A stained chair. A disgusting stew. A girls’ trip where someone buys a dumb lamp. You may not think you need to hear the backstory of such innocuous things, but if it’s told to you in lurid detail by Rachelle Hampton on the hit podcast Normal Gossip, you will change your mind.
The premise of the podcast is simple: A listener submits an anonymous story from the regular world, which the host anonymizes to protect the (sometimes) innocent. Then the host salaciously tells the tale to a guest, who stands in for the audience by gasping, giggling, and yelling at these people to make better choices. (Spoiler: They won’t.)
Listening to the show feels like finishing a second glass of wine with one of your funner friends who then leans over conspiratorially, asking: “You wanna hear something fuckin’ wild?” Hampton took over as host after creator Kelsey McKinney warmly passed along the keys to the mess chest earlier this year, and says fans have been extremely supportive of the switch.
It warms my catty soul to hear from Hampton that the Portland date on Normal Gossip’s national tour—September 18 at Revolution Hall—was the first to sell out. However, if you didn’t snag seats, this Q&A with Hampton and producer Se’era Spragley Ricks is the next best thing.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity (even though I was sad to do it because our whole talk was so fun.)
