This week on It’s Ben A Week, Ben sits down with his longtime friend Greg for one of the most personal and grounded conversations yet. Greg opens up about welcoming a new baby, surviving the devastating Palisades fires, and what it’s really like when your home is suddenly at risk — or gone — overnight. From evacuating through smoke-filled streets to navigating insurance chaos, grief, and gratitude at the same time, this episode blends humor, heartbreak, and honesty in a way only It’s Ben A Week can.

The conversation also takes its usual chaotic turn — covering dad jokes, fitness burnout, wellness trackers, goat lore, and a truly infuriating scam that sent Ben straight to his breaking point. Heavy topics, real laughs, and the reminder that sometimes all you can do is get through the week.

In this episode, we cover:

• Greg welcoming his second child and adjusting to life with two kids
• Living through the Palisades fires and evacuating under extreme conditions
• What it’s like when your house survives — but everything inside doesn’t
• The emotional math of what you grab when you have minutes to leave
• Insurance nightmares, under-insurance, and financial fallout after disaster
• Community support, survivor’s guilt, and rebuilding after trauma
• Ben’s childhood home burning down and shared disaster experiences
• Fitness culture burnout, trainers from hell, and wellness tracking fatigue
• Ben getting scammed out of $1,000 and hitting peak rage with Wells Fargo
• Breaking Point: deferred mortgages, Zelle scams, and letting it all go
• Ben There, Done That with AJ returns for 2026

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New episodes every week filled with unfiltered stories, wild guests, and brutally honest laughs. Hosted by actor, photographer, and professional barrel racer Ben McDonnell.

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Website: itsbenaweek.com

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Season 2 of It’s Ben A Week is here.

Hosted by actor and photographer Ben McDonnell, It’s Ben A Week is a weekly comedy and culture podcast featuring candid conversations, unfiltered storytelling, and honest takes on relationships, identity, career chaos, and whatever the hell just happened this week.

Season 2 launches with a refreshed look, elevated production, and a sharper creative focus — blending solo episodes with guest conversations from comedy, television, and pop culture.

New episodes every week. Welcome to Season 2.

🎧 Subscribe to It’s Ben a Week
New episodes every week filled with unfiltered stories, wild guests, and brutally honest laughs. Hosted by actor, photographer, and professional barrel racer Ben McDonnell.

📍 Listen & Subscribe:
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🔗 Connect with Ben:
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Website: itsbenaweek.com

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Season Two is officially here.

On the first episode of Season 2 of It’s Ben A Week, Ben returns after a three-week break feeling recharged, reset, and fully ready to level things up. With a brand-new studio, upgraded set, new artwork, and a fresh intro, Ben reflects on the wild first year of podcasting and what’s next for the show.

Ben opens the episode talking about:

• Taking a much-needed break and realizing how strange it felt not recording
• Writing notes in his phone when things happened and not having the podcast outlet
• The brand-new studio, elevated vibe, and “sexier” Season 2 look
• Hitting the Top 10% of video podcasts on Spotify last season
• Why Season 2 is about refinement, confidence, and clarity

Ben then recaps an unforgettable holiday season, including:

• Attending Kathy Hilton’s iconic Christmas party in Beverly Hills
• Paparazzi outside the house and champagne vending machines
• Paris Hilton DJing in her childhood home
• Walking away with an unreasonable number of Labubus
• Why it felt surreal for a Simple Life superfan

After reflecting on the energy shift from the Year of the Snake into the Year of the Fire Horse, Ben invites listeners to lean into change, momentum, and going after what they want in 2026.

Then, Ben is joined by his partner and frequent collaborator AJ Sarcione to officially kick off Season 2.

