Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Maya acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast.
Speaker 2: Is recorded on Hello friends, it's Mea here, and I
Speaker 2: had some news. The Naomi Watts interview that dropped a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago was actually my last No Filter
Speaker 2: interview as host.
Speaker 1: After ten years and.
Speaker 2: Six hundred and fifty five episodes and sixty nine million downlides,
Speaker 2: I have finally decided to hand over the mic to
Speaker 2: a new host, and I wanted to be the one
Speaker 2: to tell you first, and also to tell you a
Speaker 2: bit about how I came to this difficult decision.
Speaker 1: If you've been listening to.
Speaker 2: The show for a while, you might have noticed that
Speaker 2: I've tried to step away a couple of times before,
Speaker 2: when I've persuaded some very capable women to fill in
Speaker 2: for me while I took a bit of a breather.
Speaker 2: No Filter is one of the things I do here
Speaker 2: at Muma Mia for a bit of background, but there
Speaker 2: are lots of other things I do here as well.
Speaker 1: I wear a few different hats.
Speaker 2: I'm a co founder of the company, which started as
Speaker 2: just me and is now a team of more than
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty people. And I'm also a co
Speaker 2: host on another podcast, which I hope you listen to,
Speaker 2: called Mom and Me Are Out Loud, which is a
Speaker 2: daily show and the third biggest podcast in the country.
Speaker 2: I also write a newsletter called Babbel. I have three kids,
Speaker 2: two dogs, and a granddaughter. And for the last seventeen years,
Speaker 2: since Mum and mea began way back on my laptop,
Speaker 2: I've just kept adding new things to my plate because
Speaker 2: I love what I do. I love every single thing
Speaker 2: that I do, and I've got so many ideas for
Speaker 2: more things that I want to do. I love our
Speaker 2: core purpose the most, and that's what drives every new
Speaker 2: idea I have. And that core purpose is to make
Speaker 2: the world a better place for women and girls. And
Speaker 2: thinking about new ways to do that keeps me awake at.
Speaker 1: Night, but in a really good way. And this podcast
Speaker 1: has been and will continue.
Speaker 2: To be a big part of that core purpose because
Speaker 2: by inviting people to tell their stories on no filter,
Speaker 2: in a candid and intimate, really vulnerable way that's sometimes
Speaker 2: heartbreaking and it's often funny and it's always interesting, that
Speaker 2: helps people. And I know this because you tell me
Speaker 2: it helps you. To understand other people's experiences and perspectives,
Speaker 2: and it helps you to feel seen if perhaps you've
Speaker 2: experienced something similar without getting too kumbaya about it. Sitting
Speaker 2: across from people in this studio where I'm talking to
Speaker 2: you from now. Sometimes they're famous people, but usually they're
Speaker 2: not famous people, and sitting here while they talk about
Speaker 2: some of their most vulnerable moments, about some of the
Speaker 2: most wonderful, shocking, astonishing, or devastating, often usually unexpected things
Speaker 2: that have happened to them. That is an absolute privilege,
Speaker 2: and I take that responsibility very serious.
Speaker 1: We all do here at Mama Mea.
Speaker 2: Every single person who works on this show and at
Speaker 2: this company is aware of what a responsibility it is
Speaker 2: to have the trust of someone that you've never met,
Speaker 2: who lets you ask the most personal or difficult, sometimes
Speaker 2: intrusive and often confronting and outrageous questions, which is what
Speaker 2: we do. And there's a moment in every interview when
Speaker 2: it feels like I'm flying, when you connect with someone
Speaker 2: and help them to express themselves or maybe tell a
Speaker 2: story that they've never shared before. And that's why I've
Speaker 2: loved doing it every single week for ten years. It's
Speaker 2: been a joy and a gift to have those conversations
Speaker 2: and put them out into the world. So why am
Speaker 2: I leaving, Well, I'm not really leaving. And the thing
Speaker 2: to understand and that I wanted to explain to you
Speaker 2: is as much as I love doing it, it's not
Speaker 2: always easy. And it was very hard at the beginning
Speaker 2: ten years ago when we first started this show, me
Speaker 2: and my original producer and creative partner, Eliza Ratliffe, we
Speaker 2: really struggled to book guests. Back then, nobody even knew
Speaker 2: what a podcast was, and Muma Mia certainly wasn't the
Speaker 2: size it is now. Legacy media like you know, magazines
Speaker 2: and newspapers and radio and TV, they still had an
Speaker 2: absolute iron group on publicists and guests and celebrities who
Speaker 2: had no idea how fast women were moving to websites
Speaker 2: like Mamma Mea and podcasts like No Filter. So for
Speaker 2: the first year or so, it was so hard to
Speaker 2: land anyone to be on this show. I just called
Speaker 2: in favors from friends who worked in the media and
Speaker 2: I'd try to persuade them to talk to me for
Speaker 2: an hour. And that was the first few months of
Speaker 2: the show. But we quickly realized that the interviews that
Speaker 2: were the most interesting, both for me as an interviewer
Speaker 2: and for the audience were actually normies, regular people who
Speaker 2: weren't famous but who had expeperienced incredible things, and those
Speaker 2: have always been my favorite interviews to do.
Speaker 1: So anyway me I get to the point.
Speaker 2: Okay, hosting this show is a joy, as I said,
Speaker 2: but it's also a responsibility, and it.
Speaker 1: Takes a hell of a lot of work.
Speaker 2: I used to think I could just keep piling on
Speaker 2: more and more things, but in the last couple of years,
Speaker 2: I've realized that I can't, and also I don't want to.
