Modern Love

Donna Flagg didn’t expect to fall in love with a supermodel, but her connection with Hoyt Richards was undeniable. The two would talk to each other for hours, effortlessly, over dinner or lying in front of Donna’s fireplace, building a level of intimacy they describe as “a precious gem.”

Then, one day four years into their relationship, Hoyt disappeared from Donna’s life. Donna questioned her own reality: Who had she been dating? She tried to move on, but years later, Donna got a phone call that explained everything. Hoyt had disappeared because he was in a cult. Now, he had escaped.

This week on the “Modern Love” podcast, Donna Flagg and Hoyt Richards explain the role their relationship had in Hoyt’s leaving the cult, and why they decided to marry last September, more than 30 years after they first met.

Donna and Hoyt’s wedding was featured in the article, “He Left Her for a Cult, but It Would Be Years Before She Knew It.”

Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay. Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

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When Paloma Karr took a job at Sheri’s Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada, she thought of men as paychecks. Back home in New York City, Karr had just gone through an intense breakup and was stuck with a rent payment she couldn’t afford. She explored “sugar baby” work and, almost on a whim, started applying to brothels in Nevada. Just a few weeks later, Karr was flying to Las Vegas, ready to make the money she needed and return home.

But while she was there, Karr had a series of conversations that changed everything. She found herself endeared to her clients, many of whom just seemed to want someone to talk to about their insecurities. When they were honest with her, she was surprised to find herself being honest with them, too.

This week on the “Modern Love” podcast, Karr talks about how working in a brothel completely changed her ideas about men, sex and herself.

Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay, and how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

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After tremendous loss and heartbreak, Jim Morrison didn’t feel he had anything left to lose. Then he went for a walk. Next, a hike. Soon, he was running. He found challenging himself in nature helped him work through his grief, and before long he was seeking out increasingly difficult feats.

In 2025 he became the first person to successfully climb up the North Face of Mount Everest and then ski down. A new documentary, “Everest: The Other Side,” chronicles Morrison’s journey to Everest and tells the story of his great loves and devastating tragedies.

On this episode of “Modern Love,” Morrison talks about how he survived the darkest times in his life and how coming right up to the edge of what’s humanly possible keeps him close to the people he’s lost.

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Janene Lin loathed the moment when the dinner bill would hit the table. When her date would pay, she felt like her love was for sale. Splitting the bill felt like no one had anything at stake. Most of the time, she would pay the bill herself, but that left her feeling uncared-for. So Janene prepared a pitch: On her next date, her third with a man named Aodhán, she would ask to open a joint bank account.

On this episode of Modern Love, Lin tells our host, Anna Martin, why this risky move felt like the best solution, how Aodhán reacted and what it taught her about what money means to her and her family.

This episode is adapted from Janene Lin’s essay The Woman Who Always Paid for Dinner.

Here’s how to submit a Modern Love Essay to The New York Times.

Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

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One thing that comforted Denise Ryan after her divorce was that she and her ex-husband still talked every day. Even though they lived apart, they were still co-parenting their son, Alexander, and they were constantly jumping on the phone to tell each other what he was up to at their respective homes.

The daily calls stopped, though, when Denise’s ex fell in love and started building a new family. Now Alexander had a second mother figure in his life, and he was adjusting remarkably well. Alexander seemed to enjoy the time he spent with his stepmom, and soon he became a big brother to her new baby.

Denise sincerely wanted the best for her son and her ex, but it didn’t feel great to be on the outside peering in at their new life. Then, Denise got an unexpected call for help, giving her a chance to rethink the role she was playing. She realized that the end of a marriage didn’t have to mean the end of a family.

The Modern Love essay that inspired this conversation is called “Please Love My Son as I Do.”

Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay, and how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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The actor Alan Cumming is not the man his father wanted him to be. Growing up, Cumming says, his father had specific ideas about how he should look and what he should do with his life, ideas he enforced with abusive violence. However, Cumming tried to stay true to himself: As a teenager, he hid clothes to change into after leaving the house, and he found joy in playing the piano and later at drama school.

As an adult, Cumming tried to forget the past. But after getting married, settling into a home and beginning to consider fatherhood for himself, he started to reckon with his childhood, and realized he needed to start over.

This week on the “Modern Love” podcast, Cumming shares about what happened when he finally broke free of his father. He talks about how his past caught up to his love life, why publicly identifying as bisexual is important to him, and what he hopes to pass down to a new generation of queer artists.

Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay, and how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

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For most of her life, Kelly McWilliams has felt as though people aren’t seeing her clearly. Kelly is biracial, and she was raised to be proud of her identity: she grew up surrounded by African American culture and literature. But when she walks into a room, a lot of people perceive her as a white woman. And when she does tell people she’s Black, the situation can get uncomfortable, even scary, very fast.

On this episode of “Modern Love,” McWilliams tells the host, Anna Martin, about the ways her mixed-race identity has affected her relationships and her work. Kelly’s new book, “American Nightmare,” is about a Black man who passes for white and ends up working as a spy for the N.A.A.C.P. 

The idea of being a spy, of entering spaces and situations without anyone knowing your true identity, is very personal for Kelly. But, she says, after years of being mistaken for someone she’s not, she has learned to be loud about who she really is.

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At the age of 25, the comedian Taylor Tomlinson was sure she had life and love figured out. She’d left behind a religious faith that felt too restrictive. She was engaged to a man she loved. She was also writing her first Netflix special. Tomlinson felt like her career and personal life were on track and that nothing could stop her. Then, suddenly, she surprised even herself by calling off the engagement.

Now 32, Tomlinson wishes she’d handled the breakup differently, but she doesn’t regret ending the relationship. That decision, she says, ultimately led her to seek help for her mental health. Eventually, she came out as bisexual, and started exploring an attraction to women that she thought she would never get to act on.

This week on the “Modern Love” podcast, Tomlinson talks about how she stepped away from who she thought she should be — and who she was supposed to be with — and learned to be patient with the process of coming to know her own mind and heart. Even if it meant a long-term partnership had to wait.

Taylor Tomlinson’s memoir, “Actually, Nevermind,” is out now.

Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay, and how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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Joe Swanberg married the first person he ever seriously dated. When that marriage ended, his romantic life got complicated. Messy, even. He started dating younger women, ended up in an elaborate love triangle, and completely changed his mind about whether he wanted to marry and have children again. He openly describes it as a cliché midlife crisis.

Swanberg is no stranger to messy relationships. Throughout his career making television and films, his work has focused on the gray areas of relationships and their difficult-to-navigate emotional territory. So when he hit his own difficult relationship moment, he channeled it into his new film, “The Sun Never Sets.”

This week on the “Modern Love” podcast, Swanberg talks about the real-life story that inspired the film, what he’s learned in the process of cleaning up his own mess, and how his approach to relationships is changing.

Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay. Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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Carla Lalli is well known as a chef and a cookbook author. But after many years in food media, working at places like Bon Appétit, she started to lose her personal connection to cooking. It wasn’t until her 24-year-long marriage ended and she had to start cooking for herself as a newly single person, that she re-engaged with why she loved to cook and what made her feel good. She details many of these discoveries and recipes in her new memoir-meets-cookbook, “Food Is a Feeling.”

On this episode of “Modern Love,” Lalli tells the host Anna Martin about the specific meals and experiences that helped her reconnect with her pleasure and cravings at this pivotal time in her life. And she talks about the value of cooking as a tool for transforming a really bad day.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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