Together, they dive into:

• A chaotic LA weekend that included charity galas and exclusive parties
• Traveling over the holidays and unexpectedly getting COVID
• Cancelled New Year’s plans and being stuck at home by 10 p.m.
• Launching a brand-new segment: Breaking Point
• Ben’s rant about guests bringing alcohol to parties — then taking it home
• AI videos becoming indistinguishable from reality
• Jeff the Possum’s viral rise to over 4.5 million views
• Christmas cards, QR codes, cat food inserts, and postal chaos
• Merch, shipping costs, and why “free shipping” is a psychological scam
• A photography client dispute that spiraled into online harassment
• Setting boundaries in business and choosing clients intentionally
• Letting go of chaos from 2025 and moving forward with clarity

The episode closes with a reflection on boundaries, control, growth, and protecting your energy — setting the tone for what Season 2 of It’s Ben A Week is all about.

🎧 Subscribe to It’s Ben a Week
New episodes every week filled with unfiltered stories, wild guests, and brutally honest laughs. Hosted by actor, photographer, and professional barrel racer Ben McDonnell.

📍 Listen & Subscribe:
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🔗 Connect with Ben:
Instagram: @itsbenaweek
TikTok: @itsbenaweek
Website: itsbenaweek.com

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This week on a special Bonus Episode of It’s Ben A Week, Ben couldn’t bring himself to leave a single Tuesday empty — so he returns with friend, spiritual guide, and fan favorite Eleven for a short but powerful New Year energy reading and manifestation session.

Together, Ben and Eleven reflect on the end of 2025, the emotional weight of the year, and why most New Year’s resolutions set people up to fail. Instead, they offer a softer, more realistic approach to change — one rooted in awareness, compassion, and patience.

Eleven breaks down:

• Why 2025 was the Year of the Wood Snake and how it forced us to shed old identities
• What “peeling back the underbelly” means for relationships, careers, friendships & self-worth
• How 2026 — the Year of the Fire Horse — will bring speed, clarity, creativity, and illumination
• Why creators, entrepreneurs & rebels will thrive
• Why illusions will dissolve quickly next year
• How to prepare spiritually, emotionally, and practically

Ben shares his take on resolutions:

• Why extreme goals fail
• Why small adjustments work
• Why you’re allowed to “mess up” in January — because the true energetic new year begins in February

Then Eleven pulls cards for the collective (shaman, hunter, apocalypse), unfolding themes of intuition, clarity, sovereignty, transformation, and new beginnings.

This mini-episode is grounding, mystical, funny, honest, and the perfect companion as you step into 2026 with intention — and compassion.

🔗 A NOTE FROM ELEVEN

As you step across the threshold into a new year, this reading may have stirred something familiar—a truth rising from the last of the Snake’s shedding, or the first spark of the Fire Horse calling you forward. For those who feel that pull, Eleven extends an invitation to deepen the journey.

She is opening space for 1:1 sessions designed to support anyone ready to explore their personal path, clarify what they’re carrying into 2026, and anchor the intentions that want to take form in the year ahead.

Listeners can book a session here: https://www.bringsoul.life/portal/Hom

A new year offers a new map. Eleven is here to help you read it.

🎧 Subscribe to It’s Ben a Week
New episodes every week filled with unfiltered stories, wild guests, and brutally honest laughs. Hosted by actor, photographer, and professional barrel racer Ben McDonnell.

📍 Listen & Subscribe:
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🔗 Connect with Ben:
Instagram: @itsbenaweek
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Website: itsbenaweek.com

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This week on It’s Ben A Week, we’re celebrating 50 episodes, one full year, and the end of Season One with a special highlight reel. Whether you’ve listened since the beginning or joined somewhere along the way, this episode captures the wild, emotional, hilarious, chaotic, meaningful, and unforgettable moments that defined 2025.

From crying with mothers who have lost children…
 to screaming about Starbucks foam…
 to talking Bravo, Beyoncé, grief, scandal, relationships, sex toys, ranch life, Christmas trees, and Jeff the Possum…
 to interviewing directors, comedians, producers, influencers, and your own family…
 this year has been a rollercoaster — and this episode is the ultimate montage of it all.

