Narratively Out Loud

Joe Tamburino was a longshot. Describing his path to becoming a professional hockey player any other way would be an understatement. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narratively.com/subscribe

My Secret Life as a Personal Assistant to 'America's Most Eligible Man'He was the former star of an uber-popular reality dating show. I was a feminist lesbian 19-year-old—a.k.a. the least likely person on Earth to become his coach in life and love. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narratively.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narratively.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narratively.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narratively.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narratively.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narratively.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narratively.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.narratively.com

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.narratively.com

A Gilded Age tale of seduction, betrayal and revenge. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narratively.com/subscribe

Najib Faizi has survived death threats, beatings, kidnapping and more, becoming a fearless role model for LGBTQ refugees everywhere.

I was just looking to make rent when I stumbled into a part-time gig stealing secrets from Wall Street elite. I made millions once I realized how desperate we humans are for someone who will actually listen.

I was a wide-eyed scholarship kid among daughters of the rich and famous. I expected academic rigor and supportive sisterhood—not humiliating midnight raids. But the most shocking thing to everyone else was when I stood up for myself.

A Florida funeral escort who took his road-safety duties a little too seriously became a widely ridiculed Internet sensation—and landed in hot water with actual law enforcement. But that's only the start of the strange and twisted ballad of Jeremy Dewitte.

David and Jeannie Smith gave up their day jobs for a life of daredevil stunts —with six children in tow. Five decades, thousands of cannon shots and multiple Guinness World Records later, this stupendous family business is still defying gravity and all other expectations.

Nicholas McCarthy was born in the 1990s without a right hand. Paul Wittgenstein lost his in World War I—and then left behind a musical treasure trove that would change Nicholas' life. Listen to our collaboration with the hit podcast Snap Judgement.

I have learned all the stories my father was too protective of me to share, parsed the conflicting histories and studied the maps. Now I can finally recreate our family's lost home, in a once small village in Palestine.

As an Indonesian adoptee in Sweden, I was alarmed when my new stepbrother started dabbling in white supremacy. I didn't realize how far it had gone until I was lying in a dark field, getting kicked in the chest with a steel-toed boot.

In opulent seaside Newport, a wealthy and beloved Black businessman turns up dead. The prime suspect is his son-in-law, a dashing medical student set to become one of the country's first Black surgeons. The resulting trial will tear the town in two.

It was the era when video killed the radio star, when glitz and glamor and bubblegum pop dominated the airwaves. Meanwhile, a handful of musicians and misfits were subverting the pop culture narrative forever.

I was 13 when my father was killed right before my eyes. Two weeks later, while everyone in our small town obsessed over his grizzly death, I embarked on a new horror: 8th grade.

As a disillusioned cub reporter, I jumped at the bizarro job of a lifetime: editor-in-chief of Playboy Russia when nouveau riche Moscow was a hedonistic playground of sex, drugs, and early-stage capitalism — until Putin's rise brought my reign to a screeching halt.

Riding the emotional rollercoaster with “Loogy,” “Barefoot” and the most dedicated family of Mets superfans as they root, root, root for the hardest-luck team in sports.

Students say the University of Michigan's Sigma Phi chapter is a vital, lifesaving space, and that going all-gender was the obvious thing to do. The national organization responded by suing them.

I woke up one morning in my mid-thirties and suddenly couldn't see. I vowed if I ever got my vision back I would live life differently — I had no idea that would mean flying down highways twice the speed limit with a colorful crew in the dead of night.

In a Bible-belt state where sex toys stores are illegal, a church-going grandma, enterprising mom and sassy granddaughter build a booming business hawking penis pumps and butt plugs—and helping every person find their path to pleasure.

For two centuries, an extreme protectionist policy barred foreigners from setting foot inside Japan — except for one tiny island, a cramped cultural crossroads where anything could, and did, happen.

Our wealthy California school had a hookup game where boys “drafted” girls, then tracked their sex acts. A decade later, my classmates still debate whether “FSL” was harmless teenage hijinks or a symptom of toxic rot in our elite enclave.

The new owner of Argentina's de facto national treat stopped paying his majority-female workforce — so they seized control of the entire operation.

Andrea Knabel spent countless hours searching for missing people. Then one day she was the one who disappeared. Her family and friends—and half the internet—are still searching.

Is Steve Pankey a cold-blooded killer who got away with murder for decades, or just a true-crime obsessive craving attention?

When the Great War sent the men of Europe to the front lines and left a legendary family business on the brink of bankruptcy, two brave women stepped into the ring.

After the King of France beheaded a nobleman on questionable charges, his devastated widow transformed into “the Lioness of Brittany” and spent the next decade exacting her revenge.

Renegade developers co-opted this controversial video game's source code to build a complex alternate universe where breaking character is the cardinal sin. Millions tune in to watch.

In 1840s Vermont, Achsa Sprague swore that the spirits who miraculously helped her walk again also possessed her with a crucial mission: freeing every soul in America.

Everyone from bawdy bachelorettes to married lesbians pay Ray the masseur to get them off. And he gloats that when it comes to female pleasure, he's the G.O.A.T.

Cocky male monarchs underestimated Queen Amanirenas for her gender, her race, and her disability. Each time, they did so at their own peril.

In a sleepy corner of Connecticut, a radical band of leftists are sneaking out after dark to tackle the homelessness crisis that has spread to every corner of America.

I fell 20 feet out of a redwood tree and when I came to, my memory was shattered and a man I'd broken things off with was telling everyone we were together. Then I found out why.

As James V came of age, his evil ex-stepfather and a counsel of unscrupulous gatekeepers hatched a scheme to keep him from power: distract him with an ungodly amount of intercourse.

The incredibly colorful true life story of Dick Kulpa, a nerdy small-town kid who loved cartoons so much that he became one.

How did a respected and beloved medical professional end up leading a multi-million-dollar anti-aging scheme—and staring down decades in prison?

When the Duffy Brothers were deported from the U.S, they hatched a plan to bring Bonnie-and-Clyde-style armed robbery across the pond. Their plan had more holes than a bullet-riddled safe.

I was an 18-year-old father who couldn't be there for his baby. I know, you've heard this one before. How about this part? Twelve years later Krystasia's mom walked away and never came back.

A 1930s writing contest celebrates the inspiring endurance of the teenage spirit — in the form of heart-bursting crushes, angsty soul-searching and secret sexcapades.

In tribal communities across Namibia, older, eccentric people are often accused of witchcraft and violently attacked. One man realized it was something else entirely.

As Black Lives Matter protests swept the nation, the rubber bullets and tear gas canisters started to fly. This epidemic of “blinding by police” inspired our unlikely network of survivors.

Complete strangers wiring me $15k on the spot, smuggling blond ponytails across the Atlantic, secret rendezvous under the overpass — I just may have had the weirdest side hustle of all time.

In gritty 1980s New York, one West Village flophouse became a last-chance refuge for addicts, criminals, LGBTQ runaways, and anyone with nowhere left to go. And my mom was their queen.

In 1794 the people of Guadeloupe briefly tasted freedom. A woman named Solitude decided she’d rather die than go back into chains — but her heroism was nearly lost to history.