Significant Others

Did you know that Lolita wouldn’t exist if Nabokov’s wife hadn’t stopped her husband from burning the manuscript? Or that Gandhi learned his legendary method of passive resistance from his wife? Or that the person responsible for Maya Angelou’s genre-defining memoir was her good friend James Baldwin? Alongside any famous name, there is often another story to tell—of an intimate relationship that made all the difference. Because no one exists in a vacuum—not even geniuses. (And especially Thoreau, who publicly preached solitude but still let his mother make him lunch).

Significant Others is a narrated, nonfiction podcast about folks just beyond the spotlight of history. Each episode tells the story of a talented, difficult and little-known individual who altered the destiny of their better-known partner, child, sibling, or friend, and impacted the world they left behind.

Narrated & written by Liza Powel O’Brien and featuring the voices of: Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Jameela Jamil, Rita Wilson, Timothy Olyphant, Lisa Kudrow and many more.