Today's guest is Keltie Knight—a name a lot of you will know from her years hosting E! News, and someone I've wanted on this show since it started. Our paths actually crossed years ago through her best friend Christina Perry, an early guest on this podcast.

Watch this episode in video form on Spotify or YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmevEcbh5h5FEX0pazPEtN86t7eb2OgX

Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealstuffpod

Find Lucie here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luciebfink/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luciebfink

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/luciebfink

Website: https://luciefink.com/

Subscribe to my free newsletter "The Lucie List" here: https://thelucielist.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's guest is Sabrina Chazen, a size-inclusive fashion blogger and full-time content creator I've wanted on the show since day one. We met on a brand trip in Miami a couple of years ago, and within minutes of talking to her, I knew: this woman does not hold back. It's honestly wild that it's taken us two years to actually record this.

Sabrina came on ready to talk about her GLP-1 journey, something she's barely spoken about publicly despite being one of the earliest people I knew to try it (before it was the topic of conversation it is now). However, her story isn't the one you'd expect. The drug didn't make her smaller. She lost some weight at first, then her insurance stopped covering it once her bloodwork improved, and things unraveled from there (including, at one point, quietly taking it from her dad's fridge). What she describes isn't really about the number on the scale; it’s what the medication was doing for her body that had nothing to do with weight loss at all—and how strange it feels to explain that to a world that assumes GLP-1s are only about getting thin.

Then the conversation shifts into something even more raw: a friendship breakup that Sabrina has alluded to online for over a year but never told in full. It starts at her local club, with Sabrina checking in on a friend's kids during a rough patch, and ends, later that same night, with her own son bleeding from a head injury and that same friend going silent for hours when she needed her most. It’s a real, unfiltered conversation about boundaries, forgiveness, and the specific chaos that hits women's friendships in their late 30s and 40s; something Sabrina says she's never experienced at this level before in her life.

We also get into the business side of Sabrina's world: how she quietly built a six-figure affiliate marketing career, one link at a time, starting with a goal of just $100 a day.

Thank you, Sabrina, for finally sitting down with me and for trusting our audience with all of it. If you're watching on YouTube, drop a comment and let her know you're rooting for her!

Follow Sabrina: https://www.instagram.com/sabrinachazen/

Sponsors:

Quince: Go to https://www.Quince.com/REALSTUFF for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

Labcorp OnDemand: Visit https://www.OnDemand.Labcorp.com/realstuff and use code "realstuff" to save up to 15% on select tests.

Watch this episode in video form on Spotify or YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmevEcbh5h5FEX0pazPEtN86t7eb2OgX

To apply to be a guest on the show, visit luciefink.com/apply and send us your story.

I also want to extend a special thank you to East Love for the show's theme song, Rolling Stone.

Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealstuffpod

Find Lucie here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luciebfink/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luciebfink

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/luciebfink

Website: https://luciefink.com/

Subscribe to my free newsletter "The Lucie List" here: https://thelucielist.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Executive Producer: Cloud10

Produced by Dear Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the second part of the conversation with my husband, Michael. If you missed part one, we covered parenting, marriage, and life with two toddlers. This time, we're talking about what happens when your husband becomes your business partner, too.

It's been just over six months since Michael left his corporate job to join me full-time at Lucie Fink Media, and we're getting into what that's actually looked like day-to-day. Michael walks through his role overseeing the finances of the business, including a tracker spreadsheet that helped us catch a payment we never received from a brand deal, and how that role has expanded into bigger projects: helping spearhead our Spotify Video partnership, exploring equity investments in brands we believe in, and starting early conversations around a scholarship fund for students who want to get into media but don't have an easy path in.

We also get honest about the friction points: our very different working styles (Michael is methodical and slow-paced, I move fast and want things done immediately), how we navigate boundaries between work time and personal time, and a moment early on where our different paces led to a real "whoa, let's not do that again" meeting.

Then we open it up to your questions from Instagram, including what's given Michael the most joy since leaving corporate (spoiler: his health has changed dramatically), whether we took a financial hit as a family when he left his salary behind, and how we handle delegating tasks to each other. We also still don't have an official job title for him, so let us know in the comments what you think it should be!