Enjoy a curated collection of the moments listeners replayed the most:

• The unhinged rants
• The heartfelt breakthroughs
• The shocking confessions
• The funniest disasters
• The guests who inspired us
• The stories that changed you
• And the episodes that made It’s Ben A Week what it is today

Ben also pops in throughout to reflect on:

• What he learned this year
• What surprised him
• The moments he’s most proud of
• And the unexpected ways this podcast has shaped his life

It's the perfect ending to a year  — especially for Ben.

🎧 Subscribe to It’s Ben a Week
New episodes every week filled with unfiltered stories, wild guests, and brutally honest laughs. Hosted by actor, photographer, and professional barrel racer Ben McDonnell.

📍 Listen & Subscribe:
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🔗 Connect with Ben:
Instagram: @itsbenaweek
TikTok: @itsbenaweek
Website: itsbenaweek.com

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This week on It’s Ben A Week, Ben wraps up his very first year of podcasting with a deeply personal and celebratory Season One Finale. After 50 straight weeks — zero missed Tuesdays — Ben sits down with the one person who started this journey with him: AJ. With thousands of listeners tuning in from across the world, Ben reflects on how the podcast began, how much it’s grown, and how much work went into creating something from scratch with no team, no production company, and no built-in audience.

Ben opens the episode with a candid look back at:

• How he went from “not a podcast person” to launching his own show
• Listening to podcasts during 4 a.m. drives
• Believing he could do it better than the people he was listening to
• Buying equipment, teaching himself editing, and learning everything the hard way
• All the technical chaos: broken cameras, audio drift, video not syncing
• Why seeing thousands of listeners globally still blows his mind
• How viewer DMs, comments, and Spotify Wrapped screenshots kept him going

AJ joins and the two dive into:

• AJ’s wild travel schedule and why he’s been MIA
• Their “helper” who worked one day and disappeared forever
• The holiday party of the year (Disney characters, uplighting, themed cocktails)
• Ben eating french fries in the bathtub the morning after
• How DoorDash has become Ben’s emotional support system
• Their year in concerts — Beyoncé, Missy Elliott, Janet Jackson, Rufus du Sol, Katy Perry, Brandy & Monica

Then the episode becomes a full-circle reflection on Season One:

• Ben revisits Episode 1 to hear how far he’s come
• Learning to talk less, listen more, and actually interview
• Why Caroline Rhea’s advice changed everything
• His biggest interviewing challenges — guests who won’t talk vs. guests who won’t stop
• His proudest guest moments: Margaret Josephs, Ursula Carlson, Rawson Marshall Thurber, Weston Brown, Blaine, Sherri, Victoria, Liam “Shoes”
• The episodes that unexpectedly became emotional pillars (Mother’s Day, Weston, Blaine)
• What this podcast has done for other people — not just Ben
• Why he’s grateful this show didn’t take off “too fast”

The finale ends with a heartfelt conversation about Season Two:

• Ben taking two weeks off to reset, reimagine, and rebuild the set
• Debating new formats, episode lengths, and weekly vs. biweekly releases
• AJ urging him to meditate, poll listeners, and get closer to who Ben really is
• The possibility of new structure: guests, cultural commentary, games, call-ins
• Ben stepping into next year with confidence, clarity, and momentum

It’s emotional, honest, funny, chaotic, nostalgic, and full-circle — the perfect ending to an unbelievable first season.

🎧 Subscribe to It’s Ben a Week
New episodes every week filled with unfiltered stories, wild guests, and brutally honest laughs. Hosted by actor, photographer, and professional barrel racer Ben McDonnell.

📍 Listen & Subscribe:
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🔗 Connect with Ben:
Instagram: @itsbenaweek
TikTok: @itsbenaweek
Website: itsbenaweek.com

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This week on It’s Ben A Week, Ben opens the episode by recapping the unbelievable viral rise of Jeff the Possum, whose video has now hit nearly 3 million views across TikTok and Instagram. Ben shares the wild influx of new followers, the hate comments from people wanting “more Jeff, less podcast,” and the unexpected chaos of going viral over a porch possum instead of the content he actually produces.

