Poptarts

Adrianne Wortzel is a groundbreaking pioneer in the field of robotic art who has been making and exhibiting her futuristic pieces for over 50 years. Her amazing genre-hopping projects include films, drawings, texts, robotic and telerobotic performance productions, artist’s books, photography, and online pieces. Her writing includes articles, fiction, and scripts. And her international collaborations with other artists, scientists, and engineers made her an important resource in her years as a Professor Emeritus in Emerging Media and Entertainment Technologies at New York City College of Technology. Currently, she’s working on an art book called See No Evil, and on BUST's latest Poptarts podcast, Wortzel describes how the birth of the Internet was like the “Wild West,” explains why the most realistic machines are also the creepiest, and recalls the strategy she employed at the Whitney Museum to save a suicidal robot.

Few reality shows are as popular or as divisive as Bravo's Real Housewives, a franchise that has included casts in Orange County, New Jersey, New York, Atlanta, Beverly Hills, DC, Miami, Potomac, Dallas, and Salt Lake City over the past 15 years. Feminist icon Gloria Steinem once criticized this pop cultural phenomenon on E!, saying, "It is women, all dressed up and inflated and plastic surgeried and false bosomed with incredible amounts of money spent, not getting along with each other. Fighting with each other. It is a minstrel show for women. I don't believe it. I feel like it's manufactured, that the fights between them are manufactured and they're supposed to go after each other in a kind of conflicting way." Nonetheless, some feminists like BUST’s Poptarts podcast hosts Emily Rems and Callie Watts are intrigued by the women being relentlessly documented on these shows. And even “Bad Feminist” Roxane Gay bonded with BUST in March over the antics of the new Salt Lake City cast. On the latest Poptarts podc

Linda Perry first made waves in music as the lead singer and songwriter of 4 Non Blondes, a band that hit it big in 1992 with their platinum-selling song, “What’s Up?” But today, she is best known for writing and producing hits for the biggest names in pop music—she wrote "Beautiful" for Christina Aguilera; "What You Waiting For?" for Gwen Stefani; "Get the Party Started" for P!nk, and so many more bangers it’s impossible to count. Linda was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015, and recently, she’s written scores to accompany the new documentaries Kid 90 and Citizen Penn. For the Kid 90 soundtrack, Linda released her own music for the first time in over 15 years, recording the song and new video for “The Letter” based on a letter the film’s director Soleil Moon Frye wrote as a teen to her older self. In her intriguing interview on BUST’s “Poptarts” podcast, Linda opens up about how she knows “how to be a rock star,” but “it hurts too much to be an artist.”

Soleil Moon Frye first became a star at eight years old in the hit sitcom, PUNKY BREWSTER. That show, about a tiny, street-smart girl abandoned by her mother and fostered by an elderly man, ran from 1984 to 1988, making Soleil one of the most famous children in America. In the time since, Soleil continued to act, started directing, and started a family. But in the 1990s, no matter what she was up to, she always carried a video camera, carefully documenting her young life. Now, all that footage has been made into a riveting documentary Soleil directed called Kid 90 that’s available on Hulu. Raising her profile even higher, Soleil is also starring in a new 10-episode Punky Brewster reboot on Peacock. On this nostalgic episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she describes her real-life bond with TV bestie Cherry Johnson, shares her fascination with metaphysics, and tells us how she “found her inner balls.”

Kandi Burruss is a singer, songwriter, actor, entrepreneur, and the longest-running cast member on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Atlanta. She first rose to fame in 1993 in the R&B group Xscape, she won a Grammy for co-writing the TLC hit "No Scrubs" and she even won the third season of The Masked Singer dressed as the dark and lovely Night Angel. These days, she’s flexing her acting muscles on the Showtime drama The Chi and on the new Lifetime Movie Envy which premieres April 17. On her juicy episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, Kandi tells all about how The Masked Singer actually works, why she needed a stunt double on Envy, and why she loves Kenya Moore despite her slut-shaming shenanigans.

Veteran journalist Brooke Baldwin has been kicking ass in the male-dominated TV news industry for over 20 years, most famously at CNN, where she hosts "CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin." During her 13 year tenure at CNN which is about to end in mid-April, Baldwin has unflinchingly held power to account while covering the most consequential issues of our day, from politics to protests to pressing social issues like gun violence. On April 6, she will be releasing her first book, "HUDDLE: How Women Unlock Their Collective Power." And on her inspiring episode of BUST’s "Poptarts" podcast, she talks candidly about her personal journey towards feminism, navigating around women with “sharp elbows,” and how her new book inspired her to leave CNN.