Sponsors:

Cotton: Learn more at https://www.TheFabricOfOurLives.com

Labcorp OnDemand: Visit https://www.OnDemand.Labcorp.com/realstuff and use code "realstuff" to save up to 15% on select tests.

Nutrafol: Visit https://www.nutrafol.com and enter promo code REALSTUFF for $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping.

Ladder: If you have an iPhone, head to https://www.ladder.fit/REALSTUFF and get a free 7-day trial with no credit card and $10 off your first month.

Vinted: Download the Vinted app for free to start listing with no seller fees.

Watch this episode in video form on Spotify or YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmevEcbh5h5FEX0pazPEtN86t7eb2OgX

To apply to be a guest on the show, visit luciefink.com/apply and send us your story.

I also want to extend a special thank you to East Love for the show's theme song, Rolling Stone.

Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealstuffpod

Find Lucie here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luciebfink/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luciebfink

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/luciebfink

Website: https://luciefink.com/

Subscribe to my free newsletter "The Lucie List" here: https://thelucielist.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Executive Producer: Cloud10

Produced by Dear Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I'm bringing my husband Michael back on the show for a special two-part episode. This week is all about parenting.

Michael and I recently became co-CEOs of our life together, when he left his corporate job to join me at Lucie Fink Media. Today, we’re catching up on the family side of things, and we're recording it in a pretty unusual setting: we've moved in with Michael's parents for the entire summer while our house undergoes a renovation—which means we're currently living under one roof with ten people, including Michael's sister, her husband, and their six-month-old baby.

We get honest about the sibling dynamics between our two kids, Milo (almost five) and Coco (almost two). We also talk about a couples therapy session we did (not about our marriage, but about how we tag team parenting when one of us is at a breaking point), and the specific hand signal our therapist suggested for when one of us needs to step away.

Michael also shares some parenting mistakes worth learning from, including a Nanit monitor feature he wishes he'd never turned on, and the shockingly simple trick (a 10:30pm wake up and a whispered secret code word) that finally stopped Milo's middle of the night wake ups.

We close out the episode with a rapid fire round of your questions, covering everything from what surprised us about having a boy and a girl, to what we wish we'd known before having kids, to how we handle disagreements as parents.

Part two, all about working together since Michael left corporate, is coming next week!

Sponsors:

Quince: Go to https://www.Quince.com/REALSTUFF for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

Labcorp OnDemand: Visit https://www.OnDemand.Labcorp.com/realstuff and use code "realstuff" to save up to 15% on select tests.

ButcherBox: Go to https://www.ButcherBox.com/realstuff for $20 off your first box, plus your choice of free ground beef for life, or free chicken thighs or top sirloins in every box for a year – with free shipping always.

instant hydration: Go to https://www.instanthydration.com/realstuff and use my promo code REALSTUFF for over 40% off your first subscription order.

Watch this episode in video form on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmevEcbh5h5FEX0pazPEtN86t7eb2OgX

To apply to be a guest on the show, visit luciefink.com/apply and send us your story.

I also want to extend a special thank you to East Love for the show's theme song, Rolling Stone.

Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealstuffpod

Find Lucie here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luciebfink/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luciebfink

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/luciebfink

Website: https://luciefink.com/

Subscribe to my free newsletter "The Lucie List" here: https://thelucielist.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Executive Producer: Cloud10

Produced by Dear Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few months ago I posted about attending an Instagram event in New York City, where they walked me through Teen Accounts. This is a feature now used by hundreds of millions of teenagers worldwide. The reaction split my audience right down the middle. Parents of teens thanked me for sharing it, while parents of young kids (myself included) responded with skepticism.

So I decided to go straight to the source.

Today I'm sitting down with Tara Hopkins, who works in policy at Instagram. My kids are still young, so phones and social media still feel like a distant (and sometimes terrifying) hypothetical for future me. But it's already a big topic of conversation in my house, and I had a lot of questions.

Tara's career path alone is worth the listen: from the European Parliament in Brussels, to the UK's largest child protection charity, to Instagram in her early 40s, when she said she "wanted to start to learn again." She's also a mom of two teenagers, 16 and 13, so she's not just building this stuff, she's living it at home, too.