But quickly, the episode shifts into something much deeper.
 Ben welcomes one of his close friends, Blaine, for a vulnerable and emotional conversation about navigating the holidays after unimaginable loss.

Just five months ago, Blaine’s husband Danny — a beloved member of Ben and AJ’s friend group — passed away from spindle cell liposarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer. Blaine opens up about:

• The first symptoms and misdiagnoses
• The roller coaster from false hope to final goodbye
• What it was like caring for Danny through hospital visits
• The moment Danny cried in the Paris catacombs, not knowing his tumor had already begun
• The shock of how quickly everything changed
• The grief that comes in waves — especially during the holidays

Ben and Blaine share stories of Danny at his best:
 Trips, parties, speeches on boats, Coachella memories, Cristal bottles, face masks, and the way Danny balanced out all of the “difficult gays” in the friend group.

Together they explore:

• How grief rewires your entire world
• Why holidays feel heavier after loss
• The loneliness of going to bed without your person
• Trying to move forward without feeling like you’re leaving someone behind
• How to support someone grieving — and what not to do
• The guilt, the “firsts,” and the pressure to pretend you’re okay
• The importance of talking about the person you lost
• Reframing the holidays and building a “corrective experience”

Blaine also shares unexpectedly touching and humorous moments — like accidentally calling Danny’s mom from Danny’s number, or the headstone being placed just days before recording.

This episode is raw, heartfelt, honest, and full of love.
 It’s for anyone struggling during the holiday season, anyone going through grief, or anyone who has ever had to rebuild their life after losing a partner.

🎧 Subscribe to It’s Ben a Week
New episodes every week filled with unfiltered stories, wild guests, and brutally honest laughs. Hosted by actor, photographer, and professional barrel racer Ben McDonnell.

📍 Listen & Subscribe:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | Wherever you get your podcasts

🔗 Connect with Ben:
Instagram: @itsbenaweek
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Website: itsbenaweek.com

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⚠️ Warning: this episode is X rated and NSFW

This week on It’s Ben A Week, Ben is joined by his friend — Joy — for the dirtiest, wildest, and most X-rated episode in the history of the show. And before they even get to the sex talk, Ben has a Thanksgiving meltdown to unload.

The episode opens with Ben’s Thanksgiving Eve nightmare:
 A scammer stole $1,000 from him — and did it so convincingly that even Joy admitted she would’ve fallen for it. Ben walks Joy step-by-step through the scam, including:

• How the scammer spoofed Order number
• How they knew his name, order number, voicemail, tracking, and total
• How they walked him through fake Zelle “refund codes”
• Why Wells Fargo is still investigating
• And how the scammer called him again to try to steal his home address

Then the episode shifts into the Naughty Secret Santa the two are preparing for — including:

• Joy’s late sexual awakening
• Why she never talked about sex growing up
• How shame, religion, family, and insecurity shaped her early adulthood
• Porn, OnlyFans, and the difference between fantasy and real intimacy
• Why communication and consent matter more than anything
• The danger of unsafe hookups and saying “no”
• Ben’s near-traumatic HIV scare in college
• The reality of dating apps, scams, and safety for women

Ben and Joy talk openly, honestly, and hilariously about everything most people are scared to admit — proving that talking about sex doesn’t have to be taboo, shameful, or secret.

It’s the most unfiltered, eyebrow-lifting, educationally chaotic episode yet.

🎧 Subscribe to It’s Ben a Week
New episodes every week filled with unfiltered stories, wild guests, and brutally honest laughs. Hosted by actor, photographer, and professional barrel racer Ben McDonnell.

📍 Listen & Subscribe:
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Website: itsbenaweek.com

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This week on It’s Ben A Week, Ben is joined by one of his favorite people on earth — Jennifer Geisser, Executive Vice President of Communications for Bravo and Peacock Unscripted, and the woman running the entire Bravo universe while Ben runs around in sparkly shoes.