Margo Price is a remarkable country singer/songwriter and producer based in Nashville whose timeless anthems and crystal clear tone send shivers up spines all over the world. In the last five years, she has put out three gorgeous albums, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, All American Made, and That’s How Rumors Get Started. And most recently, she put out an absolutely devastating video in January for her song “Hey Child” and is planning to headline her first concert since 2019—a socially distanced show at The Caverns Above Ground Amphitheater in Tennessee—this May. On her riveting episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, Price talks candidly about her efforts to diversify country music, the painful story behind her new video, and about developing her own strain of weed for Willie Nelson.

A modern feminist icon, Roxane Gay is a brilliant writer of essays, fiction, comic books, newspaper editorials for The New York Times, and a fantastic newsletter called The Audacity. She is also a writing professor—most recently at Yale— and an editor of anthologies and collected works. Her many books include the celebrated collections Bad Feminist and Difficult Women, and the deeply personal memoir Hunger. And now, Gay has her own course on the streaming platform MasterClass where she’s teaching Writing for Social Change. On her illuminating episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she shares strategies for writing about trauma, tackles the topic of fat liberation, and opens up about first-time puppy parenthood.

Consummate New Yorker Kyra Sedgwick started off in showbiz in 1982 on the classic soap Another World and quickly became a bonafide movie star in films including Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July, Cameron Crowe's Singles, and 2012’s The Possession. She is perhaps best known for her starring role as Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson on the TNT crime drama The Closer—for which she won a Golden Globe and an Emmy—and now, she’s lighting up the new ABC sit-com Call Your Mother. On her A-List episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she describes decades of rejecting “girlfriend roles,” shares how she creates gender equity in her household with Kevin Bacon, and makes us all want to take a turn in the director’s chair.

Michaela Watkins is a brilliant comic actor who has been cracking audiences up since she joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2008. In the decade since she left the show in 2009, she has been in a bevy of beloved indie films and delightfully weird TV shows, including Joey Soloway’s Afternoon Delight and Transparent, Nicole Holofcener’s Enough Said, the acclaimed hulu show Casual, and the Sundance hit Brittany Runs a Marathon. Most recently, she’s been lighting up the ensemble cast of the CBS comedy series The Unicorn and she has a role in the upcoming horror film Werewolves Within. In this awesome episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she gives us the inside scoop on SNL, reminds us of the healing power of sit-coms, and reflects on the night Joan Rivers was so funny—she actually peed her pants.

Mayim Bialik is a multi talented actor, producer, director, educator, neuroscientist, and author who got her start in classic 80s TV series including “Beauty and the Beast” and “Facts of Life” before landing her breakout role at age 12 as a young Bette Middler in the 1988 film “Beaches.” Two years later, she nabbed the lead role in the super popular teen sit-com “Blossom” which ran from 1990 through 1995 and once that series ended, she went to UCLA for 12 years where she earned a PhD in Neuroscience and completed her doctorate in 2007. Bialik returned to TV in a big way in 2010 when she joined the cast of “The Big Bang Theory” where she was a fan favorite and was nominated for four Emmys before the series ended in 2019. And now, together with her “Big Bang Theory” co-star Jim Parsons, she’s executive producing the new Fox show “Call Me Kat,” which she also stars in as a single woman in her late 30s who runs a cat cafe. In this very special 100th episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she rejects Spanx, embrac

Michelle Gomez is a riveting Scottish actor who first started turning heads for her comedy roles in series including “The Book Group,” “Green Wing,” and “Bad Education,” before her international breakout moment in 2014 when she started playing Missy on the landmark British sci-fi series “Doctor Who.” Many Americans discovered her when she started playing Madame Satan on the Netflix series “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” which premiered in 2018 and which just kicked off its fourth and final season. She also plays a pivotal role on the new HBO Max series “The Flight Attendant,” and in this epic episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she parses her evolving relationship with feminism, she reveals the new sides of herself she discovered during quarantine, and she cheekily declares “I’m not a Satan worshipper...I AM Satan!”

Electronica musician, artist and activist Kiran Gandhi, better known by her stage name Madame Gandhi, got her start in music performing as the drummer for M.I.A and Thievery Corporation and got her Bachelor’s in Mathematics and Gender Studies from Georgetown and an MBA from Harvard before deciding to become a full-time rock star in 2016 with her breakout EP “Voices.” Since then, she’s also released the 2019 album Visions and during quarantine, she took on a special new project. Gandhi launched a contest to see who could create the best remix of her 2019 song “Young Indian,” and she personally listened to over 500 submissions from producers around the world before choosing her fave five for a remix album called Young Indian Reimagined, which just came out in October. In this awesome episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she reflects on bad habits, recalls free bleeding while running the London Marathon, and explains why “The Future Is Female” really means “The Future Is Feminine.”