In this episode, Tara walks me through how Instagram's AI can detect that a user is a teen even if they lie about their age, why 97% of 13-to-15-year-olds stay in the most restrictive settings without ever asking to change them, and how 94% of parents surveyed in the US said Teen Accounts have been helpful. Tara also walks through the specifics, like the 60-minute time notification and the 10pm to 7am sleep mode.

During our discussion, I bring up something that's bugged me for a while: why does my own educational content, like the stuff I share about periods and reproductive health, sometimes get flagged? Her answer actually helped clear up a lot of my own misconceptions.

There’s a part near the end that you may find especially interesting. We talk about what parents can and cannot see in their teen's DMs, and why they drew that line exactly where they did.

Instagram Teen Accounts —now inspired by 13+ movie ratings—are designed to give parents peace of mind that their teens are safer with the right protections in place. Learn more about Instagram Teen Accounts at https://about.fb.com/news/2025/10/instagram-teen-accounts-pg-13-ratings/

Support your family’s online experience with expert guidance and tools from Meta’s Family Center. Explore resources today, including Meta’s Screen Smart Program, at https://familycenter.meta.com.

Watch this episode in video form on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmevEcbh5h5FEX0pazPEtN86t7eb2OgX

To apply to be a guest on the show, visit luciefink.com/apply and send us your story.

I also want to extend a special thank you to East Love for the show's theme song, Rolling Stone.

Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealstuffpod

Find Lucie here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luciebfink/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luciebfink

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/luciebfink

Website: https://luciefink.com/

Subscribe to my free newsletter "The Lucie List" here: https://thelucielist.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Executive Producer: Cloud10

Produced by Dear Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's audience caller is Chloe and she's a milestone guest for The Real Stuff: our first trans guest in three seasons! A couple of past callers with similar stories backed out right before we hit record, which tells you everything about how much courage this actually takes. I'm endlessly grateful to Chloe for being the one who said yes.

Here's the twist: Chloe didn't discover she was trans as a kid, or a teenager, or even in her 20s. She was 45 years old and sitting in a UK office on her lunch break when she downloaded a FaceApp filter that gender-swaps photos. It started mostly as a joke. She pressed the button expecting to laugh. Instead, she disappeared into the bathroom for almost an hour, just staring at the picture. That was October 2023.

What follows is Chloe walking us through absolutely everything—and I mean everything. The month she couldn't sleep. Coming out to her wife of nearly a decade (whose response was somehow even more generous than you'd hope for). Coming out to her parents, her job, eventually the whole world via a single Facebook post. The diagnosis process. And yes, the actual cost of transitioning, dollar for dollar and pound for pound. From NHS waitlists to $80,000 surgeries in California to significantly cheaper options in Thailand.

We also get into a genuinely fascinating deep dive into the anatomy of the surgery itself. 

Chloe, now separated and in her late 40s, is traveling solo, dating again, and finally—for the first time in her life—getting to be herself, out loud, in public.

Thank you, Chloe, for trusting us with your story!

Follow Chloe: https://www.instagram.com/lucyseekelly/

Sponsors:

Forkful: Head to https://forkfulmeals.com/LUCIE for 50% off your first order today!

Ladder: If you have an iPhone, head to https://www.ladder.fit/REALSTUFF and get a free 7-day trial with no credit card and $10 off your first month.

Watch this episode in video form on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmevEcbh5h5FEX0pazPEtN86t7eb2OgX

To apply to be a guest on the show, visit luciefink.com/apply and send us your story.

I also want to extend a special thank you to East Love for the show's theme song, Rolling Stone.

Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealstuffpod

Find Lucie here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luciebfink/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luciebfink

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/luciebfink

Website: https://luciefink.com/

Subscribe to my free newsletter "The Lucie List" here: https://thelucielist.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Executive Producer: Cloud10

Produced by Dear Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's audience caller, Betty, wrote in with a story I genuinely didn't know how to categorize when I first read it: she told me that her best friend "kidnapped" her nephew. Twice. Once for 19 days. Once for 93.

But the deeper we got into it, the more I realized the headline doesn't capture exactly what happened here. Betty's wife is an identical twin. Her sister, Stephanie, married Carolyn, who quickly became Betty’s bestie. Being married to identical twin sisters, they had a lot in common. After years of trying to conceive (six rounds of IUI and IVF, and one devastating miscarriage), they finally had their son.

