Episode #86: Nikki Boyer
Nikki Boyer is a vibrant, comedic on-camera personality who is labeled as the girl next door with a little edge! She created, hosted, and Executive Produced the successful Wondery Podcast, “Dying for Sex,” about her friend Molly, and how her cancer diagnosis inspired sexual adventures to help her feel alive. Nikki’s also hosting “The Daily Smile” a daily show about good news and positivity.
Nikki is a 3-time Emmy award winning TV host who made her mark as the host Yahoo!’s “Daytime in No Time,” making her the most watched woman on the web with over 700 million clicks during her time there. Nikki also hosted Hearst Digital’s “What You Missed,” was a regular guest on E!’s “HelloRoss,” co-host of the “Straight Talk with Ross” Podcast, a frequent guest on The Wendy Williams Show, HLN’s Showbiz Tonight, Access Hollywood Live and countless other TV and Web Shows! Nikki just recently guest-starred on the Netflix revival of “The Gilmore Girls and “Angie Tribeca.”
Nikki Boyer put it best, when talking about her relationship with her best friend Molly: “We’re going to say the things that people don’t say.” That dynamic connected them throughout their friendship, and continued to be a theme once Molly’s breast cancer diagnosis turned terminal. At that point, a few other things happened: Molly left her marriage and began exploring her sexual life in a way she never had before. And Nikki, recognizing that many people don’t navigate terminal cancer while also embracing their newfound sexually adventurous side, realized that Molly’s story needed to be told. On today’s episode, Nikki and I talk about Dying for Sex, the podcast she and Molly created to tell Molly’s story. We dig into the complicated nature of caregiving, especially caregiving for someone who is dying, and how her relationship with Molly allowed for deep honesty in both directions. Finally, we talk about the profound ripple effect of Molly’s story, and how Nikki continues to hold Molly close and feel her presence as she watches the impact of this story on listeners. (And, she jokes, Molly would love all this attention.)
“I think the cancer in a weird way gave her permission to say, ‘F it. I don’t give a crap about what anybody thinks. I want to do what I want to do.’”
Here are some of the things Nikki and I chatted about:
How the podcast isn’t just about death and sex: it’s also about friendship, love, and adversity
What Molly was like before her diagnosis, and how cancer flipped a switch on her mentality
Molly’s private journey with cancer for several years before deciding to tell her story publicly
Nikki’s sense that, despite Molly’s cancer, she was invincible--and then, the terminal diagnosis
How Molly’s journey was complicated and contradictory, and she was 100% okay with that
What recording the episodes looked like, and wasn’t what she had imagined at the beginning
The gift of being able to walk to the end of someone’s life with them, as she did with Molly
What Molly said, as she was dying, about what she hoped her death would bring to Nikki’s life
The layered experience of caregiving, and how it forced Nikki to get to know herself better
The pressure of being Molly’s “person,” and how anger and frustration were part of that
Facing fertility challenges while Molly was facing cancer, and how Molly supported her
Finding other ways to make her life full after accepting she had no control over her fertility
Why she listens to Episode 6 of Dying for Sex all the time, which is Molly’s last episode
Her advice to caregivers, and the value of being open about your feelings as a caregiver
The ripple effect Molly hoped to have with her story, and how Nikki sees that happening now
“We’re all counting our days and our years down. You get to decide what you want to do with that time. And I just find her story to be really inspiring in that way.”
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