Speaker 2: I've realized that if creatively I want to try some
Speaker 2: new things and work on some new projects, and also
Speaker 2: pay respect to the projects that I've already created, like
Speaker 2: this show, I have to hand some things over. I
Speaker 2: have to make some room in my life to open
Speaker 2: new doors, which means, by definition, I have to close
Speaker 2: some others. For two years, I reckon, I've been thinking
Speaker 2: about this on and off, and I've had times when
Speaker 2: I've thought more or less seriously about stepping away, But honestly,
Speaker 2: the time never been right for a ton of different reasons.
Speaker 2: But now though it's time, and a big part of
Speaker 2: the reason why it is time and why right now
Speaker 2: is different to the other times I may have thought
Speaker 2: about trying to step away, It's because I've needed to
Speaker 2: find the right hands to take the wheel of this
Speaker 2: show that means so so much to me and so
Speaker 2: much to so many of you. And I found those
Speaker 2: hands in our executive producer, Nama Brown, who I've been
Speaker 2: working with for a while now.
Speaker 1: And of course No Filter's new host, Kate Langbrook.
Speaker 2: Kate was my first and only pick to host No
Speaker 2: Filter when I took my first proper break last summer,
Speaker 2: and god damn it, she managed to make the most
Speaker 2: downloaded episode of the year. Her interview with Andy Lee
Speaker 2: was an absolute masterclass, one of the best interviews I've
Speaker 2: ever heard. I mean, I knew she was good. Of
Speaker 2: course I knew she was good. She was not only
Speaker 2: my first choice, as I said, she was my only choice.
Speaker 2: And want to tell you why. There are an insane
Speaker 2: number of interview podcasts around now.
Speaker 1: You may have noticed. Some of them are.
Speaker 2: Great, a lot of them are pretty average, because interviewing is.
Speaker 1: So much harder than it may seem.
Speaker 2: And I started off pretty terrible, but I have learned.
Speaker 2: I've learned a huge amount from the greats Andrew Denton,
Speaker 2: Richard Feibler, Terry Gross, Oprah. And what they all have
Speaker 2: in common is how driven they are by one thing,
Speaker 2: and that is curiosity. They all want to understand people better,
Speaker 2: whether that person is a prime minister, or an oscar
Speaker 2: winner or a school teacher.
Speaker 1: No filter.
Speaker 2: Is driven by curiosity. That powers everything we do here.
Speaker 2: By compassion and empathy also, for sure, But and this
Speaker 2: is important, also by humor because even in the darkest situation,
Speaker 2: in fact, especially in the darkest situation, humour can be
Speaker 2: found and human needs to be found. And Kate Langbrook
Speaker 2: has every single trait that I admire as an interviewer
Speaker 2: and as a human being. She's maternal. You don't need
Speaker 2: to have kids to be maternal, by the way, even
Speaker 2: though she has four. This show does, though, requires some
Speaker 2: big mum energy, whether you've got kids or not, so
Speaker 2: that your guests feel safe and cared for and protected
Speaker 2: when they're telling their stories and opening up to you.
Speaker 2: She's also funny. She doesn't take herself or anyone too seriously.
Speaker 1: She's self deprecating.
Speaker 2: She is really original in the way she thinks about things,
Speaker 2: and she is so so smart, and she's also very
Speaker 2: very secure, and I'll tell you why that's important. She's
Speaker 2: not trying to impress anyone or play to an agenda
Speaker 2: or get followers, or be cool or virtue signal. She's
Speaker 2: also comfortable going straight from small talk to intense, noble shit.
Speaker 2: Kate just wants to have fascinating conversations with anyone on
Speaker 2: air or off air. Gosh, listen to me. Do I
Speaker 2: want to give her no filter? Or do I want
Speaker 2: to marry her?
Speaker 1: Maybe both? So there it is.
Speaker 2: Next week is Kate's first show. She'll be the first
Speaker 2: voice that you hear, and she has a very special guest.
Speaker 1: It's me. I'm the guest.
Speaker 2: I never do long form interviews because I'm scared of
Speaker 2: getting canceled.
Speaker 1: That's the truth.
Speaker 2: But I trust Kate, and I trust you, my beloved
Speaker 2: no Filter listeners. And I do feel like it's a
Speaker 2: safe place, of course, for me to talk in a
Speaker 2: more in depth and personal way about what the last
Speaker 2: couple of years have been like leading up to this decision.
Speaker 2: And there are laughs and there are tears. It's very
Speaker 2: no filter. It's actually a little bit more like an
Speaker 2: in conversation because I also ask Kate a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: Just try and stop me.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, if you feel like you're going to miss me,
Speaker 2: thank you, and you can still hear me every day
Speaker 2: on out Loud. I'll put a link in the show
Speaker 2: notes so that you can also sign up for my
Speaker 2: free newsletter called Babbel, where I write and post videos
Speaker 2: of me chatting while I put on my makeup and
Speaker 2: all kinds of things. But the last thing I want
Speaker 2: to say is thank you. Thank you to every single
Speaker 2: guest who has trusted me with their most personal stories.
Speaker 2: Thank you to Eliza Ratliffe, my creative partner on No
Speaker 2: Filter for so many years, To all the executive producers
Speaker 2: and audio producers that have worked on the show since then,
Speaker 2: and most of all, to you to every single one
Speaker 2: of you who's reached out online or stopped me in
Speaker 2: the street or left a review to tell me about
Speaker 2: an interview that you loved or that moved you or
Speaker 2: gave you a new perspective on the very wonderful, complicated
Speaker 2: experience of being human, which is what this shows about.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me in your ears for the
Speaker 2: last ten years on No Filter. It has been super
Speaker 2: cozy in here. Kate's gonna love it, and you're gonna
Speaker 2: love her.