Podcast Corner: Jameela Jamil aims to be uninspiring on Wrong Turns

Irish Examiner

27-05-2025

Jameela Jamil, an actress best known for The Good Place, a sitcom with a good idea that faded once it stretched past its first season, hosted the I Weigh podcast for four years.
It ran from a month into lockdown in 2020 to the end of 2024, expanding from, as the title suggests, ideas of body shaming to talk of activism in local politics, disinformation, and dismantling gender violence.
Perhaps she grew tired of the often heavy content, or maybe she just listened to a lot of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day and felt inspired, but either way, she's back with a new podcast called Wrong Turns - 'for anyone who feels like their life is one disaster after another'.
Jamil explains at the outset of the first episode: 'This is a podcast that celebrates shame and indignity. I'm just fucking sick of all of the inspiration we're supposed to draw from all of the terrible moments in life, and I feel like we're overdosing on it online, and I just want somewhere where I can chill and just own my clusterfucks without it needing to have a silver fucking lining. And I wanted to bring my friends on to commiserate with me. We are anti-inspiration, pro-commiseration.'
She's got a lot of celebrity pals to draw on - the first episode is with Mae Martin, a comedian, actor, writer, producer, and recording artist; and Bob the Drag Queen, a winner of Ru Paul's Drag Race. The second features We're Here to Help hosts Jake Johnson and Gareth Reynolds, and Eric Edelstein ( Parks and Recreation, Twin Peaks).
'Do you feel like disaster is drawn onto you?' Jamil asks them. Cue some very giddy banter as they throw themselves into the topic. It escalates so quickly that, not eight minutes in, Bob is telling a story about a vicious dressing down he gave to a pimply kid who was making fun of him when they were in seventh grade together.
'And then next year he's in a wheelchair. Because it wasn't a pimple. It was a brain tumour. He's dead. Fully dead to this day.'
It's a stark story but it's played to Jamil and Martin laughing hysterically (and nervously?). A really weird moment. Whether you want to continue with the podcast after that is up to you.
Finding Lucinda: Last autumn, The Road to Joni podcast traversed the US on the way to the Hollywood Bowl for a pair of rarely spotted Joni Mitchell shows, talking to various fans and followers along the way.
Finding Lucinda is in the same vein as young singer-songwriter ISMAY goes on a road trip of self-discovery to trace the roots of their musical hero, Lucinda Williams, talking to collaborators and archivists along the way.