Stephanie was on the birth certificate. She never missed an appointment. She planned the whole nursery. But she wasn't the biological mother, and in the eyes of the law, that distinction turned out to matter more than any of them could ever imagine.

Betty walks us through watching her best friends' marriage quietly fall apart during a hard pregnancy, the night everything broke—a fight over a piece of paper that would have made Stephanie's parental rights official—and the 19 days that followed, where an entire family blocked their numbers, and a police station laughed off a mother's missing baby report. We also get into the messier parts: the advice Betty gave in the moment that she's still not sure was right, and the friendship she's not sure can ever be repaired.

This episode exposes how fragile legal protection can be for non-biological parents, how a friendship can dissolve almost overnight, and how differently the same story can sound depending on who's telling it.

Sponsors:

Nutrafol: Visit https://www.nutrafol.com and enter promo code REALSTUFF for $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping.

Labcorp OnDemand: Visit https://www.OnDemand.Labcorp.com/realstuff and use code "realstuff" to save up to 15% on select tests.

Watch this episode in video form on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmevEcbh5h5FEX0pazPEtN86t7eb2OgX

To apply to be a guest on the show, visit luciefink.com/apply and send us your story.

I also want to extend a special thank you to East Love for the show's theme song, Rolling Stone.

Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealstuffpod

Find Lucie here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luciebfink/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luciebfink

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/luciebfink

Website: https://luciefink.com/

Subscribe to my free newsletter "The Lucie List" here: https://thelucielist.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Executive Producer: Cloud10

Produced by Dear Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's episode is a little different. It's just me, going deep on something I've never fully unpacked before: what it's actually been like to write my first novel.

I take you back to 2023, when I tried to sell a nonfiction book about the science of curiosity—and how both publishers I was in talks with pulled out of the auction the morning it was supposed to happen. I thought that was the end of my book-writing chapter.

It wasn't.

Fast forward to January of this year, one conversation with Michael turned into an idea for a psychological thriller (think Gone Girl meets Severance), and within three hours of posting a single Instagram video announcing it, a literary agency reached out wanting to represent me, before I'd written more than two pages! I get into why that happened, what it says about the power of a platform in 2026, and the very unglamorous reality of book proposals, 43 chapter summaries, and my own "fatal flaw" as a writer (spoiler: I can't write a messy first draft to save my life).

But this episode isn't really about publishing logistics. It's about the strange split between the person you think you know from my videos—grounded, married, happy—and the darker, stranger stories I've always needed somewhere to put.

Sponsors:

Labcorp OnDemand: Visit https://www.OnDemand.Labcorp.com/realstuff and use code "realstuff" to save up to 15% on select tests.

Spindrift: Visit https://www.drinkspindrift.com and use code "lucie" for 15% off.

Cotton: Learn more at https://www.TheFabricOfOurLives.com

ButcherBox: Go to https://www,ButcherBox.com/realstuff for $20 off your first box, plus your choice of free ground beef for life, or free chicken thighs or top sirloins in every box for a year – with free shipping always.

Watch this episode in video form on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmevEcbh5h5FEX0pazPEtN86t7eb2OgX

To apply to be a guest on the show, visit luciefink.com/apply and send us your story.

I also want to extend a special thank you to East Love for the show's theme song, Rolling Stone.

Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealstuffpod

Find Lucie here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luciebfink/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luciebfink

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/luciebfink

Website: https://luciefink.com/

Subscribe to my free newsletter "The Lucie List" here: https://thelucielist.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Executive Producer: Cloud10

Produced by Dear Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's guest spends her days looking at women in various states of undress, and somehow, the whole thing is a lot less sexual than you'd think.

Meet Nomi, a boudoir photographer who splits her time between a jungle studio in rural Jamaica and a loft space in Brooklyn. For the past decade, she's been helping women feel at home in their bodies, one photo session at a time.