Rachel Bloom is a comedian, actor, writer, singer, dancer, and all-around incredible performer who created, produced, and starred in the hit musical comedy series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on the CW for which she earned a Golden Globe a Critics’ Choice Award and an Emmy. She’s currently working on the music and lyrics for "The Nanny" which will open on Broadway once COVID lets up and her hilarious new book of essays “I Want To Be Where The Normal People Are,” just came out November 17. In this awesome episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she reflects on losing her songwriting partner to COVD, describes giving birth during a pandemic, and we read some erotic poetry from her pre-teen diary.

iO Tillett Wright is a multitalented artist, author, activist, and storyteller. He created the hit true crime podcast The Ballad of Billy Balls last year and is also the author of the 2017 memoir Darling Days that documented Wright’s wild upbringing in downtown New York in the 1980s and the seeds that eventually blossomed into his awakening as a trans man. His TED Talk 50 Shades of Gay about sexuality and gender has been viewed over three million times and his new photography book, Self Evident Truths, just came out in September. It’s a collection of 10,000 portraits of Americans who identify as anything other than 100 percent straight, and in this awesome episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, he describes his inspiration for using photography as a form of activism, opens up about coming out as trans while in the public eye, and explains why he decided to testify against Johnny Depp at the actor’s recent defamation trial.

You probably know Ann Dowd from her terrifying portrayal of Aunt Lydia on Hulu’s feminist masterpiece The Handmaid’s Tale. But she’s been popping up in multiple roles on all the Law & Order shows for years and she also starred in the incredible 2012 suspense film Compliance. She finally became a household name in 2017 for her riveting performance as Aunt Lydia for which she won a well-deserved Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. And her latest film, a new adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s classic novel Rebecca, just premiered on Netflix October 2. In this awesome episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she describes what it has been like becoming a fictional symbol for a real-life resistance movement and we explore how pop culture can be a powerful instrument for social change.

Dulcé Sloan has been a correspondent on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah since 2017 and her segments frequently go viral and get millions of views. In 2019, she got her own Comedy Central Presents stand-up special, and in 2020, she launched her podcast, That Black Ass Show on Starburns Audio. Coming up on November 13, she’s co-starring in a new comedy called Chick Fight that’s basically a girl version of Fight Club. She literally steals every scene she’s in and I predict many more films will be in her future. In this awesome episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she delivers real talk about America’s racism problem, we dish about boys (...boys all types of boys), and we learn about the passing of judicial icon The Notorious R.B.G. in real time.

Professor Bettany Hughes is a historian, author, and broadcaster who was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for her services to history, which makes her the first Dame to ever appear on our BUST’s Poptarts podcast. She is currently professor of history at the New College of the Humanities and a research fellow at King’s College. Her first book, Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore has been translated into ten languages. Her second book, The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life was a New York Times bestseller, and her third book, Istanbul –A Tale of Three Cities has been translated into 12 languages. Most fans know her from the over 50 historical radio and tv documentaries she has written and starred in for the past 20 years that have aired on the BBC, Channel 4, Netflix, Discovery, PBS, The History Channel, National Geographic, BBC World, ITV and more, covering everything from the mysteries of the ancient world to the philosophers whose ideas shaped modern culture. Her n

Miranda July is a filmmaker, artist, and writer whose feminist, DIY, punk style evolved out of the same riot grrrl era that birthed BUST. She appeared on our cover in the Fall of 2007 and her books include "No One Belongs Here More Than You" "The First Bad Man," and a new, huge, career-spanning retrospective of her work called “Miranda July” that just came out in April. She also wrote and directed the incredibly weird and wonderful movies “Me and You and Everyone We Know” and “The Future,” and in this episode of BUST’s “Poptarts” podcast, she gives us behind-the-scenes insight into her latest film, “Kajillionaire” (out September 25). The film centers on a con-artist couple (Debra Winger and Richard Jenkins) who have raised their 26 -year-old daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), to join them in their desperate life of pathetically petty crimes and scams. It’s the only life she’s ever known, until one day, on a flight to their next scheme, the family meets a gorgeous young woman (Gina Rodriguez) and all of their lives

Caitlin Moran is a London-based columnist, author, and broadcaster, who is one of the funniest feminist writers working today. Her first book, the 2011 memoir, How to Be a Woman, was an instant New York Times bestseller. And her 2014 autobiographical coming-of-age novel, How to Build a Girl, was adapted into a film starring Beanie Feldstein that premiered in 2019. When Caitlin finished How to Be a Woman in her mid-30s, she thought she had everything figured out. But now, 10 years later, she’s debuting a whole new memoir, More Than a Woman, that asks probing mid-life questions including, Can feminists have Botox? And, Who’s looking after the children? In this LOL episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, we talk a LOT about vaginas and vulvas (and the difference between the two), and we get real about the unpaid labor shitshow so many women find themselves in once their 30s are in the rear-view.