotously candid episode of “Wrong Turns” is all about epic calamities, embarrassing moments, and the warm, cathartic laughter that comes with sharing your most humiliating stories. Jameela invites hilarious friends Zach Noe Towers and Jacquis Neal to revel in the joy of disasters—no lessons, no takeaways, just pure, undignified schadenfreude. Expect festival meltdowns, accidental public humiliation, and vivid toilet terror, all delivered with reckless abandon.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Theme: Unfiltered Disaster Sharing

• Jameela opens by critiquing the modern obsession with turning every embarrassing story into self-improvement or triumph ("...almost no silver lining ever for me. Like, I never get wiser. I get dumber every year." – Jameela, 00:54).
• The intention: create a space for listeners and guests to feel less alone in their missteps, to laugh and bond over mutual mess.

2. Introductions & Relatability

• Zach is introduced as an actor/comedian soon taping his first special (02:03).
• Jameela jokes about sourcing guests from Grindr; Jacquis quips about not having any app connections in the building, but the running joke is that everyone can use Grindr for something (03:16).

3. The Culture of Failure: Repeated Mistakes

• The trio discuss whether disaster “happens” to them or is self-inflicted.
• Jameela: "I'm not just a victim. I lead myself headfirst into calamity." (04:42)
• Zach reflects on therapy and the benefit of not dwelling on humiliations ("...I like, push them so far down. Like, I just don't focus on them." – 05:22).

4. Micro-Humiliation Stories

Jacquis's Pregnancy Assumption Gone Wrong (06:06)

• As a Container Store employee, Jacquis once asked a woman when she was due. She replied she wasn’t pregnant, and Jacquis, in flustered panic, doubled down: "I'm so sorry. You look pregnant." (07:08)
  • Audience response: horror and hilarity at the escalation.
  • Outcome: She complained, and Jacquis was fired later for unrelated reasons.
• Jameela sheepishly admits to always thinking she’s helping women by removing “something from their face,” which turns out to be permanently attached or part of their body (08:06).

5. Extreme Festival Fails

Zach’s Coachella Odyssey (12:13–20:05)

• Setup: Zach, in his twenties, decides to do every drug possible at Coachella—weed, Adderall, shrooms (found in a fanny pack), and acid ("...the plan was to do all the drugs in one day." – 12:50).
• Drug Sampler:
  • Shroom smoothie for brunch, picked up free shrooms in porta potty (13:08–13:29).
  • Tries to “sober up” with orange juice. Spoiler: it fails (14:16).
• Wrong Turn:
  • Meets an old school acquaintance, learns about a mutual friend’s death while tripping badly (15:32).
  • Attempts to emotionally unload on all his friends, bumming out the entire group (16:10).
  • Friend offers “Snazzle Frass” (designer drug, essentially Molly), described as what older white couples take before therapy (16:40, "If it’s good enough for two white people in their 70s, it’s good enough for me." – 16:57).
  • Experiences numb limbs and chest pain, panics, and hides in a porta potty to die. But the sound of Beyoncé performing outside inspires him to pull himself together and return to life ("...I think she saved my life." – 19:58).
• Panel’s Reaction:
  • Laughter at the sheer volume of “wrong turns” in a single day.
  • Jameela: "That's the most wrong turns we've had on the podcast—one singular thing." (20:05).

Jameela’s Festi-Toilet Trauma

• Locked in a porta potty for over an hour during a Prodigy concert at V Festival, developing claustrophobia, missing the entire show, and nearly fainting (21:23–22:12).

6. Poop Horror: Jacquis’s Lactose Calamity (26:53–35:19)

• Eats an Oreo milkshake before a haircut, triggering lactose intolerance.
• Outlines the accelerating panic: driving home, clenching desperately, unbuckling belt and pants, standing while driving.
• Arrives at his building, encounters the “hottest person” in his elevator while seconds from disaster.
• Loses control just as he exits the elevator, throws away his clothes, and winds up sobbing on the phone to his mom.
  • "At this point, I couldn’t even clench no more, man. It’s just coming." (33:33)
• Reflection: His biggest mistake was not using the bathroom at the barbershop, but doing so would’ve made him a barbershop legend—for the wrong reasons.
• Jameela: "I think that's one of the cutest shit-myself stories I've ever heard." (36:08)

7. Listener Story and School Day Revenge (38:43–43:57)

• Listener: Rushed into a club bathroom so fast that they slipped in vomit, lost control, and wet themselves—an instant dose of karma for line-cutting.
• Jameela: Recalls being shunned by an “arranged friendship” at school, only for the girl who snubbed her to slip in sick and end up humiliated—while Jameela (per request) refused to help her up.
  • "Per your instructions – I was like, I’m sorry, I don’t know you." (43:15)
  • Finds poetic justice after years of bullying, feeling, if not popular, at least the favorite of cosmic forces: "From that moment, I knew that while I would be friendless for the next eight years, I was God’s favorite." (43:27)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jameela: "Disaster has been chasing me my entire life, and I'm not faster. So it's just caught up with me constantly." (00:54)
• Jacquis: "I am the villain in this person's story. 100%." (07:16)
• Zach: "We started off the day, the plan was to do all the drugs in one day." (12:50)
• Jameela, on mishaps: “I keep going. I'm not a quitter.”
• Zach, on finding "therapy" in drugs: "If it’s good enough for two white people in their 70s, it’s good enough for me." (16:57)
• Zach, demoralized in the porta potty: “I locked myself in a porta potty... they’ll find my body on day three. It’ll be a little cook, little poopy. But, like, this is better for all of us.” (19:03)
• Zach: "I think she (Beyoncé) saved my life." (19:58)
• Jameela, festival trauma: “I'm going to die in a coffin of poo and poison.” (21:23)
• Jacquis (on his lactose-induced escape): “If I get pulled over, I'm shitting on that cop.” (29:17)
• Jameela (on the school snub): “From that moment, I knew that while I would be still friendless for the next like eight years, I was God's favorite.” (43:27)

Key Timestamps

• 00:54 — Host’s introduction and show concept
• 06:06 — Jacquis' micro-humiliation at the Container Store
• 12:13–20:05 — Zach’s hallucinogen-fueled Coachella disaster story
• 21:23 — Jameela’s own porta potty festival nightmare
• 26:53–35:19 — Jacquis’ legendary pooping-himself story
• 38:43–43:57 — Listener’s club mishap and Jameela’s schoolyard poetic justice

Tone & Language

• Highly conversational, irreverent humor
• Self-deprecating, “overshare” mode
• No moralizing, just reveling in failure and embarrassment

Where to Find the Guests

• Jacquis Neal: @jacquisneal on all platforms
• Zach Noe Towers: @zachnoetowers; soon taping a standup special produced by Bob the Drag Queen; check for tour dates
• Jameela: Podcast archives, Substack (“A Low Desire to Please”)

Wrong Turns is a safe space for your dirtiest mishaps—no lessons, no growth, just laughter at the worst days of our lives. Join for cathartic hilarity and the reminder: your disaster is never as lonely as you think.