Before Jen even joins the chat, Ben unleashes a full rant on:

• Getting blocked from the Granbury Breaking News Facebook page (shocker)
• Being surrounded by trash families at the theater
• Moviegoers who crinkle Skittles bags during emotional Wicked moments
• Snapchatting during a movie 
• Children running in the aisles of Wicked like it’s Chuck E. Cheese

Then Jen arrives, and chaos officially begins.

Together, Ben and Jen break down their insane week:

• BravoCon madness — 30,000 fans, celebrities everywhere, panels, parties, and production on a scale Ben’s never seen
• The Sprinter van moments, including Ben sitting with his Bravolebrities like it’s totally normal
• Jen managing talent, PR crises, logistics, executives, and Bravo’s entire empire
• Ben sneaking his way onto the Bravo float at Pride like he belongs there
• A recap of every after-party, including Ben and Jen being physically allergic to going home early
• The suitcase catastrophe at 5 a.m. — duct tape, panic, and a broken zipper
• Flying from Vegas to NYC on no sleep and running into Jen’s boss at the gate
• Barely making it to the Wicked movie premiere
• Jen dressed exactly like Glinda and Ben pushing little children out of the way so she could take a photo in the bubble
• Falling asleep during Wicked because they were literally dead
• Ben peeing next to Jonathan Bailey (a core memory)
• Getting nearly run over by Michelle Yeoh’s dress
• Their night at Mary Jane on Broadway (late, obviously)
• The sea-turtle charity event in Brooklyn
• Delta upgrades, diamond perks, and Ben stealing Jen’s global upgrade

It’s pure chaos, nonstop laughter, Bravo tea, Wicked obsession, and friendship at its finest.

🎧 Subscribe to It’s Ben a Week
New episodes every week filled with unfiltered stories, wild guests, and brutally honest laughs. Hosted by actor, photographer, and professional barrel racer Ben McDonnell.

📍 Listen & Subscribe:
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🔗 Connect with Ben:
Instagram: @itsbenaweek
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Website: itsbenaweek.com

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This week on It’s Ben A Week, Ben sits down with Weston Brown, a Texas native whose shocking and emotional story has captured national attention.

Weston grew up in a hyper-religious, politically extreme household just outside Dallas — homeschooled, isolated, and forbidden from music, movies, doctors, or anything that didn’t fit a narrow version of “God’s plan.” When he came out as gay, he was fired from his church job, cut off from his family, and told he could never come home.

Years later, Weston discovered that his mother — now living in Granbury — had become a political activist trying to ban books with LGBTQ+ characters. So he returned to Texas, took the podium at a school-board meeting, and made headlines across the country with his brave, heartfelt testimony. That moment inspired a documentary and his upcoming memoir.

Ben and Weston dive into:

• Growing up under fundamentalist evangelical control
• How fear, isolation, and “purity culture” damage kids
• The shocking “poop brownie” story that went viral in Granbury
• Weston’s mother’s campaign to ban books — and her public defeat
• The reality of homeschooling laws in Texas and children’s rights
• Healing through therapy, marriage, and self-acceptance
• How religion is weaponized against LGBTQ+ people
• Finding purpose in advocacy and the power of representation

It’s an episode filled with courage, catharsis, and hope — proof that even in the most closed-minded places, truth and love will always find a way through.

 Follow Weston Brown

Instagram: @wstn.brwn
Film: https://thelibrariansfilm.com/
Book: https://bannedthebook.com/ 
 

🎧 Subscribe to It’s Ben a Week
New episodes every week filled with unfiltered stories, wild guests, and brutally honest laughs. Hosted by actor, photographer, and professional barrel racer Ben McDonnell.

📍 Listen & Subscribe:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | Wherever you get your podcasts

🔗 Connect with Ben:
Instagram: @itsbenaweek
TikTok: @itsbenaweek
Website: itsbenaweek.com

💬 Want to be on the show?
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