On the surface, this is a conversation about a unique profession involving lingerie, nudity, and how to pose for a sexy photo. But underneath it, it's a conversation about womanhood, body image, and healing. Nomi shares how recovering from the eating disorder she developed at 16 shaped the philosophy behind her work. She talks candidly about why so many clients apologize for their stomachs, why boudoir sessions can unexpectedly bring sexual trauma to the surface, and why she believes the industry is quietly becoming a form of art therapy.

We also dive into the business side that most people never consider: why she prices her sessions the way she does, what it's like to run every part of her business as a one-woman show, and how she built a career that's as emotionally demanding as it is creatively fulfilling. Along the way, she shares the unexpected story of how she met her husband in a Facebook group for Jewish singles before ending up on a farm in Trelawny, Jamaica.

Listen for the moment she compares a boudoir session to a trip to the gynecologist. It's an analogy that completely reframes what professional comfort with nudity actually looks like—and it may change the way you think about the vulnerability of it altogether.

Follow Nomi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boudoirbynomi/?hl=en

Work with Nomi: https://boudoirbynomi.com

Sponsors:

Labcorp OnDemand: Visit https://www.OnDemand.Labcorp.com/realstuff and use code "realstuff" to save up to 15% on select tests.

Alaya Naturals: Visit https://www.alayanaturals.com/realstuff and enter code REALSTUFF at checkout for 20% off your order.

Forkful: Head to https://forkfulmeals.com/LUCIE for 50% off your first order today!

Watch this episode in video form on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmevEcbh5h5FEX0pazPEtN86t7eb2OgX

To apply to be a guest on the show, visit luciefink.com/apply and send us your story.

I also want to extend a special thank you to East Love for the show's theme song, Rolling Stone.

Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealstuffpod

Find Lucie here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luciebfink/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luciebfink

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/luciebfink

Website: https://luciefink.com/

Subscribe to my free newsletter "The Lucie List" here: https://thelucielist.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Executive Producer: Cloud10

Produced by Dear Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's audience caller episode is one I’ve been so excited to share. Riana is a travel blogger (http://teaspoonofadventure.com) who, after having her daughter in early 2025, did something most new parents run far from: instead of taking a typical parental leave, she and her husband sold almost everything they owned and spent nine months slow-traveling through Canada, France, the UK, and Spain—with a five-month-old baby and their dog in tow.

At first glance, this is a trip story. But really, it's a story about permission. Permission to build a life that doesn't fit the mold, permission for a dad to take 15 months of paternity leave when most take a few weeks, and permission to feel the FOMO and the exhaustion of new parenthood while still choosing adventure over fear.

We get into everything: how her husband's paternity leave became the centerpiece of the plan, the family pushback (“you’re taking my grandbaby away!”), and how they kept relationships close despite being thousands of miles apart. Riana also opens up about money in a way most people never do. She breaks down the full cost of the trip, exactly how much her travel blog earns per month, and where they blew way past their budget.

My favorite part of this conversation is when we get into the "vacation vs. trip" debate and how Riana found unexpected joy in the parts of travel she never would've chosen for herself before becoming a mom.

If you're a parent, a soon-to-be parent, or just someone who's ever wondered "could I actually do this with a baby?”—this one's for you.

Here’s that article from the Huffington Post: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/vacation-or-trip-a-helpful-guide-for-parents_b_7789310

Sponsors:

Magnetic Me: New customers get 15% off sitewide at https://www.magneticme.com

Quince: Go to https://www.Quince.com/REALSTUFF for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

Labcorp OnDemand: Visit https://www.OnDemand.Labcorp.com/realstuff and use code "realstuff" to save up to 15% on select tests.

Spindrift: Visit https://www.drinkspindrift.com and use code "lucie" for 15% off.

Alaya Naturals: Visit https://www.alayanaturals.com/realstuff and enter code REALSTUFF at checkout for 20% off your order.

Watch this episode in video form on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmevEcbh5h5FEX0pazPEtN86t7eb2OgX

To apply to be a guest on the show, visit luciefink.com/apply and send us your story.

I also want to extend a special thank you to East Love for the show's theme song, Rolling Stone.

Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealstuffpod

Find Lucie here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luciebfink/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luciebfink

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/luciebfink

Website: https://luciefink.com/

Subscribe to my free newsletter "The Lucie List" here: https://thelucielist.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Executive Producer: Cloud10

Produced by Dear Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices