The first call came just before eight o’clock. Then the second, then the third. It was a Monday in May last year, and LaMonica McIver, a 39-year-old first-term congresswoman from New Jersey, stood in the lobby of her hotel in Washington, D.C., frozen mid-step on her way out to dinner. Her attorney, her chief of staff, her colleagues—everyone who kept her life running, flooding her phone like a five-alarm fire. She was being charged with federal crimes—including assault on an officer—over a confrontation with ICE agents during a congressional oversight visit to a detention facility in her district just a few days prior. The charges came courtesy of Alina Habba, Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, who was then serving as the top federal prosecutor in McIver’s home state. If convicted, the congresswoman faces up to 17 years in prison.

These people are nuts, McIver thought. They can’t charge me—I didn’t do anything wrong. Seventeen years, her daughter—assault on a federal officer!—for what, doing her job? Habba’s office had floated some threats in the past few days, sure, but threats are the weather in Trump’s Washington, and no sitting member of Congress has ever been charged for conducting oversight. That McIver, who had been on the job for all of eight months, would be the one to change that was laughable. Certainly not at eight o’clock on a Monday; the clerk’s office closes at five. No matter—Habba, resourceful as ever, had simply posted the charges on Twitter and let the courts catch up in the morning.

The shock bought McIver just enough time to do the next normal thing: catch an Uber to Circa, a bistro in D.C.’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood, where a handful of congresswomen were expecting her for dinner. She told herself the charges were a joke, that the whole thing would collapse under its own absurdity, that someone would catch it, fix it, and she’d get on with her life. Instead, the year ahead would bring legal fees approaching a million dollars, racist bile and threats online, confrontations with Republican colleagues in the building where she still shows up to do the job that got her charged in the first place—and a fight that, as of this writing, is still ongoing. The hardest moments orbit a single thought: her nine-year-old daughter, Zaya, who would be 26 by the time her mother came home if the worst played out in the courtroom. It is a conversation she still cannot bring herself to have with her husband. “I sometimes drive myself crazy thinking about the end result of this all.”

McIver didn’t know it yet, standing in that lobby with her phone still buzzing, but the lifeline she’d need would not come from any institutional safety net. It was already at that table she was heading to. In the months that followed, the circle would widen into a network of congresswomen spanning four decades and every level of power in the Democratic Caucus, from Nancy Pelosi and Bonnie Watson Coleman to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. They brought money, legal expertise, their platforms—and once, a bucket of slime for a nine-year-old’s birthday party. Their support stretched from the House floor on Capitol Hill to a federal courtroom in Newark to group chats that never went dark. It needed to, because the Democratic establishment—as McIver would learn the hard way—had no playbook for a fight like this. So the women built one themselves, with the understanding that any one of them could be next.

Marie Claire interviewed 13 congresswomen for this story. What emerged is a portrait of an administration that has shattered every precedent for how it treats its opponents—and a frontline of women who answered with a precedent of their own.

That fall, McIver is sitting in a federal courtroom in Newark, facing two felony counts of assaulting a federal officer and one misdemeanor count of the same, watching her lawyers make the argument that prosecuting a congresswoman for conducting oversight violates the Constitution. The case has reached open court after she pleaded not guilty and her lawyers filed motions to dismiss over the summer. Her life is now a revolving door of legal briefs and caucus meetings, the congresswoman and the defendant living in the same skin. “I don’t get days I can just be in my bed and be depressed,” McIver tells me. “But every day I have to pick myself up.” At school, a classmate recently told her daughter that her mom was going to jail. McIver responded with the simplest version of the story she could muster: “I’m in a battle against Donald Trump right now.”

But she is not alone, not in this courtroom. In the rows behind her are congresswomen who have no district-level reason to be in Newark on a Tuesday morning: Ilhan Omar, Jasmine Crockett, Sara Jacobs, and Yvette Clarke. Before the hearing, they had told McIver’s chief of staff they were going to speak to the crowd outside before going in, “and then we’re going in and we’re going to sit there.” The congresswomen understood that silence from colleagues could read, to the public, as its own kind of verdict. Letting McIver appear to stand alone was “a non-starter,” Crockett would later tell me, and Jacobs wanted “LaMonica to know she wasn’t alone in that room.” It worked: McIver sat facing forward the whole time, but she could still feel them behind her. “That helped me feel at least a little sigh of relief,” she says. “I’ll never forget that.”

In the months leading up to that court date and since, a network of congresswomen has made McIver their business. Emilia Sykes sends her Reels all night long. Lateefah Simon walks to her seat on the House floor every day just to be near her—“an energy transfer,” she tells me, “just to get some of that goodness.” Pramila Jayapal’s support always starts with a hug—“a physical, ‘I’m here for you’”—followed by the same question: “What do you need from me?” Jahana Hayes checks in before every recess and after every return. But what McIver has also come to learn is that beyond this circle, the support largely ends. The party’s national organizations—the DCCC, the DNC—have no system in place for a situation like this. What hurts “bigger than the charges,” McIver tells me, “is the support that I just have not gotten.”

McIver hadn’t always had a network to fall back on. In September 2024, she walked onto the House floor for her swearing-in, sporting a teal suit, round tortoise glasses, and a healthy dose of holy shit. Until recently, she had been a city councilwoman in Newark, fighting for federal housing dollars from the other end of the phone. Now she was here, having won a special election to fill the seat left by the late Donald Payne Jr., making her the first Black woman to represent the district and the youngest woman New Jersey had ever sent to Congress. She stood at the podium, one hand on the Bible, and took the oath. Her husband and their then-eight-year-old daughter watched from the gallery.

“I have to remind myself like, ‘Girl, you’re The Congresswoman!’” McIver tells me, smiling and shaking her head. We are at a café tucked inside a historic banking hall in Lower Manhattan, all vaulted ceilings and marble pillars, the city muted behind tall glass windows. “I was taking it in, but it was hard to believe that it was happening.” Pelosi came up to welcome her: “And I’m like, welcome to me?” Then Maxine Waters said hello and she short-circuited again. “Are you talking to me?!”

Sweet. Now figure it out. Since she’d won a special election, there was no freshman orientation or transition period. She was voting within the hour, and by the next morning, she was sitting in a Homeland Security committee hearing with no idea what was on the agenda. She lost count of the number of people who assumed she was someone’s new staffer. “You get thrown into the fire,” she says. “They’re like: ‘swim your way through on your own.’ You don’t even know how to swim.” Congress is also, she discovered quickly, a building full of cliques. “People have their favorites, they have their regulars. If you haven’t been here for a long time and you’re a newbie, that’s hard to navigate.”

McIver was not the first woman to come to Congress without the usual pedigree and find herself alone in it. Just ask Ocasio-Cortez and Omar, who arrived in Washington to enormous public fanfare but almost no institutional guidance. “When you don’t come in with a conventional political background, no one’s grooming you, no one’s mentoring you, no one’s showing you what to do,” Ocasio-Cortez tells me. “You’re kind of left on your own.” When I ask Omar about those early days, she smiles like she can still see herself trying to figure it out. “This town is strange,” she tells me. “I cannot overstate just how incredibly challenging it is to come here without connections to the institution.”

For Black women in particular, the challenge compounds, in part because there are still so few of them. Crockett is only the 56th Black woman ever elected to the House. “We are still very, very, very new to this body,” she tells me. “When I was [McIver’s] age, I never could have imagined doing the things that she has done already.” But McIver was there, figuring it out—young, new, Black and without the kind of safety net that would matter most when everything went sideways.

Enter Watson Coleman. Eighty-one years old, a stalwart of the Congressional Black Caucus, and the only other Black woman in the New Jersey delegation, she had been close with McIver’s predecessor and spotted his successor on sight. “I just kind of took ownership of her,” she tells me. “Come sit here, come sit with us.” Watson Coleman had played a similar role for Ayanna Pressley years earlier, and when she told Pressley about the young woman coming to fill Payne’s seat, Pressley reached out immediately. She pulled McIver aside and asked if she knew where to get her hair done in Washington: “Would seem a strange question for the woman with alopecia who has no hair, but that wasn’t always my reality.”

The Congressional Black Caucus brought others into her orbit—and a second home base emerged through the under-40 dinners, where, as Jacobs tells me, the youngest members of Congress get together to “commiserate” about the particular indignity of their place on the generational totem pole. At her first dinner, McIver had the whole table in stitches: “Those relationships just grew over time,” she tells me.

McIver was finding her footing, but she had come to Washington to work on what she calls her “love languages”—housing and affordability, issues she’d been reckoning with long before she was legislating them. The oldest of four and the first in her family to go to college, McIver was raised by a mother who struggled with substance abuse, and had watched what happens to a neighborhood when the federal investment doesn’t come. Her entry into politics came at ten, passing out campaign literature for her fifth-grade teacher, Ras Baraka, the future mayor of Newark, who would help shepherd her career from city council to council president to Congress. By November, she was holding town halls, planning legislation around childcare and federal housing funding, and feeling like the work was finally beginning.

Oh, and Kamala Harris was definitely going to win the election. “We’re going to have this first Black woman president,” she remembers thinking. “It’s going to be wonderful and things are going to be great.”

Within weeks of Trump’s second inauguration, the administration’s immigration crackdown landed in McIver’s district. Executive orders were “flowing out of the sky, like Skittles,” she tells me—ICE raids in Newark, parents afraid to send their kids to school. When a private detention center called Delaney Hall opened without proper clearance from the city, and lawyers couldn’t reach clients detained inside, McIver, Watson Coleman, and Congressman Rob Menendez decided to visit on May 9th.

In the accounts McIver and Watson Coleman gave me of what happened next, the details come fast and out of order, the way memories do when the body takes over. What they agree on is this: they arrived around 1 p.m. and waited over an hour to get inside while ICE agents filled the waiting room. Mayor Baraka, who had been trying for weeks to inspect the facility himself, arrived for a press conference the members had planned for after the tour. A guard let him onto the premises—and then government agents confronted him and accused him of trespassing. Baraka agreed to leave and walked out through the gate, but agents moved to arrest him anyway, on orders from the deputy attorney general. The three members rushed toward the mayor, urging them not to, and a scuffle ensued. McIver grabbed the back of Watson Coleman’s trench coat to keep her from falling and reached toward Baraka with her other hand. Agents in tactical gear were pulling and pushing, one with a gun drawn. “Please do not touch us. We are federal officials,” McIver kept saying. Baraka was arrested and taken away.

The members were shaken by the incident, and McIver’s side was sore from all the shoving, but none of them thought it would go further than that. In fact, they completed the tour—were allowed to, even after all of it—escorted by ICE agents through a facility where the elevator was malfunctioning, the phones didn’t work, there was no smell of food, and women detained inside told them they couldn’t connect with their lawyers or get medical care. Of the two and a half hours they spent at Delaney Hall that day, the government’s case against McIver would come to rest on 68 seconds of body-camera footage. The images are murky, but federal prosecutors say they show her slamming her forearm into an agent trying to handcuff the mayor. Watson Coleman, who was inches away through all of it, is unequivocal about what she saw: “I didn’t see her go after anybody. I didn’t see her assault anybody. I just saw her protecting us and using her body and her arms to keep people away from us.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey declined to comment for this story.

Two networks activated the night the charges dropped: one physical, one virtual. At Circa, a handful of congresswomen were already working the problem before McIver walked through the door—Crockett, a criminal defense attorney, was running through statutes in her head, Sykes thinking through logistics for McIver’s daughter and her schedule, Hayes ready to tell her she wouldn’t be facing this alone. McIver walked in and saw their faces. “They done heard the news too by now,” she says, laughing. Meanwhile, the Democratic Women’s Caucus group chat—“probably the fastest place to tap into a network that gets galvanized super quick,” according to Omar—was lighting up. What do you need? How can we help?

Ocasio-Cortez was on the phone with McIver shortly after seeing what she described as “bat signals” on the group chat, and her call came with a directive: “You’re going to need money.” She was right. Members of Congress cannot accept pro bono legal defense for cases like this, and no institutional fund exists to cover one. “LaMonica was one of the first members of Congress to take on ICE and put literally herself and her body on the line,” she tells me. “A pat on the back and congratulations and praise is not enough. If a woman is going to take risks, she needs money, resources, and solidarity, period.” She helped McIver raise over $15,000.

Pelosi moved to the mechanics. She had known McIver’s district long before McIver held it—Donald Payne Sr. was a dear friend, and she had campaigned for him there; when his son inherited the seat and then passed, she felt a responsibility to whoever came next. She donated immediately, then urged McIver to set up a legal defense fund so supporters could give beyond what campaign contribution limits allowed. “That’s how they want you to feel your pain,” she told her. “Not only do we love you and care about you, but let us tangibilize that.”

The funding and the strategy have been critical to McIver as a defendant. What’s held her together as a person, though, is the daily rhythm the women fell into afterward. “It’s really been a strong base of women who have really been amazing,” McIver says, “and I feel like I can count on.” Prayer Zooms, baby pictures exchanged on the House floor, hugs in the hallways, heads-ups on legislation before her own staff sees it. On the group chat, when McIver mentioned needing slime for her daughter’s birthday goody bags, an alarming number of congresswomen immediately reported for goop duty.

“I think that they thought they could move in ways that are cruel, targeted, and unprecedented, and that maybe no one would care,” Pressley tells me. They were wrong. It endures, she says, “in the pull-asides on the House floor that are just a check-in. It endures with early morning and late night phone calls. It’s essential to our sanity.” Crockett, who has told McIver she plans to make herself available to her legal team after she leaves Congress in January, is blunt about why: “I have trust issues and I look at her as my own family. That’s how serious this is for me.” Pelosi, for her part, sums up the entire pact in three words: “With you, babe.”

Through all of it, McIver has kept showing up—voting, legislating, flying home to her family on weekends. The pace, she tells me, is its own kind of mercy. “I’m busy working, but also I’m momming and trying to do everything else. You kind of don’t really have a lot of space to self-pity party every day.” Watson Coleman, who sits near her on the House floor, watches her do it week after week. “It doesn’t stop her from speaking up, and she’s there to do her job every day,” she says, pausing. “But I know that in her quietest hours, the possibility of the absurdity of all this has got to weigh on her.”

McIver is on a train home from Washington in December, texting a senior staffer about going to prison. The motions to dismiss that her lawyer had filed over the summer had been denied, and the road ahead had gotten longer. “I don’t have a ton of faith,” she writes in messages shared with Marie Claire. “I’m just a Black girl from Newark. It honestly means nothing to this DOJ, this president to throw me in jail, let alone find me guilty. It’s a scary thought, but I’m preparing myself for the worst.” Her staffer sends her a heartbreak emoji and McIver shoots back with heart hands.

The charges are no longer breaking news, yet the case still follows her everywhere. Hateful messages pour in from strangers online; her husband makes the mistake of reading the comments and can’t unsee them. “Our families don’t deserve to be drowned in what we do,” McIver tells me. During a House Homeland Security hearing earlier this year, Republican congressman Eli Crane of Arizona noted, without naming her, that a member of the panel had assaulted an ICE agent. McIver fired back: “Mr. Crane, I don’t know what your obsession is with me, but I am so tired of you mentioning me, and you should take that obsession and need to put it to the people of Arizona.” And while not a single sitting Republican has publicly spoken out in her defense, one Republican congresswoman recently pulled McIver aside and asked if the charges were still happening. When McIver said yes, the woman told her: “That’s some BS.” McIver was stunned. “I wanted to say, ‘Why don’t you say that out loud?’” she tells me.

The women she works with can hold the edges together, but they can’t make the charges disappear. And while the love is real, so is the fury. Every congresswoman I spoke to has taken McIver’s case as a warning. “Today is LaMonica,” Clarke says, “tomorrow it’s me.” Omar calls the precedent “very scary.” Crockett calls it “bullshit.” “Their goal is intimidation and the financial strain, the mental strain,” she says.

None of the them think it’s a coincidence that the charges landed on McIver. “They knew she was going to be effective,” Pelosi tells me. “She came in, she was young, she was [in the] minority. They’re going to take her down.” She has been on the other end of it for decades. “I knew what I was getting into, and I knew that all the things that they did to paint me as a devil—with cloven feet and fangs and flaming hair—and the rest of that, which led to the assault on my husband,” she says, pausing. “I wish they had gotten me instead of him.”

Clarke names another layer: “This administration has made it a point to go after Black women in authority. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about that.” Simon pulls the lens further back, past the incident and the administration, to the building itself: “I don’t know if the founders ever imagined Black women being in the dome with these jobs that we have. Enslaved Americans helped to build the Capitol, but I think we still feel that at a cellular level.”

The administration created the crisis. But the party, it turned out, had no system in place to meet it. When another member was threatened months after McIver was charged and came to her asking how she’d found a lawyer—“Is it the DCCC?”—McIver had to tell her the truth: “No one helped me. We did this on our own. And there was no system set in place.” Sykes has tried to sound the alarm. On a call with Democratic leadership, when the chair started urging members to fight harder, she cut in: LaMonica did that, and now she’s looking at 17 years. “Now what’s the next thing we’re going to cheer on,” she says, “and who’s the next person we’re going to sacrifice so that we can say you all fought appropriately?”

Ocasio-Cortez puts it in terms anyone with a job would understand: “It is a total failure and an indictment of our systems that this member has to fundraise for the legal defense of conducting her own constitutional responsibilities. Imagine showing up to your job and someone sues you personally for doing your job. That’s supposed to be the company.” McIver, she says, was asked to take a risk and then left to carry the cost alone: “Once you’ve stuck your neck out and done a courageous thing, you are largely left to fend for yourself.” But she’s done accepting that. “I just don’t want to live in that world anymore—so we started by building it with each other.”

There is a theory, shared by more than one of the women I spoke to, about what the building they work in does to the people inside it. “If you are already a kind and genuine and decent person, you will be more kind and more genuine and more decent because the environment calls for it,” Hayes tells me. “If you are not, just walking on these hollow grounds is not going to make you that person. Congress reveals who you are.” Omar has watched McIver prove it. “She is still so soft and so graceful,” she tells me, “because this place does destroy people.”

McIver’s case is now before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments are set for June 24—the last chance to get the charges dismissed before a trial, barring an appeal to the Supreme Court. She is still raising money for her defense, still working, fighting, and planning her life around the possibility that she could lose it. Despite everything, she has brought back over $10 million to her district for community projects. “When you have an administration who’s working so hard to stop you from doing the work on behalf of the people that you represent, I take that personally,” she tells me. “‘Nothing has faded.”

None of the women are ready to entertain the worst-case scenario for McIver. “If that were possible, that means that our whole system is completely broken,” Watson Coleman tells me. But if it ever did come to that, she adds, McIver’s daughter Zaya “would grow up to be the next generation of it, because she would be so fortified by community and family.”

Simon told me about a picture McIver carries of her daughter—“the cutest little girl in the world, with these little cute glasses.” Zaya has since seen the Delaney Hall footage on the news, McIver says. She looked at her mother and said: “Mom, if I would’ve been there, I would’ve had your back.” McIver told her that wasn’t necessary. “Girl, I had it by myself.” But her daughter held her ground.

She sounds, McIver might notice, a lot like some women she works with.

If mothers are forged through physical labor and ballerinas through decades of training, a woman who is both is a particular kind of force. That certainly seems to be the case for Isabella Boylston, a principal with American Ballet Theatre, who is due in June.

“Becoming a mom is so abstract until you are one,” she tells me over the phone in late March. The 39-year-old had just finished lunch after spending the first part of the day teaching, a recent addition to her ABT work schedule that replaces the hours she would have spent rehearsing for the Spring 2026 season. “I still feel like I can’t totally conceptualize what it’s going to be like, but I definitely want to continue dancing for many years," she says. Like any woman, there’s a see-how-you-feel element to when she’ll be back to firing on all cylinders, but there’s no doubt in her mind that she’ll return to the stage. (Her best guess: this year’s Nutcracker season.)

“I have a vision of myself with my baby strapped in a Baby Bjorn while I’m doing barre,” she laughs, the vision capturing a balletic version of working motherhood. “I’d love to fit my kid into my life as much as possible, [though] I'm sure there are a ton of compromises.” A strong relationship with her financier-husband Daniel Shin—“he’s such a solid partner”—should make the transition feel easier, especially if he turns out to be the father she’s expecting. “I see how he is with our cat, and he is the best cat dad. I know it’s different, but I think he’ll be the best dad.”

Family planning is all about timing: tracked ovulation cycles, careful calendar-checking, and milestones measured in weeks and months. Yet for all its obsession with timing, the process makes one thing clear: there’s no such thing as the “right time.” That’s a catch-22 that many professional woman can well understand—but how much trickier must it feel when your job depends on your body performing as a highly calibrated machine?

“The barometer of the right time was when I felt like I had zero regrets and zero fear about missing anything. This past week I was watching the spring season at ABT, and it was so beautiful. I felt totally at peace with being a spectator,” she says. “I’ve had such an amazing career already. Everything that I dreamed of I have pretty much gotten to do, and I still feel like I have so much to give. Hopefully when I come back I'll have the perspective that everything I'm doing is a bonus.”

Born in Sun Valley, Idaho, Boylston started her serious ballet training in Colorado before boarding at Boca Raton’s prestigious Harid Conservatory. She made things official with ABT in 2006, joining the company as an apprentice at 19 and becoming a principal—the highest level in professional ballet—in 2014. Her casting within the company has included some of the starriest roles available to primas (Swan Lake’s Odette/Odile and the title roles in Giselle and Romeo & Juliet), and she’s guested internationally with the likes of the Royal Danish Ballet and St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Ballet.

That professional track—join a major company and work to be promoted through its ranks—has plenty of well-worn pathways to follow. But role models for women who have merged motherhood with professional ballet is a much smaller club. In the 20 years she’s spent dancing with ABT, she can remember three or four. Luckily, the brightest examples are women she calls friends.

“Gillian Murphy and Misty Copeland both had kids while they were still dancing, and they’ve been extremely supportive,” Boylston says, adding that she shared her news early with both. For Boylston, there was also “a fear of people seeing me differently, or writing me off,” but her fellow dance stars have quieted those nerves. “They’re still totally themselves and have continued to expand their careers in so many other ways since becoming moms. There is probably a lot of power that you gain from becoming a mother—crazy reserves of strength that we don’t even know we have until we’re moms.”

It’s worth remembering how different things were for the primas of the past. For much of ballet’s history, motherhood wasn’t just discouraged—it was seen as a distraction from the work. George Balanchine, the man credited with advancing American ballet to the level of its European counterparts, was famously unsupportive of dancers marrying, much less procreating. That attitude feels worlds away from the one American Ballet Theatre has embraced during Boylston’s journey.

“My pregnancy has been so celebrated by every single person at ABT. It’s the best feeling,” she shares, pointing to the colleagues she’s with “all day, every day. With the intensity of our job, we’re so bonded together. I feel like they’re all my extended family—and this baby is going to have the best aunts and uncles.”

It’s not just her fellow dancers that have embraced her with warmth during this stage of life, either. Boylston’s boss, ABT Artistic Director Susan Jaffe, has been “the best—so supportive,” and the company’s policy around modifying the workload of expectant mothers has given her opportunities to do more within the organization. The “alternate work” starts when the dancer decides they need to pull back on rehearsing and performing (for Boylston, that was around 18 weeks). It’s meant “coaching, teaching at the school, and working with the development team a little. It’s pick-your-own-adventure,” she explains. “You express what you’re interested in doing, and the company helps pair you up with the correct people in the organization. It’s really cool, and I’m learning a lot.”

The company has made special accommodations for her as well, rescheduling her 20th anniversary performance—originally set for this summer—for 2027. The career-defining moment originally had her considering delaying pregnancy; instead, ABT moved the date, and the original slot now falls serendipitously close to her June due date.

While the athlete has benefitted from close dancer friends with parenting experience to share and a company that’s shown itself to be wonderfully supportive, she has had to deal with a more modern frustration: the internet. As with everything Instagram, it’s a double-edged sword. On one end, it allows for a behind-the-scenes look at company classes, rehearsals, and the personal lives of stars we would previously only know from tutu’ed appearances beneath the stage lights. It’s also somehow an open invitation for commentary—especially during something like pregnancy.

“There are well-meaning people who give you their unsolicited opinions, and then there are trolls. Some people seem really offended by a pregnant woman continuing to do a lot of physical activity,” Boylston says. “People go on rants about how irresponsible it is for me to still be dancing. Someone was really pissed I did The Nutcracker.” (She danced the rigorous show while in her first trimester.)

She ignores most of it, deleting or blocking only if the abuse becomes repetitive or the comment creeps into anti-medical, conspiracy territory (“I don’t want people getting fake pseudo science on my page”). There’s an amazement in her voice when she relates some of it. You can hear how surprised she is that anyone would think an elite athlete in lockstep with their body would possibly be doing anything mindlessly.

“What I’d want to say to the trolls is, ‘Do you actually think you have more concern for the health and safety of my baby than I do? Because I don't.’ Everything I do is in consultation with my doctor, and I listen to my body first and foremost.” The videos she’s shared with her nearly 700,000 followers are magical to watch: a dancer with a clearly round belly gracefully sweeping across the floor and moving through routines just like the non-expecting colleagues around her.

“One of the most surprising things about pregnancy for me is how good it feels to continue dancing,” she says, pointing to fouettes (a notoriously tricky series of turns) she’d recently done at 25 weeks. “It felt the same as before, weirdly, though some things are getting a lot harder, like arabesques—and jumping. It’s getting harder and harder to get off the ground.”

She’s in the midst of figuring out what feels right, physically and otherwise, for how she’ll define motherhood. But she has already aced one of the biggest hurdles parents face: ignoring the outside chatter.

“I have a very strong conviction in my own intuition, so I really trust and believe in myself. I’m ready for change and a perspective shift. I feel so ready,” Boylston says, “even though I’m not ready at all because I don’t know what’s coming.”

She’ll figure it out the way she figures everything out: in motion.

Photographer Maddy Rotman

It was 8 a.m. on a Saturday last June, and Angelica Vargas was folding laundry while her girls ate breakfast at home in Downey, California. Her 15 and 16-year-old daughters, both student athletes, didn’t have any soccer games scheduled that day, and her graveyard shift at a youth shelter didn’t start until 11 p.m. Vargas, 34, had nowhere to be—just “one of those days where you catch up on all your stuff,” she tells me on a video call in March. In single-mother terms, it was a unicorn morning.

Then her phone rang. It was Vargas’ mother, her voice measured, calling to tell her that her older sister was at the Home Depot in Paramount when border patrol agents had swarmed the store. Her sister, who had simply been shopping, was trapped in the parking lot while people around her were being tear-gassed and grabbed without explanation. Vargas’ first instinct was disbelief. “I thought she was exaggerating because that's just my sister," she says. “She’s 10 years older than me, but she’s a big baby. I’m kind of the rebel.”

But it was early June 2025, and the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign was beginning to hit Southern California. Federal agents had started raiding stores, factories, and construction sites across L.A., though the full scale of what was coming was not yet clear. By the time Vargas hung up, she was already moving. She told her daughters she’d “be right back” and drove the six minutes to Paramount—a commute she’d made a thousand times. Although she’d never seen the neighborhood like this.

What she saw was a multi-agency operation anchored by border patrol in full tactical gear, locking down the surrounding blocks. Police were staged at intersections, and a helicopter circled overhead. Paramount sits at the edge of Compton, a bridge away, and protesters had already flooded the surrounding streets. Water bottles and rocks flew one direction, pepper spray and rubber bullets the other. It sounded, she says, like a war zone.

Vargas had never been in a situation she couldn’t talk her way through, and a federal blockade was not going to be the first. She parked five blocks out (as close as they’d let anyone get) and started working her way in, determined to get to her sister. At the first perimeter, a sheriff’s deputy—who happened to be a Latina woman—told her she’d pretend she hadn’t seen her. “Go,” she said. “I’m going to look this way.” Vargas left her car parked crooked, before eventually making it past two more checkpoints. When she reached the Home Depot parking lot, she found her sister in her pickup truck, crying and tear-gassed, children coughing in their parents’ cars around them.

Standing in the parking lot, Vargas improvised an exit plan. Her sister would drive the pickup straight at the border patrol line. Vargas would ride on the outside, hanging off the side rail. And then, she’d simply ask to be let out. She was terrified—half wondering whether she’d be tackled, even shot—but she had a feeling that the worst thing she could do was show it. “Once you show fear to them, that’s where they can read that,” she says. So she didn’t—and somehow, it worked: The agents, perhaps too stunned to argue, gave them “three seconds” to go and her sister drove through. But as the truck cleared the perimeter, a protester shouted something that has been lodged in Vargas’ head ever since: “Why did she get to go? What about everybody else in there?”

It was a stranger’s question, shouted in anger, but Vargas couldn’t shake it. “They're right,” she remembers thinking. “I should be out here doing more for my community, not just my sister.”

She didn’t have to wait long for that opportunity. A few days after the Home Depot incident, she was driving through Downey to pick up coffee when she saw a border patrol agent in a green vest sprint around a corner, then tackle a man painting the outside of a gas station. Without thinking, she pulled in, coffee still in hand, and started recording. She told the agent what he was doing wasn’t okay, and asked the man for his name so she could let his family know he had been detained.

More agents arrived, including border patrol and ICE in plainclothes. When she got back in her car, they boxed her in with a Tahoe and an SUV. She rolled her window down: “We can sit here all day. I got my coffee,” she told them. After four minutes, they gave up and left, at which point, Vargas decided to follow them. (She hadn’t actually planned to, she says, but the fact that they boxed her in “truly pissed me off.”)

That night, she posted the footage to TikTok, and it went viral. Suddenly her phone was flooded with messages about reported ICE sightings from across Southern California. Her U.S. citizenship, she figured, gave her a margin that undocumented people don’t have, and the sheer volume of people reaching out compelled her to keep going. She started driving around looking for ICE agents on her own, learning where they staged each morning and what their vehicles looked like. But the best intel came from the community itself: people calling from work to tell her where trucks were, sending license plate numbers, flagging suspicious vehicles.

A system built itself around her, one tip at a time, and a GoFundMe she set up for gas money eventually raised over $122,000. “I just started posting what I was doing and people just started following and sharing,” she says. “I was like, Oh, okay, people actually like this.” And the need only grew: the enforcement campaign that had begun in California spread to Chicago in the fall of 2025 and to Minneapolis by early 2026, where the administration deployed 2,000 federal agents in what it called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out, one in which two U.S. citizens were killed by federal agents. What Vargas had stumbled into on a coffee run was now a national crisis.

Today, she is known online as Angie the ICE Chaser, where her TikTok has hundreds of thousands of followers and tens of millions of video views and she documents her mission to follow ICE vehicles through the streets of Southern California, capture their movements, and post the footage for anyone who needs to know.

“My intention was never to grow on social media,” she says. “It was definitely to document the injustice that was going on within our communities and to alert people of what streets they were on or what city they were targeting.” But the mom with her Mercedes, who's a team manager for her daughters' soccer team and a mental health professional who does crisis intervention with teenagers, has no mission to slow down.

Vargas grew up in Lakewood, California—a suburb where she was, by her own description, the only Mexican girl on the block. Her father, a former professional soccer player, had built a flooring company and moved the family there, but made sure she never forgot where she came from, especially when it came to her grandmother. The family lore goes like this: A security officer once chased her father through their town in Mexico over a stolen piece of gum. When he got home, his mother came out, grabbed the officer’s baton, and started hitting him with it. He’d tell Vargas: “Everybody in that town was scared of your grandma. Your grandma was not a woman to mess with,” she says, smiling, “I guess it’s genetics.”

It’s a useful inheritance. When the Trump administration launched a sweeping immigration enforcement campaign in the summer of 2025, Vargas’ neighborhood was among the first to feel it. Protests erupted across L.A. after federal agents began raiding Home Depots, factories, and farms. In the span of a couple weeks, immigration teams arrested over 1,600 people in the L.A. region. Agents targeted places where Latino people work, shop, eat, and live.

For Vargas, whose entire family holds U.S. citizenship, the question she keeps getting is why she bothers. “Some people are like, ‘If your family’s not affected, why do you care so much?’” she says. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a citizen or not. You should not be mistreated or targeted for looking a certain way.”

That principle has attracted company. Vargas is now part of a vetted rapid response network of roughly eight to ten volunteers coordinated through Siempre Unidos LA, a South Central nonprofit founded by 26-year-old Liz Ramirez. The group runs on a messaging chain: when a sighting comes in, whoever is closest and available goes. There’s an aftercare side, too, which includes connecting families of detained individuals with food, legal resources, and support.

In the months they’ve worked together, Ramirez has observed in Vargas a composure under pressure that the rest of the team has learned to rely on. “Angie’s definitely very fierce. She’s a very strong, courageous woman,” Ramirez says. It helps that the rest of Vargas’s life has been, in its own way, training.

Her nights at the youth shelter are spent de-escalating teenagers in the middle of the worst moments of their lives so far. “Kids throwing stuff around the room and I’m just like, ‘You’re going to be fine. Just take deep breaths.’ I practice that every day,” she says. On our call, Vargas shows the same unhurried calm, laughing through stories like she’s genuinely amused by her own life.

Her role as team manager for her daughters’ soccer club has paid off too: She has spent the better part of a decade coordinating schedules, organizing carpools, and building relationships with every parent on the sideline since her girls were three and four years old. Those parents now help her handle rides to practice and games when she can’t. Beyond her soccer mom crew, her mother stays with the girls overnight and helps cover pickups, and her boss at the shelter gives her flexibility when an emergency call comes in. “It’s a whole community that has been coming together for me to be able to be out here on the streets for my other community," she says.

So she keeps showing up. By her own estimate, Vargas has responded to roughly 200 ICE-related incidents since that Saturday in Paramount; at times, that has meant as many as three responses a week. The pace has eased from its peak, she says, but the calls haven’t stopped, and neither has the risk.

In January, while tailing an ICE truck near Alhambra, local police pulled behind her and intercepted her car, claiming her emergency lights were on (they weren’t, according to Vargas). Then federal agents parked in front of the police, got out, photographed her vehicle inside and out, and asked about her citizenship. In that moment, “I felt like this is it,” she says. Eventually, her team showed up and the agents left, but the encounter stayed with her, and her mother still worries every time she goes out. “[She’s] always like, ‘I don’t want them to try to shoot you,’” Vargas says.

But the hardest part of the work, she explains, is the people she can’t get to in time. Vargas was in touch with a fruit vendor who went to work every day despite the risk because she had no financial alternative. She was on medication, she’d told Vargas, and was hopeful she’d never get detained. One day, she called Vargas to say a car was circling her. Vargas was five minutes away, but “when I pulled up, her food stand was by itself.” The woman had been detained, and is still fighting her case.

Then there’s her best friend, a fellow activist who traveled to Chicago to document a protest and was ambushed by border patrol agents. He was held for a month and a half, was mistreated in custody, according to Vargas, and targeted because of his visibility. It took more than a month for her to get back on the streets after that. “When they target others is when it breaks me more mentally,” she says.

She’s had three days, total, where she considered closing her social media accounts and giving it all up: “I’ve just broken down and I’m like, ‘Dude, how am I doing this? This is so much on me. I need a break.’”

What gets her back on the road every time, she says, is her girls. In December, she brought both of them to a toy drive organized by Siempre Unidos. They helped run the booth, gave out gifts, and mingled with vendors. “I want them to know that they’re my inspiration, and they are what keeps me going. I hope that I leave enough for them to take on and do better than me,” she says. The older one has told Vargas she wants to be like her when she grows up because she’s “such a good person.” The younger one, on the other hand, isn’t interested in imitation.

“I’m going to pass you, mom,” she’s told her. “I’m going to help way more people.”

Photographer Sela Shiloni

Marie Claire brought its Power Play dinner series to Los Angeles last Friday during NBA All-Star Weekend, gathering leaders across sports, fashion, and culture at Alba in West Hollywood. The evening was a celebration of the women redefining the game, from entrepreneurs and executives to stylists and other creatives whose influence stretches well beyond a single arena.

Editor in chief Nikki Ogunnaike—who co-hosted the dinner alongside Taylor Rooks, host of NBA on Prime—laid out why Marie Claire wanted a seat at the table during All-Star Weekend.

“When I was thinking about Marie Claire’s focus for this year, it felt really important for us to show up in this space. Because while the spotlight is often on men—and listen, we love the guys, too; in fact, I see a lot of men in the room tonight which I’m grateful for because we all need to support each other,” she said in her remarks. “But we know that there are so many women behind the scenes who are critical to their success, from wives and partners to team owners and stylists and agents and sports journalists. So it felt right to center and celebrate them.”

Ogunnaike took a moment to acknowledge Rooks’s range beyond her day job. “I also want to mention the singular and supremely talented Taylor Rooks,” she said. “We've all seen her talking football on television, but tonight, she's here as my co-host and I couldn't be more grateful.”

Inside Alba's private dining room, the setting matched the spirit of the evening. Long communal tables were arranged banquet-style, lined with floral centerpieces in warm reds, oranges, and yellows. Soft lighting kept things intimate, and the effect was something like a very chic family dinner, designed for real conversation over small talk.

Guests included Joe Burrow, Tinashe, Coco Jones, Puka Nacua, Clara Wu Tsai, and Hazel Renee, along with other entrepreneurs, stylists, creators, and cultural leaders. Several attendees also sat down with Ogunnaike to record upcoming episodes of Marie Claire’s Nice Talk podcast, including Malika Andrews, Jordyn Woods, Courtney May, Yvonne Oriji, and Rooks.

Marie Claire hosted the celebratory dinner in collaboration with Nexxus, and with event partners including Levi's, San Pellegrino, N2B4B liquid collagen, CAKES Body, Knix Wear, and Crown Royal.

The evening marked Marie Claire's first appearance at All-Star Weekend—though as Ogunnaike put it, “I'm already confident in saying it won’t be our last.”

In Exit Interview, Marie Claire has a candid conversation with someone who’s left their job. We learn all about their experience—both the good and the bad—plus why they decided to move on and what life looks like on the other side.

Here, we speak with Nancy Pelosi, who is walking away from Congress after building one of the most formidable careers in U.S. politics. The 85-year-old California Democrat made history as the first woman to wield the Speaker’s gavel and led her party in the House for two decades. Last November, she announced she won’t run for reelection when her current term ends in January 2027. We sat down with Pelosi in her D.C. office this January to talk about the new generation of women claiming power, what keeps her up at night about this moment in Washington, and whether someone like her can ever truly leave politics behind.

What do you see when you look at the women in Congress today?

This is one of my favorite subjects, because when I came to Congress, there were only 23 women. I—having been chair of the California Democratic Party—knew how to elect people. And I said: “We're going to make a change here.” So part of the mission was to make sure that women had the opportunity, the confidence, the support that they needed to come here. If there had not been many women members, there would never have been a woman Speaker. This was not a place that was looking to advance others. You just had to go take the power. People say to me: “Well, you have five children, and you went to Congress and you became a Speaker.” But I did it sequentially. Mine were almost [all] in college. These women are raising their children while they’re doing this. And that’s quite remarkable.

What did it mean to be the first woman Speaker?

When I had my first meeting as Speaker, that’s a big deal. I mean, it was a very big deal. And people said to me after: “Do you realize how different that meeting would’ve been if a man had run it?” I mean, how many times have women said, “I was at the table and I made a suggestion and everybody was quiet, then a man made the same suggestion and they said, oh, that’s a great idea.” That has happened to women over and over. But I have concluded that the reason that happens is because they don’t listen to the women. Now we got the gavel. It’s a whole different deal. They listen.

Were there parts of yourself you had to change to lead in the way you have?

It’s important to know I never intended to run for office. People came to me and asked me to run, and I was like: “I have no ambition to run. I’m the chair of the party. That’s important to me because I like to promote other people, but I’m not one to be in the arena.” You know what changed? We lost in ’94, ’96, ’98. And it was like: “Wait a minute. We’re losing. We’re just losing!” I know how to win elections, so people said to me, “Now you have to take responsibility.” And then I did—because quite frankly, I was tired of losing. I never thought of any change in me about it, except that I wanted to win. I went to my daughter who was going to be a senior in high school and said, “Mommy has been asked to run for Congress. I had never had that ambition, but people are insisting that I run. I want to leave it up to you because you have one more year at home, Alexandra. If I win, I’d be gone like three nights a week when Congress is in session, and often for Christmas and all those holidays.” To which she said, “Mother, mother, get a life. What teenage girl doesn’t want her mother out of the house three nights a week?” So she and my husband get along just fine.

What do women in politics need to hear right now?

It’s the authenticity. I say this to women all the time: whatever it is—in terms of your upbringing, the environment in which you were raised, the education you have, the set of values that you bring to it—there’s nobody like you. So when you come here, your authenticity is what is important. Be you, be ready for what comes along. Have your vision, know what you’re talking about so you command respect, and have a strategy that attracts other people, and also shows them what is in your heart. The sincerity, the authenticity, the concern you have about other people. [If] you’ve listened to them, you’ve incorporated their concerns and aspirations into the solutions, you’ll succeed.

There’s a lot of anxiety around women’s rights right now. What do you think people aren’t fully grasping?

I think that a lot of people do not fully understand how it was before Roe v. Wade, and most of us didn’t, but we knew that it was necessary in the history of America. As a Catholic—[who had] five children in six years and seven days—my husband and I are thrilled with our family, but that’s our decision. I’m excommunicated from the church as a Catholic because I support a woman’s right to choose. And it is just amazing to me that so many people in the Congress don’t. And so many women in the Congress don’t support women’s right to choose. And when you eliminate something like that, it’s not just about terminating a pregnancy. It’s about what healthcare providers can provide for somebody who’s in a dangerous situation. This is what I will fight for, because it makes me almost cry to think what women have to undergo—because some guys decided that a woman shouldn’t have a right to choose.

Considering where we are politically right now, how do you feel about stepping away?

When I first came, [to Congress] I mean, we disagreed on issues, but that was the dynamic—to have the debate. That’s not the way it is now. But I do believe that when our founders founded this country, and even some of the early presidents, talked about the goodness of the American people. We have to believe in their goodness. So I have these bracelets that say faith, hope, and charity. When they ask me “Where is hope?,” I say hope is where it always has been—between faith and charity. And if you believe in the goodness of the American people, that gives people hope. And so what we have to do in politics is think more in terms of the goodness of the American people—and not this freak show that we’re in right now.

Are you really done with politics, or just done with Congress?

Right now, I’m still in Congress for one reason: to win the house for the Democrats. That’s it. And my position enables me to do it in a stronger way than if I had retired by now. So that’s what I’m here for. I’ll always kind of be making judgments about races, as to whether they’re owning the ground, disciplining them, disciplining the message. And that’s the word that they’ll probably use for me—I am a disciplined person on that. When you make a decision to be in this, you make a decision to win. At the end of the day, I have three “nos”: no wasted time, no underutilized resources, and no regrets the day after the election that you could have done more.

Have you thought about what you’ll miss?

The first time I saw the Capitol, I was only about five years old, and it left a lasting impression on me. And I love looking at it every day. And to see what happens under the Capitol is very important. So I guess I would say what I would miss... I hadn’t thought about missing anything, quite frankly. But I know that I will miss the people, that’s for sure. But I can see them. It’s not as if they’re going away too. Maybe this will be some clarity for you: People in California do not get Potomac Fever [D.C. slang for politicians’ obsession with staying in power]. We live in heaven on earth, so there’s no regrets about going home to California. And every week when I would get off that plane and they’d say we’re landing in San Francisco, I’d be like: “oh my God, how wonderful.” And so the timing is right.

In Exit Interview, Marie Claire has a candid conversation with someone who’s left their job. We learn all about their experience—both the good and the bad—plus why they decided to move on and what life looks like on the other side.

Here, we talk to Li Li Leung, who spent nearly seven years as president and CEO of USA Gymnastics. She stepped into the role in 2019, when the organization was still reckoning with the fallout of the Larry Nassar abuse scandal. At the time, trust across the sport had been shattered, and the organization was mired in lawsuits and bankruptcy proceedings. Over her tenure, Leung worked to steady the institution and shift the culture toward one that centers athlete safety and well-being.

In this conversation, she reflects on the pressure of turning around an organization in crisis, the milestones that convinced her the sport was truly changing, and why, after everything, she decided to step down this year.

You announced earlier this year that you’ll be stepping down at the end of 2025. What led to that decision for you personally?

It felt like the right time. Everything I set out to do when I first took the role has now been done, and the organization is in a really great place to be able to hand over to a successor. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to have served in this role, and the people whom I've met throughout this journey, and the evolution of transforming this organization.

We have been through the trenches together over the past six and a half years since I joined the organization, and when you're tested as an organization, you're tested as individuals—and your bonds become that much stronger. And so it was a really, really emotional decision. There's no question I shed tears over it.

When you stepped into this role, the organization was in crisis. What was your first priority on day one?

The top priority was rebuilding the trust of the community. Part of that was really focusing on athlete safety, because that was one of the reasons why the organization got into the situation that it was in.

There were a lot of things that were really difficult and challenging with that, because [it required] an overall cultural transformation of the sport. The only way to rebuild trust is to be present and try to be everything to everyone, even though that's an impossibility to do. I wished I'd had more hours in the day to be present—to the athletes, the coaches, the club owners, and the parents. That was really difficult, so I spread myself really thin.

What kept you moving forward during that period of intense change?

It was the undeniable belief that we were doing the right thing. That's what grounded me. That we were positively impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands of members, and potentially transforming the sport in a positive way for generations to come.

One of the things I had said in my first interview with the board is that this is not a one person job—that it will take a village to do what we need to do. And part of that is the leadership team that I was fortunate enough to build. They were willing to roll up their sleeves, be committed to what we needed to achieve, and run into the burning house that was this organization.

At which point did you feel like the organization was finally turning a corner?

I would say the first corner was turned when we exited bankruptcy, because exiting bankruptcy unlocked our ability to be able to do a lot of other things. Rather than talking about ourselves and talking about the good things that we were doing, we wanted to show that through action. And when we exited bankruptcy, we finally were able to point to something very concrete.

One other major milestone was reengaging with survivors. When they were starting to show up at our events, and talk about us in positive ways, and recognize the work we were doing. And hearing these really moving stories definitely shaped how we operated.

How did the people around you react when you told them you’d been offered the role?

I know there were a lot of doubters out there, but I was rooted in this belief that the organization or the sport could have been turned around. There were a lot of question marks when I told people that I was taking on this role—they were saying “congratulations and condolences.” And there were a lot of people around me who truly cared about me who were questioning whether I should take the role. To protect me as a person and an individual, they actually tried to talk me out of it. [But] I trusted my gut.

The offer came through late on a Friday night. My husband and I were watching a movie—and I got a text. It said, "Congratulations.” And I showed the text to my husband. He says, "Looks like we're moving to Indy!" And he was a big part of my support system.

You’ve described the organization as a “burning house” when you first arrived. How would you describe the “house” you’re leaving behind?

I would say that we have remodeled the house. But there's still more work that can be done on the house.

One of the philosophies that we apply here at the organization is that we can always do better. We challenge ourselves in [the same] way that our athletes challenge themselves. Our athletes don't get one skill and say, ‘okay, great, I'm done. I'm not going to try and be better as a gymnast.’ They always try to improve and be better. And that's the same philosophy that we apply here.

In your view, what’s shifting in how the sport supports athletes?

Before, the mission used to be about winning medals, and that's no longer our mission at USA Gymnastics. Now, our mission is to utilize the sport of gymnastics to develop well-rounded, holistic individuals who will be successful in life beyond the sport. And that's our measure of success. And so you see the Simones and the Sunis and the Jordans be really successful—not just as gymnasts, but as overall holistic people.

What's next for you, Li Li?

I plan to rest, reset and take a moment to reflect as well. I try to live by expanding my comfort zone. It would be more comfortable for me to stay, but it's not in my DNA to coast. So stepping down allows me to figure out what the next challenge will be. This role has essentially been “my life” for the past (almost) 7 years and the people I have worked alongside have become like family. So while I know they will remain friends for years to come, I am also saddened that they will no longer be an integral part of my daily life; that will likely be the biggest change for which I’ll need to adjust.

Who are your role models?

I was asked who my sporting hero was at one point, and a lot of people named famous athletes. But I named my father. He passed away about five months ago.

He taught me true grit and resilience. He played tennis up until the age of 94, and was always motivated, disciplined, had an incredible work ethic, and was a good person. And so I always thought to myself that I would just love to be like him—and always challenge myself and have that resilience throughout life.

This year, working women across the U.S. hit a breaking point. More than 450,000 have left the workforce since January—one of the sharpest declines in recent history, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And, overwhelmingly, the women most likely to walk away are mothers with young children.

The forces pushing women out of their jobs aren’t mysterious. They’re the same ones that have been building for years: childcare that’s both unaffordable and hard to secure, workplaces pulling back on flexibility, and the reality that the U.S. remains the only developed country without national paid leave. While millions more women are still clocking in each day, the strain of holding everything together is getting harder to hide.

Which is why today, some of them are finally saying so out loud. Not in op-eds or protests, but in their out-of-office replies.

Workers across industries will be updating their auto-replies and flooding social media with screenshots of their real OOO reasons. Instead of “Offline for the long weekend,” inboxes will be lighting up with sick toddlers, hospice updates, and the everyday chaos women usually gloss over in polite auto-replies.

It’s all part of “Out of Office for Care,” a coordinated national action organized by the Paid Leave for All campaign. Marie Claire was provided several of these messages ahead of today’s launch.

The idea is simple: set your real OOO, screenshot it, and share it. Throughout the day, the organization will be pulling those posts into a sprawling “Digital Wall of Care,” appearing everywhere from Instagram feeds to airport screens in D.C. and New York to billboards in Times Square. Every message gathered will ultimately be delivered to Congress.

At the center of the effort is Dawn Huckelbridge, the founding director of Paid Leave for All, who says the campaign grew out of a frustration that has been building.

“It’s just the sense of exasperation that this has been unsustainable for so long, and it’s getting worse,” she tells Marie Claire. “So many of us are caring not just for children, but for multiple family members and for ourselves. Without simple policies like paid leave, it’s burning us at both ends.”

The idea for the OOO messages struck her team as Thanksgiving approached and the latest jobs data came out. It felt like “an opportunity to do a little bit of storytelling” that captures the honest, messy, heartfelt accounts of what caregiving looks like in real time, Huckelbridge explained.

And the irony of the campaign isn’t lost on her: “So many people cannot [even] go out of office. We can’t take the time for the care that we need to give.”

Huckelbridge is also blunt about the political reality. “We don’t expect bills to be passing anytime soon in this Congress,” she says. Even so, she sees visibility as its own form of pressure: “Advocacy is never letting up the momentum or the pressure or asking for accountability. So we will continue demanding and making voters' voices heard no matter who is in Congress.”

And by flooding inboxes, social feeds, and public spaces with the truth about caregiving, she hopes the crisis becomes harder to ignore.

“We see the numbers, we see the stats, but Americans are going through a lot of financial devastation right now,” she adds. “If we had paid leave and basic care policies, everybody wins. It would be a world where you had the freedom to control your own life and be with your family and pursue work of your choosing.”

As a young hedge fund analyst working on Wall Street, HeyJune Jeon always sensed she had an edge. Her job was to crunch numbers, track markets, and advise on trades. But what set her apart, she says, wasn’t what she could see in her spreadsheets—it’s what she could feel. “I just knew who would call me that day. I knew which client would reach out. I knew where the market would move,” Jeon says, on a call in October “And every single time, my gut was right.”

Still, no amount of perfect forecasts could fix the burnout that came with the hedge fund life. In 2017, hoping for a reset, she left for a tech startup. But even then, she felt something was missing. That’s when she met Frank Andrews, New York’s legendary “Psychic to the Stars,” who often sat outside his Lower East Side apartment with his dog, just a few blocks from her office. Intrigued, Jeon began reading with him—until one day he suggested she learn the craft herself. “He doesn’t take on too many students,” she says. “I was like, okay, why not?”

That private curiosity eventually developed into a full-blown side hustle when Jeon’s peers in finance and tech began asking her for financial readings at happy hours and client dinners. “I was already in the right environment, and I had the street cred, because I was already working with people who just so happened to know that, ‘Hey, she’s a good analyst from a financial analyst perspective, but she also happens to be a reader,’” Jeon says. “I had gotten so many names under my belt just doing readings for free that I had a waitlist.”

When the pandemic hit, Jeon started posting tarot and astrology videos on TikTok, which went viral almost instantly. Then came a 2020 appearance on Fox Business, where she was interviewed about her financial readings live on air. “It felt like a calling,” she says. “So I made the decision to be like, you know what? Let me just quit my job and go full-time with this.”

Today, 35-year-old Jeon runs Pheydrus, working with a team of specialists in astrology, feng shui, and numerology to diagnose clients’ energetic and financial blind spots. With more than a million followers on social media, her roster runs the gamut from traders and VC investors to women trying to reach the C-suite, paying anywhere from a few hundred dollars for a single reading to $10,000 for a full program. One seven-week course provides “assignments, live coaching, and personalized workshops” to help entrepreneurs.

Jeon isn’t an anomaly so much as a signal of a broader cultural shift: the merging of money and mysticism. A 2024 survey found that eight in 10 Gen Z and millennial Americans believe in cosmic guidance, including when it comes to their careers and finances.

Across social media, women like Jeon are part of a fast-growing cottage industry of “money mystics.” On WitchTok, hashtags like #manifestation and #moneyspells have amassed billions of views, turning tarot cards and natal charts into financial planning. Their accounts traffic in the parlance of “vibrations” and “consciousness,” and offer a supernova of options, including monthly memberships, coaching programs, and astrological consultations for traders, investors, and those seeking unorthodox financial advice for unorthodox economic times.

For Jessie-Susannah Karnatz, otherwise known as the Money Witch, that disillusionment became a business plan. The 44-year-old built her San Francisco–based practice after what she calls a “tower card” moment: a divorce, an eviction, and a financial collapse that forced her to rebuild from scratch.

“I had become intrigued by why it's not just the financial literacy gap,” she says. “When you give people the information they need to have the financial habits that are going to support them in their financial goals, why do they still not do it?” Drawing on her experience running small businesses and doing bookkeeping and tax work, she began to merge those practical skills with her growing spiritual awareness.

Now over a decade later, Karnatz’s practice blends traditional financial services with psychic guidance. A typical two-hour session with a new client begins with a simple question: “When I first sit down with someone, I just say, ‘What can I do for you?’” she says. From there, she uses what she calls a mix of “psychic capacity and technical financial knowledge” to start pulling apart “what is working and not working.” She asks about “family history around money”—how they were raised and what beliefs they inherited—then studies their astrological chart, using their birth details to trace those patterns.

Karnatz describes her intuitive process as “clear knowing,” explaining, “I rely heavily on my intuition, my psychicness, to help people understand what their real problems are with money,” Karnatz explains. “It’s not so different from what you might uncover in a therapy journey.”

On the low end, Karnatz offers a membership group, Money Coven, for $99 a month. It’s community centered, with daily discussion threads and five guided sessions a month where members can budget together or join group workshops led by Karnatz and other guest facilitators. For those who want something more intensive (and have the cash), there’s a one-on-one coaching program that costs $5,000 for three months, which includes bi-weekly meetings with Karnatz and WhatsApp support between sessions.

Christine Lewis Czyska, a self-employed business owner, turned to the Money Witch after nearly a decade of overwork, burnout, and financial whiplash. “I was looking for someone I could be honest with about my financial journey,” she says. “It’s been trial by fire.” After years of cycling through over-spending and debt, she wanted to understand the emotional patterns behind her habits. In their first session, Karnatz told her that “my financial life may be one of the places where I don’t have the same emotional maturity as other parts of my life”—a moment Czyska describes as “a light bulb.” She’s still early in the process but says she finally feels “supported and witnessed without judgment.”

It’s the kind of conversations you’re not going to have with a traditional financial planner, who can advise you on how much to save for retirement, but not why you can’t seem to stick to the plan. For many of Karnatz’s clients, especially women, that emotional excavation is the missing piece in a system built around patriarchal ideas of money as purely mathematical.

Karnatz sees the surge in financial mysticism as part of a broader reckoning with the stories Americans have long been told about money. She points out that many younger people have followed the traditional playbook: they get degrees, work hard, and do everything they’re told would lead to stability. Yet they still find themselves without job security, unable to afford a home, and “potentially six figures in student debt that the government does not care about.” She adds, “You’re having your existential crisis, and then you start seeking answers. That’s what mysticism, magic, religion all do: they meaning-make.”

It’s no coincidence that most of Karnatz’s clients are women and nonbinary people—groups that have always had to fight harder for financial footing. Women, for instance, hold just 12 percent of global portfolio-management roles, control roughly a third of retail financial assets in the U.S. and Europe, and still earn only about 80 cents for every dollar men make in the U.S.

On a gray Friday afternoon in October, I join one of Jeon’s final sessions with a client over Zoom. The woman on screen —a veteran entrepreneur who’s built and sold companies, survived boardroom betrayals, and is now trying to rebuild both her business and her confidence—has asked to remain anonymous to speak candidly about her career, financial decisions, and business relationships. Soft-spoken and visibly drained, she admits she’s “very exhausted” after years in a toxic partnership and is now facing another pivotal decision: whether to invest millions in a new venture.

Over the next hour, Jeon toggles effortlessly between mystic and strategist, pulling cards, referencing planetary transits, and offering grounded business counsel. She reads the client’s chart like a roadmap, noting that Pluto is “going through your first house,” a transit she says marks deep transformation and personal reckoning. She explains that a “second Saturn return” is pushing one potential partner toward “a fresh start in her career.” Then she draws another card: “I got the retirement card,” she tells the client, explaining that it suggests a turning point in the next six months: either the sense of having earned enough and being ready to slow down, or reaching a new milestone that brings real closure.

But her guidance isn’t only celestial. A self-described “Reflector” in human design terms (a system that blends astrology, chakras, and astronomy), Jeon sees part of her role as mirroring her clients’ energy back to them. Jeon gently reminds the client, “Your value is not tied to whether or not you can just dish out 10 million. I hope you recognize that.” By the end of the session, the shift is visible: the client sits taller, sketching out how she might re-approach her plans with newfound clarity.

That same blend of intuition and strategy is what ultimately led Jeon to this work. After years of watching both Wall Street and wellness culture miss the mark, she began to see a gap she could fill. “We’re all in an energetic enmeshment with these things around us,” she says, but traditional finance doesn’t account for the “unseen forces” that shape people’s relationships to money. Mainstream manifestation culture, on the other hand, can feel too vague to be useful. “‘Just think positive’?” Jeon says. “Well, if you have a very traumatic childhood or you come from a third world country, that just doesn’t work.”

Jeon views her approach as more of an evolution of traditional finance than a rejection of it. She’s quick to point out that Wall Street traders, too, will “think the market’s going this way, and then find evidence to support their gut. They’ll never admit that, but that’s how a lot of analysts operate.” She’s just made the process explicit and systematic. Her clients, many of them high-achieving women in business and tech, “want details, they want facts. They don’t like the generic,” she says. “Because of my experience, I can tangibly tell them: they want this percentage, this sort of leverage points or multiplier… that's something that other readers can't really go into as much because they can't really come up with the specifics of what to say. That's industry language.”

It’s a method that’s earned her a loyal following and more than a few success stories. Jeon says she has advised a founder to turn down a $20 million offer that later became $50 million, helped a YouTuber pivot into stand-up comedy and start touring internationally, and even nudged the creators of the viral Big Red Boots, MSCHF, to take the leap that landed them on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show. “Her guidance completely changed how I show up—personally, professionally, spiritually,” Manjari Kalia, a nurse practitioner who built her own concierge-care business, shares over an email. At the time, she was “floating through pandemic healthcare—doing the work but not really connected to who I was becoming.” Through Jeon’s courses, she began realigning her business with what she calls her “path of greatest purpose.”

The process wasn’t easy: “It was a lot of deep inner work—slogging through the mud, shedding old patterns, redefining what success looked like.” But the results, she says, were tangible. “Clients and independent clinicians who were in alignment with me started finding me naturally. Referrals increased, and the mission of the company expanded.”

Talk to a traditional financial expert and they have a different read. Many caution that while there is always a certain amount of risk when it comes to investing and making money, there are still safeguards in place. A licensed fiduciary is legally bound to act in your best interest. A mystic, by contrast, might be a leap of faith, especially since there are no certifications or qualifications to calling yourself one.

“If astrology or spirituality gives you an accessible entry point into something you might otherwise avoid, like your finances, great,” says Stefanie O’Connell, the author of The Ambition Penalty: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up — And Then Pushes Them Down. “If it helps you live, spend, save, and invest in better alignment with your values, great.”

The danger, she warns, is mistaking self-reflection for strategy. Manifesting can’t replace budgeting, and a moon cycle won’t rebalance your portfolio. “It might work as an addition to regular financial check-ins,” she says, “but it should not replace those fundamental practices of financial wellness.”

Natalia Benson, a Los Angeles–based astrologer and money coach, has leaned fully into that philosophy. After years of living paycheck to paycheck, she began merging her longtime spiritual practice with practical money management in 2018, teaching clients to read their birth charts as personal finance tools. She’s since built a six-figure business around that balance.

“When the world feels chaotic and frightening, people want to feel a personal sense of power,” she says. “And astrology, when it’s utilized in a healthy way, gives you that.” Through her membership program, Magical Women & Money, Benson helps clients map their “money blueprints,” studying placements like Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn to identify their values, purpose, and earning potential. Her clients are often “empathetic, sensitive, or creative people”—those who find traditional financial advice too “left-brain,” she says.

Still, she emphasizes that astrology alone isn’t the answer. “It can help you understand yourself,” she says, “but you also need sound, healthy financial practices.” That blend of intuition and structure, she adds, can “give you a sense of empowerment, and a sense of self knowing and connection that can help you weather challenging times in the world.”

Across the spectrum, each woman’s method points to the same idea: that understanding your money might start with understanding yourself. And according to them, that philosophy has transformed their own finances, too.

Jeon credits intuition for helping her sell stocks ahead of market crashes, time her exit from Wall Street, and buy two homes using her own numerology method. Karnatz rebuilt from divorce and eviction as a single mother, growing her business into a growing, self-sustaining practice by confronting her own “shadows around money.” And Benson, who once had “fifty bucks in my bank account,” says that when she finally started to “show money that I respected it and I was willing to take care of it and not be so avoidant,” everything shifted.

Jeon, for one, has stopped apologizing for it. “Following the rules didn’t really help,” she says. “So we’ve got to create and follow our own magic.” After all, fortune favors the bold. And betting on yourself? That’s just good business.

The week before her new memoir hits shelves, Malala Yousafzai greeted me in her Manhattan hotel lobby with the easy calm of someone who’s lived a dozen lives before 28. Around us, the space buzzed with business travelers and rolling suitcases, but she was easy company—warm, thoughtful, quick to laugh.

In her new book, Finding My Way, Yousafzai sheds the halo that’s long surrounded her name. She writes about Oxford nights and essay crises, friendship and therapy, panic attacks and romance. Part coming-of-age memoir, part reclamation, it’s a portrait of a woman who has learned that courage isn’t just about defying extremists, but also about allowing yourself to be ordinary.

We discussed these topics, and more, at length when we sat down to talk earlier this week. This is our conversation.

To start us off, a big-picture question: When readers finish the book, what do you hope they understand about you—beyond the “tidy, tragic version” of your story the world often repeats?

I hope that when people read this book, they will know me more. I was still in a coma when people first read headlines about me, defined as a brave and courageous girl after I was attacked by the Taliban at 15. I felt that I had to sort of internalize that “saintly” image.

And there’s this wrong understanding—that when you become an activist, you're not supposed to have friends or a normal life. But in the years since, I have grown and learned so much in my time at school and college, and I’m sharing a bit of that. I’m sharing more of myself with people—talking about my love life, friendship, activism, mental health. So this is a reintroduction of me, and I hope that people will enjoy reading my story.

You write about wanting to blend in at Oxford—clothes, clubs, choosing not to lead every conversation. What felt like the first undeniably normal choice you made for yourself there?

The college principal sent me an email before I joined, saying he wanted to announce to all the students that I would be coming and that people should respect my privacy. I saw the email, and I freaked out. I responded, “Please do not do that.” Because the same thing had happened when I joined a new school in the U.K. I was so new to the culture and the country, and I felt that the students were introduced to me as this person in the public eye. So a lot of the kids were just confused and nervous about how they were supposed to treat me.

At college, I just wanted to be introduced as any other student. And that’s what happened. I’m so glad he didn’t send out the email. And to be honest, people wanted to see me as a normal student—why would they want to be reminded of who I was outside of college? I’m here to learn and grow and find out more about myself. I don’t want to stick to the way people introduce me—with a past story.

You write that the sisterhood you felt with your new friends at uni felt “like going to a foreign country but knowing the language.” What did Cora, Hen, Yasmin, and Anisa each teach you that no classroom at Oxford could?

In my case, I’d had so little exposure to be with people my age. So at college, I wanted friends more than anything. They created a space of comfort for me where I could be myself. Usually, I had to think twice before I said anything. I thought everything I said was like a press statement or a quote. But with friends, you can be yourself. You can make mistakes, you can say the wrong thing, and they can help you correct it or understand another perspective. You can be silly. You can talk about serious issues, your past, your present concerns, thoughts, boys, astrology, crushes, essay crises.

I also wanted to be this rebellious student who was doing more than what I had imagined I would; so getting into trouble, breaking some rules, climbing the rooftop, or getting back into college at 3:00 a.m. And I remember every week, when I would get closer to my essay deadline, I would just freak out because I would have so much work left. But when I would look back and think about how I had spent my week with friends who had given me memorable experiences, I would not take that back for a second.

You really wrestle with the idea of marriage in the book—both as a feminist and as a young woman who’s in love. And then you decide to marry Asser. What ultimately changed your mind?

It was a cringe topic for me. I thought it was boring. I had also seen girls who were married off when they were children, or they were forced into marriages. They lost their future. And it’s not just a problem limited to one part of the world. Women have to make more compromises in many communities. So I was like, why would I want to lose something by deciding to marry a person?

And for me, I had worked so hard for my right to have a future—to be able to complete my education and advocate for other girls. I felt that I was doing a disservice to my cause if I decided to marry. You feel like you have failed or turned out to be the enemy. So I said, I’m not ready to take on too many fights in the world. I’m going to focus on girls’ education and on me. Even that is a big mission—to make it a reality in our lifetime.

If I hadn’t fallen in love, I would have not considered marriage at all. But in the end, I decided to marry because I understood that it’s about mutual agreement between two people who want to spend the rest of their lives together. That’s the most important thing. I looked at Asser and I reflected on who he was as a person. I spent some time with him, and I saw through his actions that he is a kind, compassionate, respectful person. He’s loving and caring…and he’s good looking.

Which passage were you most nervous to include?

I was nervous about different people for different chapters in the book. I was worried how my mom would react to the parts where I have shared her story for the first time. But I know my mom stands by her opinions, and she would understand where I was coming from. My message in the book is that I am becoming friends with my mom, and I understand where her resilience and strength come from. But I also understand why she’s more protective and more concerned at times—because she has seen a lot worse happen to women and girls in her lifetime, and she just wants to protect her daughter.

I was a bit worried about including dating Asser, because I knew that would be taken out of context. I was a bit worried if my parents would be surprised by some of those “dinners”—now we would call it a date. Sometimes people don’t expect me to be romantic. But I am a very romantic person.

There’s also the other side of your life—the global stage, where you’re still fighting for girls’ education. After the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, you describe calling world leaders. Most never responded, but many of the women did. Why do you think that was?

When I reflect on it, I think the women leaders knew what oppression by an extremist, patriarchal group would look like for women. I think women could relate to it more. They understood what it means for women and girls to not have the right to education, the right to work. I think the men leaders just did not understand the significance of it. They could not relate to the problem as much—probably. I still think about it. I still think about it and try to find what could explain why the leaders, especially men leaders, did not do enough.

And even now, it’s been four and a half years, they’re still not doing enough. The Taliban—who are the perpetrators—have been given a second chance and are repeatedly given more chances, while Afghan women are told to wait and to make compromises on their future. My hope is that things change for Afghan women. They have suffered so much. Afghan girls have not seen their classrooms for four and a half years. We cannot live in a world where girls are banned from education and it is a crime for a girl to be learning.

What’s one boundary or habit you want young women to borrow from this book?

When I think about my younger self, I look up to her for her courage and bravery. But at the same time, I feel sorry for her because she thought that she was emotionally so strong—but that wasn’t the case. And now, when I look at my life, I have experienced immense love, immense joy, but also breakdowns, and pain and grief and sadness as well. And no matter how difficult it was, I am truly grateful for growing into womanhood

When I went through my own mental health challenges—PTSD, panic attacks, anxiety—I thought I had failed, that I couldn’t live up to the idea of being brave. But getting therapy and normalizing it taught me. So to young people who are doubting themselves, who are worried about their strength, resilience, or self-esteem—I know that these emotions feel hard and difficult to process, but they are part of your growth. Sometimes the journey can be hard and difficult, but all of these experiences can help us grow into a more beautiful, truer version of ourselves.

That’s why it meant so much to see the girls at my school in Shangla [the school she founded in her hometown in Pakistan] have their own counselor’s office—a place to talk, cry, laugh, dance, and let their emotions out. It reminded me how powerful it is when young girls are taught early that their feelings matter, and that taking care of your mind is part of strength too.

After revisiting so many personal and political chapters of your life, Is there anything that didn’t make it onto the page that you still want people to hear from you directly?

I’ve been reflecting on my activism, which I have done for more than a decade and a half now. And to me, the most powerful way is working together. That’s why the way I do my work now is by becoming an ally and supporter of other women activists around the world.

I’m supporting Afghan women activists, and I think about what’s happening in the world and how it affects girls’ education directly. So whether it’s the situation of girls’ schools being bombed in Gaza, or girls being banned in Afghanistan, or girls facing challenges in Nigeria or Pakistan—we have to be there with them. We have to support the local education activists who are doing the real work on the ground. And we have to be a collective voice to protect a girl’s right to education and to have our own future.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Malala Yousafzai’s new memoir, Finding My Way, is out October 21.

When Laura Correnti took the stage at Marie Claire’s Power Play summit in Philadelphia, she made one thing clear: Women’s sports aren’t just having a moment—they’re building a movement. A longtime advertising executive and former partner at the award-winning agency Giant Spoon, Correnti built her career on creating big-impact campaigns before striking out on her own. In 2023, she founded Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment, a firm dedicated to driving commercial investment and visibility in women’s sports.

Marie Claire caught up with Correnti to talk about how she’s redefining the business of women’s sports, what brands are getting right, and why she believes the next five years could be transformational for the game.

What made you take the leap from Giant Spoon to launching Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment?

In 2019, there was a recognizable disconnect in the market following that year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup—the momentum and enthusiasm from fans and consumers following the U.S. women's national soccer team winning their fourth title (the same year players from that team would also win their equal pay lawsuit) exceeded the demand or interest from the advertising, media, and marketing industry. I wanted to understand why. After a multi-year exploration and subsequent roadshow to understand the business of women’s sports, it was determined that there was indeed a market opportunity.

Women’s sports don’t suffer from a product or storytelling issue; rather, the industry has been impeded by operating in systems not designed to support its growth. For example, women’s sports have largely been transacted on and measured by the same key performance indicators in the advertising and media industry that men’s sports have: reach and efficiency. To date, it’s impossible for women’s sports to thrive in this ad-supported model when game days have historically had little to no broadcast exposure—let alone prime-time positioning—to achieve comparable scale. The system doesn’t align, yet it is being sold as such.

This, we decided, would be the way in for Deep Blue—to apply industry knowledge and expertise as media, marketing, and advertising practitioners to a space that seemingly lacked the same. The rest of our business model would extrapolate from there.

When you started Deep Blue, what gap in the sports and marketing world did you feel needed to be filled?

In addition to challenging media models and corresponding ad-buying strategies, we also recognized that while women’s sports were hard to find due to lack of media coverage and storytelling, they were also hard to buy for that same reason—not enough exposure meant minimal inventory for advertisers to purchase.

As such, we determined it would also be necessary to build the marketplace advertisers needed to invest in women’s sports, which led to creating original IP including the iHeart Women’s Sports Network with iHeartMedia (which now has 16 podcasts in market and daily women’s sports reports on 500 broadcast stations in the U.S.) and Next Is Now, a docu-series in partnership with Religion of Sports and Ensemble. These brand-supported projects addressed the need for more content to grow fandom and more inventory to increase ad spend in the industry.

Looking back at your early days in advertising, how did those experiences shape the way you approach elevating women’s sports now?

My experience in the ad business was critical to building Deep Blue, particularly growing up in the industry on the media-buying side. Without the institutional knowledge and hands-on experience to understand how things like media rights and ad spend are inextricably linked, we wouldn’t be able to effectively inform or impact the end-to-end solutions we’re implementing for our clients in the women’s game.

Further, my experience in largely buying men’s sports over the last two decades helped to identify key nuances or gaps in the women’s sports model—including where it should compete for ad dollars, and equally important, where it needs to be treated differently to move the needle on new and incremental opportunities. This has led to effectively making the case for women’s sports being an “and,” not an “or,” for brands when making investment decisions.

There’s so much energy around women’s sports right now. In your view, what’s going to keep that momentum building?

Incrementally in investment and infrastructure will be key to growth. While we saw an initial burst of activity—from investment to valuations, viewership and ratings spikes to merchandise sales—we are focused on effective measures to ensure long-tail sustainability.

That requires finding incremental pockets of opportunity like building adjacent businesses in the category (commerce, content development, live experiences, etc.) while also iterating and innovating on the infrastructure (purpose-built stadiums and training facilities, data and technology, standards and policies). Those incremental enhancements should compound interest and value, creating a thriving ecosystem for years to come.

Deep Blue has already landed some huge clients. From your perspective, what are brands really looking for when they decide to invest in women’s sports?

Since founding Deep Blue, we’ve observed brands are at various starting blocks—whether iterating on early first-mover positions to compete in a more crowded market or understanding the opportunity in general when entering sports for the first time.

Most are seeking ownable strategies to capitalize on the early stages of the market to generate maximum ROI. As the “get in” rate for women’s sports is still in its infancy with respect to pricing and partnership opportunities, it gives brands the opportunity to test the market—financially and creatively—to determine the best way to generate returns.

Many are learning as they enter that this is not a scale play (in comparison to men’s sports, at least not yet), but it is an engagement play where marketers can convert lifetime-value customers—often new and incremental audiences—who reward brands that get it right.

You’ve worked directly with athletes, teams, and leagues. What have those partnerships taught you?

Deep Blue has brokered a number of league, team, and athlete deals—including Bumble x WNBA, Vagisil x the NY Liberty, MassMutual’s Stay Ready campaign featuring Flau’jae Johnson, Madison Keys, and Christen Press, and programs like the Women of NHRA initiative to bring awareness to women in motorsports. Through it all, having a strategy central to the partnership is key.

We seek to develop partnerships that are transformative versus transactional, focusing on creating value vs. simply driving savings. This requires having reasons to believe, involving league, team, and athlete partners in the briefing process to ensure authenticity, having a deep understanding of audience needs and expectations, and aligning on activation and execution touchpoints that will meet fans where they are for best returns.

When you think about success at Deep Blue, how do you measure impact beyond just the business side?

Deep Blue is focused on long-tail indicators that exceed the day-to-day bottom line to understand the true impact of our work—that looks like social and economic indicators relative to girls playing and staying in sports, for example.

We’ve learned that over 90 percent of women in the c-suite have played sports at some point in their lives, with over 50 percent of those women having played collegiately—a correlation that suggests girls who play become women who lead. That said, recent studies have pointed out 45 percent of girls are dropping out of sport by the age of 14, largely due to body confidence issues (see Nike x Dove study). What impacts body confidence issues: advertising, media, and marketing. Hence, we believe the work we do plays a critical role in combating that drop-off to ensure girls have every opportunity to build leadership skills through sports that will serve them long after they’re done playing.

What milestones or accomplishments at Deep Blue feel most meaningful to you personally?

We are coming up on Deep Blue’s fourth annual Business of Women’s Sports Summit in April 2026—every year has served as a litmus test for market interest and growth potential.

Each year we have sold out while the diversification of topics covered continues to push the boundaries on what defines or makes up “the business of” women’s sports. What started with programming focused largely on the advertising, media, and marketing industry has expanded to include topics like infrastructure and facilities development, venture capital, merchandising, and more.

This annual marker keeps us honest on where progress is happening, and equally important, where work still needs to be done—informing everything from our broader Deep Blue business plan to daily client strategies.

If you imagine the women’s sports industry five years from now, what does that future look like?

Five years from now, our hope is that the women’s sports marketplace is right-sized in the sense that business models accurately reflect the product while serving as catalysts for future growth.

Right now, women’s sports are seemingly more lucrative off the court than they are on when looking at average values of endorsements and content deals, for example, in comparison to league sponsorships or player compensation. I’d love to see this get to parity with more ingenuity and intentional investment to create women’s sports–specific playbooks vs. repeating legacy models that don’t extract or maximize its true value.

What advice would you give to the next generation of women who want to break into sports marketing, media, or entrepreneurship?

Put in the work—there are no shortcuts. I’m a big believer in being a student of the game. For me, this includes reading industry news to start each day, spending time on new subject matter via podcasts, feeds, or niche newsletters, staying curious in meetings and asking questions, being in the room whenever possible (it’s where things happen), and other methods to stay competitive and add value to rooms I’ll enter. At Deep Blue, it’s imperative we stay ready so we don’t have to get ready.

On his first day back in the White House, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to limit birthright citizenship, a constitutional right in place for more than a century. Then came the foreign-aid cuts, which left mothers and children around the world without emergency medical care. The ICE raids soon followed, hollowing out homes across the country; parents and caregivers vanished in an instant. Simultaneously came a ban on books, gender-affirming care, and reproductive healthcare. Meanwhile, issues such as affordable childcare, paid leave, and improvements to the education system are nowhere on the agenda—illuminating the fact that this legal assault on families is not affecting just a select few. An alarming number of people are at risk.

But if Trump’s presidency began by throwing down the gauntlet on families, it may end with mothers leading the fight to defend them. Their resistance stretches from federal courthouses to soccer-field sidelines, from late-night strategy sessions at the kitchen table to early-morning school runs. They rush from daycare drop-offs to court hearings, file motions between doctor’s appointments, and spend their days fighting to protect families, all while holding together their own. Here, the mothers who are pulling second (and third) shifts as attorneys and activists reflect on the challenges they face, what the fight against these policies has been like, and what motivates them to keep putting in the work.

The Foreign Aid Litigator

Lauren Bateman, 37, Washington, D.C.

“I’m lead counsel on two high-stakes constitutional cases; one challenges the administration’s cuts to foreign assistance funding, and another targets the dismantling of USAID [a federal agency that provides humanitarian aid around the world].”

“I found out I was pregnant in March, and in my first trimester, I was corresponding with a USAID worker whose pregnant wife had been denied a medical evacuation after the administration began dismantling the agency. That kind of evacuation would have been completely routine before January 20 but was abruptly denied. She’d started hemorrhaging; both she and the baby were at risk, and they were only living in that location because her husband was serving our country.”

“That case isn’t an anomaly. It’s the kind of fallout we’re seeing across the board as a result of the foreign assistance freeze. One report I came across described toddlers being abruptly cut off from antidiarrheal medication after the freeze took effect. Just the idea of babies being sentenced to one of the most grisly possible deaths—that has really stuck with me.”

“At times, litigation can be a dry exercise of filing briefs before a court, but these two cases affect so many people, both here and abroad. You definitely don’t have to be an expectant mother, of course, to internalize the want and cruelty of what the administration has done. But for me, it did add a new lens: What if my family were fated to death or disease by a faraway government that’s run by a petty tyrant? I would hope that the people in that country were fighting back.”

The Constitutional Challenger

Sidra Mahfooz, 33, New York, New York

“I came to the U.S. from Pakistan when I was 7, and I grew up in Long Island watching people in Muslim communities around me be targeted within our mosques, asked questions, and arrested after 9/11. That experience led me to law.

“Now, as a staff attorney at the ACLU, I focus on cases challenging executive overreach—from representing activists targeted for deportation to pushing back against the expansion of expedited removal and the use of the Alien Enemies Act.”

“I’m also raising two little ones of my own: a toddler and an infant. The personal and the professional are always overlapping. This spring, I helped secure the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian man who had been separated from his pregnant wife and detained without cause. He had missed the birth of his son, Deen. A judge finally ordered his release in June. Reading his letter to Deen while feeding my own kids—it broke me. It made everything a lot more real.”

“The stakes feel deeply generational. It’s definitely for the now, but it really is shaping the world we want our kids to be in. Whether they might have to face challenges based on certain Supreme Court precedent or whether we can stop some of the abuses that are happening and create case law that actually protects vulnerable communities—that’s the question.”

“I want my children to be able to look back at this moment and say, ‘Hey, my mother helped so many people in this situation.’ I want them to feel proud of that. I want them to do the same.”

The Border Defender

Rochelle Garza, 40, Brownsville, Texas

“I live and work in a town along the U.S.–Mexico border, where I lead a team of 60 attorneys and advocates as president of the Texas Civil Rights Project. I’m also Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and the mother of two kids under 4. My days are filled with meetings, hearings, and the chaos of toddler life. I wear different hats, and I try to nourish all of it.”

“One of the families we’re representing right now includes 11-year-old Sara, a U.S. citizen who recently had a brain tumor removed. She needs ongoing medical treatment, but in February, she was deported along with her four siblings, three of whom are also U.S. citizens, and their undocumented parents, even though she’d previously been allowed to cross the border checkpoint for care. The Texas Civil Rights Project has filed a humanitarian request for Sara, her parents, and her one sibling. We’re still waiting on a response from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services [as of July].”

“Long before I took the helm at TCRP, I represented a teen in immigration detention who had been denied abortion access under the Trump administration. That case reached the Supreme Court and led to what’s now known as the Garza Notice, affirming the rights of detained immigrant teens to reproductive care.”

“The stakes are incredibly high. And they feel even higher when you’re pregnant, when you give birth, when you’re mothering a child. The weight of parenting—of what the world looks like, not just now but in the future—is heavy. Having a hand in shaping that through your work…it’s a lot to carry.”

The Asylum Attorneys

Melissa Crow, 60, Washington, D.C.

Blaine Bookey, 44, San Francisco, California

Crow and Bookey are colleagues at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, which serves as co-lead counsel in Al Otro Lado v. Trump, a recent challenge to new asylum restrictions imposed by the Trump administration. The case targets the administration’s January 2025 proclamation that shut down asylum processing at the U.S.–Mexico border overnight. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of advocacy groups and individual asylum seekers, argues that the policy violates federal law by denying people access to the asylum process.

One of those people is “Maria,” a plaintiff who fled cartel violence in the Mexican province of Michoacán and now hides in a Tijuana shelter, afraid to leave. Her husband was murdered, her son and granddaughter disappeared. Her plea is for a life in the U.S., where she will be safe. “The families we represent are often in dire straits,” Bookey says. And so, as she sees it, she has “no choice” but to try and help.

Both women are Jewish and view their work as a direct extension of their values. Crow calls it tikkun olam, the Jewish principle of repairing the world. Bookey’s own grandfather came to the U.S. as a refugee, and an earlier generation of her family fled Eastern Europe seeking religious freedom. She wants that same right for everybody.

The fight is long and often contentious, but Bookey hopes the way she explains her work to her children holds a message that anyone can understand: “What we’re trying to do is keep families together. Imagine if you had to be separated from me—that’s what I’m doing, trying to get these families back together.”

It’s that mission that keeps them going, even when good news seems elusive. “I’ve learned so much from our clients,” Crow says. “They’re part of our community. And if they’re not, they should be.”

The Birthright Plaintiff & Lawyer

Conchita Cruz, New York, New York

Monica, Venezuela

While some mothers are fighting to defend long-standing rights on U.S. soil, others are battling for the right to belong at all. Monica—a Venezuelan medical doctor seeking asylum—was eight months pregnant at the time of reporting. She is a plaintiff in CASA v. Trump, the case challenging President Trump’s effort to curb birthright citizenship; the outcome could determine whether her baby receives a U.S. passport.

She and her husband fled Venezuela in 2019 amid political persecution and, as of July, were still waiting for an asylum interview as well as for the Supreme Court to decide the merits of the Executive Order on Birthright Citizenship.

“I’ve not been able to live a [normal] pregnancy because of all of this stress; it’s been very hard on me,” she says. “We cannot return to Venezuela because our lives have been threatened. We love our country, but it is not free.”

Her attorney, Cruz—co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project and a mother herself—says the case strikes at the heart of what it means to raise a child in America. “Until now, a U.S. birth certificate has been enough to prove citizenship,” she says. “What happens when that’s no longer true?” Cruz also has family members seeking asylum in the U.S. “That is a source of pride for me, to know that my work can and has helped my own family.”

For Monica, the lawsuit is an act of protection and solidarity with other women who are in situations like hers. “I want my child to know that what motivates us is the love that we have for him and the love that we have for all of the mothers that feel the same way about their babies.”

She’s holding on to what she hopes her child will inherit—not just a passport but a principle: “to fight for justice.”

This piece originally appeared in Marie Claire’s 2025 Changemakers Issue. Since our reporting:

• Lauren Bateman’s cases remain active. The foreign aid lawsuit is on appeal after the Supreme Court allowed the Administration to withhold $4 billion in funding, and the USAID dismantling case is also on appeal following a lower-court dismissal.
• Rochelle Garza’s clients are still waiting in Mexico; Sara recently suffered a seizure, and her health is deteriorating, according to officials.
• Melissa Crow and Blaine Bookey’s asylum case is ongoing, with a class certification motion now before the court.
• Conchita Cruz and Monica’s case saw a major milestone in August, when the court granted class certification and a preliminary injunction protecting all U.S.-born babies; the government has since asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on birthright citizenship.

This year, we handed the mic to visionaries, leaders, and rule breakers redefining what change looks like. Each one took part in the first-ever MC Changemakers Questionnaire, a specially crafted set of prompts designed to cut through the noise and get to the heart of how change actually happens. We asked what rules they’re breaking, what keeps them going, and what the future looks like from where they stand. Their answers are sharp, surprising, and deeply personal. Together, they map out a bold new blueprint for change.

What does being a changemaker mean to you?
Being authentically myself and serving the moment, whatever that looks like. To not be afraid to use my voice and stand up for what I believe is right. To be fearless and not allow anyone or anything to put me in a box. To use my platform to do my part—and try to help this world become a better place.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
To break the stigma around feminine and masculine clothes in fashion.

What is the fight you’ll never stop showing up for?
The fight to be your best, confident self and not care about anyone else’s opinions. Also, the fight for equality and justice.

Do you have a hype song?
“What Did I Miss?” by Drake.

What is your motto?
Stand firm and serve the moment. Be you, be great.

What gets you through the hardest parts of pushing for change?
I believe I go through life with the right intentions, and with a caring and genuine heart. I know my intentions are good, and that helps me stay grounded. I try not to dwell on mistakes and take everything as a lesson in my journey.

What does being a changemaker mean to you?
Using your voice and your visibility to open doors for others. It’s not just about achieving personal success; it’s about creating lasting impact, shifting narratives, and making space where there hasn’t been space before.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
That ballet is only for a certain type of body or background. I’ve spent my career challenging the idea of who belongs in classical ballet, and now I’m focused on changing who has access to it in the first place.

What is the fight you’ll never stop showing up for?
Equity in the arts. Representation and access are not luxuries—they’re necessities. I’ll always show up for young people who’ve been made to feel like they don’t belong in certain rooms. They do.

What gets you through the hardest parts of pushing for change?
Remembering that I’m not doing this alone. I come from a long line of people who’ve pushed boundaries with far fewer resources. That perspective—and taking time for stillness—keeps me going.

What does being a changemaker mean to you?
Being unwilling to accept the way things are and pushing the barriers every chance I get to bring the world a little bit closer to the way it should be. Most of my career has been fighting the status quo, including defying expectations for what’s possible for women and people of my background.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
It’s the quiet norms placed on women every day—what we should or shouldn’t do, and what we’re deserving or capable of. I've been constantly underestimated and overlooked as a woman in office, and I'm always having to prove myself.

What is the fight you’ll never stop showing up for?
The fight for our kids’ future has always driven my work in politics, but after becoming a mom, I know this fight couldn’t be more urgent.

Do you have a hype song?
“Gimme More” by Britney Spears (it’s Britney, b*tch).

Whom do you most admire?
President Barack Obama has been the most important person in my journey. He’s someone who made me believe in what’s possible in a leader and what’s possible for myself. He brought out the best in us. In the era of Trump, I couldn’t miss his kindness and compassion more.

What does being a changemaker mean to you?
Changemakers refuse to accept the world as it is and work to make it better in whichever area they can have influence and impact. For me, within film, this means championing new talent and unique perspectives, elevating fellow artists, and inventing more inclusive ways to make and share our work.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
I’d like to help break the film industry’s risk-averse mindset. Safe, conventional choices are currently the name of the game, but art has always demanded originality and risk. Film has the power to reshape how we see ourselves and the world, but it can only fully fulfill its potential when we elevate fresh ideas and emerging voices—boldness and innovation are essential.

Do you have a hype song?
“Burning Down the House” by Talking Heads.

What gets you through the hardest parts of pushing for change?
I remind myself that progress isn’t linear—it zigs and zags, yet every step is a learning opportunity that builds on the last.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
That you can’t have it all. You can—and I do. I’ve learned that it’s about blurring the lines versus separating them when it comes to the personal and the professional, and my titles of President, Mom, Wife, Daughter, Sister, Friend.

Do you have a hype song?
So many. “As” by Stevie Wonder puts me in the best headspace and reminds me of my early days of being mom to my two girls. I’m also currently back into my Jurassic 5 era.

Whom do you most admire?
Amy Poehler. Her book, Yes Please, is one I go back to often. She's navigated many things in her life but stayed authentic to herself, and charted success by working hard, taking risks, and prioritizing genuine relationships and being a mom. All while having fun and finding joy.

What gets you through the hardest parts of pushing for change?
Knowing it’s worth it. I have been fortunate to feel the outcomes—at a packed BMO Stadium for Angel City games, and a roaring Chase Center for the Valkyries games. How fortunate I am to know the work I am doing truly creates a better tomorrow.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
The idea that beauty has to fit inside a box. Whether it’s shade ranges, textures, age, ability, or identity—I’m constantly pushing against traditional beauty norms. Beauty should feel like freedom. We should all be able to express ourselves and have the confidence to play freely.

What is the fight you’ll never stop showing up for?
Representation. Real, meaningful, unapologetic representation, especially for Black women, for artists, for late bloomers, for anyone who’s ever felt like they were too different to belong. I’ll always show up for the people who’ve been told they have to wait their turn or fit a mold to be worthy of success or being seen. No matter what, everyone should be part of the conversation.

Do you have a hype song?
“Level Up” by Ciara. It’s the energy. It reminds me that growth requires movement, boldness, and sometimes starting again—but always with power and purpose.

What does being a changemaker mean to you?
Someone who refuses to accept the status quo—who sees the need for progress and takes action to make it happen. There are inspiring changemakers across every industry and issue, but the ones I truly admire are those who fight for justice and peace. Whether they’re on the ground or using their voices from afar, they work tirelessly to combat conflict, war, and oppression—and that’s the kind of impact that deserves celebration.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
Professionally, I’m trying to push back on the idea that success should look effortless. We rarely talk about the doubts, the flaws, the setbacks. That’s usually where real progress happens, and I think we should be more honest about that. At home, it’s definitely less screen time. We try to model that for our kids, which means us adults have to lead by example. It’s not always easy!

What is the fight you’ll never stop showing up for?
Creating real accountability in the fashion industry—environmentally, socially, and culturally. Fashion holds enormous influence, and I believe that influence comes with responsibility. The industry still has a long way to go, and I’ll keep pushing for higher standards, more transparency, and more meaningful change. That sometimes means being questioned or criticized for not having the perfect answer—but honestly, that only fuels my determination to keep going.

Do you have a hype song?
Being Scandinavian, Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” is inevitable. It never gets old, and it never fails to fill the dance floor.

What is your motto?
Don’t wait for the next big thing—find joy in the everyday. Having kids who grow up so fast is a constant reminder that time passes quickly, and the most important moments are often the ordinary ones—right here, right now.

What gets you through the hardest parts of pushing for change?
Probably a mix of stubbornness and perspective. I’m quite stubborn when I believe in something, and that helps when things get tough. But I’ve also learned the importance of stepping back and recharging. Time with my family, unplugging, or doing something totally unrelated to work helps me reset and come back with a clearer head.

What does being a changemaker mean to you?
Being someone who wants to make the world a better place. It is about seeing all of the ways in which you can positively impact those around you, and caring about the success of others as much as your own. It also means speaking up when those around you would prefer to stay silent.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
I am actively trying to break the mindset that if things have always been done one way, you have to just accept them. That can be a setback to people and businesses who are not willing to adapt to new ways of thinking and progressing. There’s always room for improvement.

What is the fight you’ll never stop showing up for?
Women’s equality. I will always show up to support the fair and equal treatment of women, whether that’s in a personal or professional setting. The value and voice women bring to each situation is important to me.

Do you have a hype song?
“Get Down on It” by Kool & The Gang! It’s truly a feel-good song that makes you want to get up and dance. I love a classic.

Whom do you most admire?
My mother. I have never met anyone who is so selfless and willing to do anything she can to see those around her succeed. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for her constant love, support, and encouragement.

What gets you through the hardest parts of pushing for change?
My faith is what gets me through the hardest parts of pushing for change. I also lean on my family for love and support.

What does being a changemaker mean to you?
AZ: Leading the charge on something new and groundbreaking. Disrupting the status quo.
SO: Someone who dares to be different, breaks the mold, speaks up, and does not accept the status quo.
EB: Having the clarity to see what’s broken in society, the imagination to envision something better, and the persistence and grit to make it a reality.

What is the fight you’ll never stop showing up for?
AZ: Fighting against inequities, whether within women's health—an area that is underinvested in—or on behalf of underserved groups that don't have a voice.
SO: Elevating women through education and reproductive health access to unlock 50 percent of human capital.
EB: Gender equality. I’ll never stop fighting for a world where women are seen, heard, valued, and leading.

Do you have a hype song?
AZ: Anything by Beyoncé.
SO: “The Man” by Taylor Swift.
EB: “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen.

What is your motto?
AZ: With privilege comes responsibility.
SO: Make the invisible visible by speaking up; silence is not an option.
EB: If not now, then when?

Whom do you most admire?
AZ: Michelle Obama, Melinda Gates—too many to choose one! At the moment, I deeply admire Ms. Rachel for using her voice despite great personal and professional risk.
SO: Oprah Winfrey. She has lived her life out loud in the public eye—and shared her many personal and professional struggles with great empathy for herself and others.
EB: There are too many amazing people to pick just one, but I deeply admire the individuals powering the women’s health movement today—the entrepreneurs, clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and industry leaders finally giving this space the attention (and capital) it deserves.

What does being a changemaker mean to you?
Refusing to accept systems as they are, especially when you know they can be better. It’s about listening deeply, leading with empathy, and centering the voices of those most impacted. Change is rarely quick or easy but it's built in community, through courage and persistence. For me, it’s about creating pathways and opening doors so wide that countless others can walk, roll, or move through without barriers.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
The norm of disability being treated as charity, something to pity or donate to. Instead, I want to shift mindsets to see it as a powerful driver of innovation, creativity, and economic growth—something worth investing in. Disabled people are innovators, leaders, creators, and change-makers who deserve investment and equitable opportunities.

What is the fight you’ll never stop showing up for?
A world where disabled people are seen, valued, and hired. That’s why I started Making Space—to break down those barriers and build a future where they don’t have to fight to be employed, supported, and celebrated.

Do you have a hype song?
“Whatever It Takes” by Imagine Dragons.

What is your motto?
I love the Gloria Steinem quote “The future depends entirely on what each of us does every day; a movement is only people moving.”

What gets you through the hardest parts of pushing for change?
Knowing I’m not doing this alone. The disability community is filled with changemakers refusing to accept less than what we deserve. On the hardest days, I lean on that collective strength and give myself permission to rest.

What does being a changemaker mean to you?
I'm aware of the long, laborious, and often ignored path toward change—and of the female changemakers who allowed me to exist as both the person and artist I am. Change takes patience, unrelenting work, and a rage from deep within. Women are half the population, yet still considered afterthoughts in my industry. Being a changemaker means holding myself accountable for the changes I want to see.

That is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
That middle-aged women are somehow “less than.” We are more than. Along with that, I actively try to break the idea that films made by women, about women—and without regard for the male gaze—are unfundable or uninteresting.

Do you have a hype song?
“Tell Mama” by Janis Joplin, specifically the 1970 Festival Express live version.

What is the fight you’ll never stop showing up for?
I will never stop showing up for the fight against made-up rules about art, its value, or its predicted viewership by people who have no idea what it means—or what it takes to create.

Whom do you most admire?
Carol Burnett. I used to watch reruns of her sketch comedy show as a child and did not realize how unusual it was that a woman would helm a proper sketch comedy hour, performing outrageously no-rules characters in every single sketch. She is the queen of the sketch comedy form and a true iconoclast pioneer.

What gets you through the hardest parts of pushing for change?
My core belief: It will change, because it makes no fucking sense if it doesn’t. And if it isn't me who will change it than who else would be a better option?

What does being a changemaker mean to you?
Trying to do the right thing and humbly learning from mistakes—and from others. When we started Anthropic, our goal was to build transformative AI in a way that's genuinely good and safe for everyone. Being a changemaker also means being self-reflective. “When could we have done something better?” and “How can we improve for the future?” are two of my favorite questions to ask myself.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
That you need a technical background to help shape the future of AI. I studied literature and started my career in global health and politics. Some of the best contributors I’ve met in AI are also philosophers, musicians, teachers, linguists, parents, and stewards of human culture. We need all of those voices in the room to make sure we collectively build something that enhances human well-being versus doing the opposite.

What is your motto?
"Do the simple thing that works." Our research team at Anthropic actually came up with it, and it really resonates with me. Many of the best and most important things in life are actually simple lessons, like “be kind to others” and “help those in need.” It applies to lots of parts of life: from how we train AI models, to how to have tough conversations, to explaining the world to my 4-year-old.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
LM: I spend so much time searching for the perfect words, when of course there’s no such thing. I’m trying to learn to make peace with imperfection.
TR: I am trying to figure out: what are the rules of this form—the restaurant review? And how can I have more fun with them, or subvert them?

Do you have a hype song?
LM: “Catch These Fists” by Wet Leg, because I love the impatient sneer of it all, and I need something loud I can throw my hair around to.
TR: “Get Busy” by Sean Paul, for its instant and irresistible energy.

What is your motto?
LM: “We can choose to know the lives of others.” —Mari J. Matsuda
TR: “Hope is a discipline.” —Mariame Kaba

Whom do you most admire?
LM: Calla, my wise, generous 17-year-old daughter, who understands that kindness—in a world that rewards the opposite—is not a default but a decision, and one that requires vigilance and will.
TR: My daughter, who is almost two, knows her feelings and trusts her instincts and sense of taste so completely. Where does it take her? She is always moving towards joy and delight.

What does being a changemaker mean to you?
Bravery. In so many instances, the barrier to change can be attributed not to a lack of knowledge, but to strong allegiances to the status quo. I think being a changemaker means moving forward with the courage to face criticism and detractors in the interest of doing something different.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
I am actively trying to revise my own assumptions around what a creative life should look like. Trying to tune out the voice that tells me it requires “this” kind of set-up, that it requires “these” kinds of limitations, that you have to be “this” kind of person—and instead just follow my own desires, simply because I have them and need to at least attempt to fulfill them.

Do you have a hype song?
“We Laugh at Danger (and Break All the Rules)” by Against Me!, or “Strictly Game” by Harlem Shakes.

What is your motto?
“It’s always something.” That can be read pessimistically, but ultimately I think it is an optimistic outlook: Nothing can ever be perfect, there will always be some (or many) issues. So what are you going to do with, through, or despite the imperfection?

Whom do you most admire?
Lowery Stokes Sims. I admire Dr. Sims for being someone who broke boundaries in her own career as a curator and museum leader—and also someone who empowers the next generation. I carry that mandate with respect and humility.

What gets you through the hardest parts of pushing for change?
It helps me to think back to my teen years, when I was at my most idealistic and optimistic. What did I care about then? If there’s a throughline, I know I am on the right track.

What does being a changemaker mean to you?
I’ve worked as a gas station clerk, a digital strategist on a presidential campaign, a speaker, a content creator—and now I’m running for Congress. But through it all, I’ve always wanted to be one thing: a good role model. For me, being a changemaker means leading by example.

What is a rule or norm that you’re trying to break?
I’m 25 and running for Congress, and I’ve been told in a million ways that it’s not my time—that I’m too young, not experienced enough, too different. But I’m redefining what experience looks like. I’ve lived the policies that others just debate—Section 8 housing, SNAP, Medicaid. And I’m running a campaign that changes who holds narrative and political power, using storytelling and digital tools to make space for people like me.

What is your motto?
A professor once told me, “You’re not exceptional; you’re representative.” That’s stayed with me. I might be the youngest or the first Filipina to do this, but I’m not the only one who could; I’m just one of the first who got the chance.

Whom do you most admire?
My older sisters. They’ve been my blueprint and my lifeline—knocking on doors with me in Tucson, reminding me who I am when things get hard, and showing me how powerful sisterhood can be.

What gets you through the hardest parts of pushing for change?
I’ve won and I’ve lost—that’s politics—but when you invest in people, you never really lose. Our campaign is building something that lasts, whether or not we win this race. We’re forming leaders, creating hope, and running a race worth being proud of—no matter the outcome.

As wildfires devoured Los Angeles this winter, one woman emerged with a plan to lift the city from the ashes. Nicole A. Parke, a self-proclaimed billionaire philanthropist, wrote a letter to Mayor Karen Bass offering to “deploy” a $100 million disaster relief effort for affected Angelenos. She summoned a publicist, sought out deep-pocketed partners, and spoke with the easy authority of someone used to commanding rooms—and capital.

Parke claimed to run a $50 billion investment fund and a medical supplies company with deep federal ties. Since arriving in L.A. a few years prior, she had rubbed shoulders with celebrities like Akon, Blac Chyna, and Lakers legend Derek Fisher. On Instagram, she posed with the president of Costa Rica and Kim Kardashian—who visited Parke at her offices last year.

Parke’s feed painted a portrait of rarefied wealth, and luxury brands took notice: Bulgari and Cartier allegedly invited her to VIP events; Rolls-Royce feted her at an intimate dinner (the chef served vegan soul food). In person, she wore crown-like braids and crisp Chanel blouses, and she spoke in a vaguely British accent.

Parke’s palatial offices in Burbank completed the picture. They were lined with white marble and anchored by a five-tier chandelier. There was a floor-to-ceiling humidor, a cavernous personal garage, and a figurine depicting a private jet—what she claimed was her preferred mode of travel.

There was just one problem: Nicole Parke did not appear to have $100 million. Or a $50 billion portfolio. Or, apparently, even the money for the jets, jewelry, or luxury cars she flaunted. Marie Claire found just $585 in federal contracts under her company’s name.

Interviews with 12 former associates tell a strikingly similar story: Nicole Parke wasn’t a billionaire—she just knew how to look like one. The illusion was persuasive enough to attract celebrities, government officials, and seasoned investors. According to those who knew her, Parke mirrored their ambition, their longing to belong, their hunger for a shortcut. She understood what success was supposed to look like—and sold that image to people eager to buy in.

The fallout was devastating. Parke, 53, allegedly left a trail of drained bank accounts and ruined friendships across the country: a close friend, a doctor, a landlord, an assistant, a 10-year-old girl, among others. A group of investors claimed she helped defraud them out of $650,000; a five-star hotel alleged she skipped out on a nearly $54,000 bill. Victims say they were collectively duped out of millions. (Parke has denied all claims of wrongdoing.)

Parke and her companies have been named in at least ten lawsuits, with accusations ranging from fraud and unjust enrichment to emotional distress. In one suit filed in July, her former assistant JeVonne Cortez alleged that Parke, her son Enoch, and their associates ran “a Ponzi-style fraud.” (Enoch did not offer responses to numerous factchecking questions.)

According to Cortez, the mother and son duo lured victims with fake identities, falsified contracts, and elaborate lies. Multiple cases have already resulted in default judgments. Others remain active.

Parke’s victims say their lives have been upended. Hers has only grown more lavish.

Long before she styled herself as a billionaire philanthropist, Nicole Parke was known as the pastor’s wife at a small church in Queens, New York.

Seated across from a truck yard, the Universal Calvary Church is a steel blue building with the words “Miracle Center” emblazoned along its side in bold white letters. Its founding pastor, Emmanuel Osei-Acheampong, was a towering presence in the community. And to an unusual degree. Some congregants referred to him as “Dad” or “Daddy.”

Mignonette Walters, 73, whose late husband was a member of the church, said Parke “was admired by a lot of people” and was a gifted member of the choir. Although Parke has described herself to many people as Osei-Acheampong’s former wife, Walters recalled that their marriage was eventually nullified after it emerged that their officiant wasn’t licensed. She added that the pastor then married the church secretary, Elizabeth, who became known as the “prophetess.” (Walters said her husband left the congregation decades ago after growing wary of Osei-Acheampong’s behavior.)

Another ex-member, Horace Gordon, accused the pastor of dabbling in “witchcraft.” (The current pastor of the church, Osei-Acheampong’s son from another marriage, Anthony, said that Gordon has that backwards. The church’s membership is globally diverse, he explained. “People come from the islands that are being chased by voodoo, witches, and all these things. And our god and our church deliver them from that.”)

Parke’s path to the church was turbulent, she would later tell friends. Her mom fled an abusive marriage in Trinidad, leaving the children alone with their father. She moved to New York, where Parke later joined her.

Osei-Acheampong took a circuitous route to New York, too. He was born in Ghana, studied veterinary and human medicine in Kenya, and eventually landed in America, where he established U.C.C. Together, Parke and Osei-Acheampong had three sons, including their eldest, Enoch, who was born in 1994. He played drums and guitar in church and dreamed of becoming a professional basketball player, but he didn’t have the height, so he turned his attention to music instead.

By 2009, Parke had separated from Osei-Acheampong, and she was struggling financially. That March, she filed for bankruptcy in New York, telling the court she had between $50,001 and $100,000 in liabilities. She submitted pay stubs showing that she worked at a pediatrics office, where she earned $14 per hour. Meanwhile, her landlord in Queens successfully filed a motion to evict her. (Parke’s bankruptcy petition was dismissed after she failed to submit a copy of her federal tax return and other documents.)

Parke later moved with her sons to Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania. She claimed to people that she had been abused during her marriage and had started working as a nurse. (No one with her name has been registered to work as a nurse in New York or Pennsylvania. As for the abuse claims, Anthony Osei-Acheampong denied that his father was capable of violence, though he wasn’t present for Parke and Osei-Acheampong’s marriage. “People have stories and they make up things all the time,” he said.)

Settled in Pennsylvania, Parke and her boys lived a remote, quiet life—a fresh start far from the preacher—until Enoch began gaining traction as a music producer. By 2015, he was ascendant. That August, he scored a coveted interview on Power 105.1, one of New York’s hottest hip-hop stations. He was there to promote his production company, Excel Over Adversity—or E.O.A. for short. The name was a nod to his initials, but also a declaration of intent.

“I speak things into existence,” he told the host. “I’m not happy to be here. I’m meant to be here.” Parke stood proudly behind him.

A few years later, the family relocated to Los Angeles to help Enoch chase his dreams, and he soon signed a deal with Black Star Music. He began collaborating with industry names, including Justin Bieber’s longtime producer Poo Bear. He hadn’t yet blown up, but it was a start.

Parke kept their three-bedroom home in Pocono Pines, at a cost of $1,800 per month, and she continued spending time there. But according to a lawsuit later filed by the landlord, she allegedly stopped paying the rent. The homeowner created a payment plan for her, which she then allegedly defaulted on, too. By the time the case reached court, Parke had racked up a $72,400 balance. The owner lost the house to foreclosure in 2019.

Life in L.A. wasn’t glamorous. Parke and the kids took up residence in a two-bedroom apartment in Northridge, 25 miles northwest of downtown. It was certainly not Bel Air. But what she lacked in status, she made up for in charm.

JeVonne Cortez met Parke by chance on a corner of Ventura Boulevard in 2019. She had just moved to L.A. from New York and was struck by the sight of a Black woman and her son in that part of town.

Cortez walked right up to them. “Hey, I don’t see many Black people around here,” she said. “Who are you?”

It was the start of a friendship that would eventually implode in court, but in the beginning, it felt like fate. Cortez was a film producer. Parke said her son made music. They quickly fell into each other’s orbit. Parke hosted Cortez in her modest apartment, where she cooked vegan lasagna from scratch.

“Enoch,” Parke said to her son in her Trinidadian accent, “this is your new auntie.”

Then the pandemic hit, and the friendship was put on ice. As Cortez hibernated at home, she followed Parke’s life on Instagram. And then, something strange happened. While COVID lockdowns stretched on, Parke transformed from single mom to socialite, and she began posting increasingly luxurious content: private jets, cigars, trips to Vegas. Cortez was astonished. “We just always assumed that [Enoch] did well in music,” she said.

In fact, Parke had begun rebranding as an entrepreneurial tycoon. Her background was too murky for people in L.A. to question—and the chaos of COVID provided additional cover. By the time Cortez realized something seemed off, she and her children had already lost tens of thousands of dollars, they claimed.

And they weren’t alone: more than a dozen others claimed they got pulled in, too—some with much more to lose.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, most people went into lockdown. Nicole Parke went into business.

The boom in personal protective equipment—PPE—unleashed an unregulated frenzy. Gloves and masks became a kind of global currency, and Parke seemingly saw an opportunity to change her family’s trajectory. Under normal circumstances, an average woman with few apparent credentials would be unlikely to broker massive healthcare deals. During COVID, that was no longer true.

Parke and Enoch jumped into the PPE supply chain, claiming they could facilitate huge transactions between manufacturers and buyers like hospitals, government agencies, and private businesses. Together, they operated under the banner of Excel Over Adversity—Parke as the founder and chairwoman, Enoch as vice chair.

JJ Goldsbury, a fellow PPE entrepreneur, met the duo at their Burbank offices during this time, following an introduction from a mutual contact. He was struck by their charisma—and their faith. “Nikki and Enoch are professed Christians, and me and my partner are professed Christians,” he said. During a gold rush, it helps to have God on your side. “It was the craziest season of my life,” Goldsbury recalled. “Imagine War Dogs, but for healthcare equipment.”

The mother-son team impressed Goldsbury. Parke was a master networker, and Enoch had undeniable gravitas. “He's a young guy, but dude, he carries himself like a king,” Goldsbury said. Parke later told friends that Enoch’s music industry contacts gave the pair a natural starting point as they searched for buyers. Still, Goldsbury said he never saw them close a deal.

Some of Goldsbury’s potential transactions amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars or more, life-changing sums that would have earned him an eight- or nine-figure payday, he said. The allure of that cash was intoxicating.

Parke knew that—and she allegedly used those heady numbers to draw more and more people into her web.

In early 2021, Parke walked into One876, a Caribbean restaurant in Los Angeles known for its beef patties and oxtail. She was warm and personable, recalled the owner, a Jamaican-born former model named Trudy Gray. Gray instantly connected with Parke over their shared Caribbean roots. Before long, Parke was calling her “sister.”

A few months later, Parke invited Gray to an event she hosted at her Burbank offices to promote a film about comedian and activist Dick Gregory. The guest list included The Boys actor Jessie T. Usher Jr.; former NBA player Cuttino Mobley; Zendaya’s father, Kazembe Ajamu Coleman; and entertainment industry bigshots. Parke wore her hair in long braids that spilled over a black-and-white Chanel button-up. An oversized ring sparkled on her right hand. Everything about the look projected quiet royalty.

Gray brought along her husband, Wendell McFarlane, who was struck by the opulence of the office. Parke seemed like the real deal.

More than a year later, McFarlane told Parke he planned to launch a trucking business with his daughter. Parke allegedly offered an alternative: she already owned a trucking company as part of her PPE distribution empire, she said, and suggested he invest the cash with her instead. Parke said her director of finance, Ari Rosenthal, whom she allegedly referred to as her “Jewish attorney,” was on hand to help with any issues.

McFarlane gave Parke $200,000. Not long after, she encouraged him to invest another $1 million, promising she’d match the contribution as a favor between friends, according to Gray. When McFarlane said he didn’t have that much capital, she allegedly floated another option: mortgage their house. That was a line he wouldn’t cross.

Still, Gray felt good about her relationship with Parke. Whenever she stopped by the Burbank office, Parke and Enoch were constantly on the phone, and it seemed like they were closing giant deals. Celebrities flowed in and out, too. The duo “always wanted to take pictures with them,” Gray said. The photos gave E.O.A. an air of credibility. (None of the celebrities mentioned in this story were willing to comment on the record about their interactions with Parke.)

To the casual observer, like Gray, Parke’s operations looked authentic. How else could she have afforded to work out of such lavish offices? That question remains a mystery. Marie Claire asked every source in this story whether they knew of a single transaction E.O.A. closed. No one could offer an example. Parke’s landlord in Los Angeles also declined to explain whether he had cut her a special deal.

Nevertheless, despite E.O.A.’s public image, by 2021, cracks were starting to show. That March, a group of investors wired $650,000 to E.O.A. as a deposit for 1.7 million boxes of gloves, according to a lawsuit later filed in California. But after the money arrived, Parke told them the gloves weren’t FDA-approved as promised, the complaint alleged. Instead, she offered them unapproved gloves at prices way above market.

Parke allegedly claimed she would return the funds, and she sent confirmation that $50,000 had been wired back, the lawsuit said. That money allegedly never arrived either. According to the complaint, she used part of the cash as a down payment on two luxury homes in Porter Ranch, CA. (In a court filing, Parke’s lawyer claimed E.O.A. had gloves sitting in a warehouse and ready to send, but that the plaintiffs had rejected the product without seeing it. The case resulted in a default judgment against Parke and her co-defendants in 2023.)

Gray and her husband were none the wiser. “The only thing that was in the back of my mind,” she said, “was why every time I came to the office, it was just [Parke and Enoch] in there.”

Behind the scenes, the gulf between Parke’s public and private life continued to grow.

In September 2022, Parke quietly filed for bankruptcy in Pennsylvania. She told the court she had between $50,001 and $100,000 in assets and liabilities of $100,001 to $500,000, but the petition was ultimately dismissed for insufficient documentation.

The following spring, she checked into The Dorchester—a storied five-star hotel in London—where she and her entourage reserved three suites for four nights. According to a lawsuit filed by the hotel, they indulged in spa treatments, roughly $14,000 in chauffeured cars, $1,200 in room service, $4,000 in Cantonese food, and $700 in flowers. Then she left—without settling nearly $54,000 of her bill.

Parke didn’t contest the allegations. “I don’t see why I should expend capital to defend myself against a frivolous lawsuit,” she told Marie Claire, referring to multiple default judgments issued against her. Later, she claimed that certain “individual(s)” mentioned in this story tried to perpetrate a fraud against her company, but she did not reply to an email asking for evidence or additional information.

For Parke and Enoch, this kind of extravagance was business as usual. It was a virtuous cycle: The more the duo flaunted wealth, the more money flowed in. And the more money they received, the more lavish their lifestyles became.

When Cortez reconnected with Parke in 2023, Parke explained her newfound affluence in simple terms. She had secured PPE orders worth tens of millions of dollars per month and owned 100 percent of her supply chain—including five cargo ships outfitted with 121 temperature-controlled containers—according to a lawsuit Cortez later filed against Parke and Enoch. (The case is still pending.) They allegedly bolstered their story by showing her “fraudulent pledge forms, contracts, and letters of decree purporting large transactions.”

Parke and Enoch also claimed that BlackRock managed 25 percent of their “family office,” Cortez alleged. Multiple times, Enoch logged into an online account, and it appeared to show a balance of $500 million, she said.

Cortez was stunned by Parke’s transformation. She no longer spoke with a Trini accent, but with a hushed, subtly British tone—more Duchess of York than downtown L.A. She didn’t go by “Nikki” anymore, either. To almost everyone, including Enoch, she was now “Ms. Parke.”

Cortez couldn’t look away. And then, tantalizingly, Parke asked if she wanted to invest in the business. “I was all in,” she said. “She opened our eyes—not just to a new industry, but a level of life.” Her husband was less sure. So they began with a smaller sum of money. Or, rather, their children did.

“I actually let my 10-year-old daughter, who's an actress and makes her own money, take 6,000 of her dollars” and invest, Cortez said. Her son put in $7,000 of his savings four months later. According to Cortez, Parke said she had only accepted such small amounts of capital because they “were family.”

In August, a judge in L.A. shot down the daughter’s demand for repayment. Cortez submitted a request to the court asking for clarification on why the petition was denied. Her son, however, was granted $7,075.

As of publication, Cortez said he still hadn’t received those funds.

Cortez didn’t just hand over her kids’ cash—she also handed over more than a year of her life.

According to Cortez, Parke offered her enormous commissions if she helped E.O.A. land deals for its supposed PPE products. So she and her husband dropped everything and went to work, attempting to recruit celebrities, colleges, healthcare networks, even representatives of foreign countries like Canada, Peru, and the Saudi royal family, Cortez said. “The numbers were so much larger than where we were in our careers in the film industry,” she recalled.

But even as high-profile connections rolled in, Cortez said, the deals never closed. Each time a potential partner would ask for documentation, the transaction would fall apart, she claimed. (Parke would copy her alleged “Jewish attorney,” Ari Rosenthal, on most emails—though he never showed up to meetings or calls, Cortez recalled.)

It’s not clear what Parke’s motivations were for all of this effort. There appears to be no documentation that she and Enoch closed a single PPE deal, despite years of work. Perhaps they really did believe they would cash in on the gold rush.

Cortez wanted a big payday, too, but she also had a family to feed. Eventually, she told Parke she needed to get a normal, paying job instead of hawking PPE. Parke offered to hire her as an executive assistant, with a salary of $15,000 per month, according to Cortez’s lawsuit. (Parke allegedly promised to pay her quarterly.) The job quickly expanded beyond Cortez’s expectations. “I was serving Enoch. I was a secretary. I was the butler. I was the house manager, the building manager,” she said.

Cortez recalled trailing them through designer showrooms: Hermès, Bulgari, Christofle. At Loro Piana, they sipped Acqua Panna in red velvet chairs while LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault—one of the world’s ten-richest people—smiled behind them. At Tom Ford, Enoch tried to rack up a bill of more than $600,000, Cortez claimed—then failed to follow through on the invoice. (He told Cortez to have the brand contact Ari Rosenthal to sort out the finances.) At times, Parke gave Cortez gifts, too.

Ninety days passed from the start of Cortez’s employment, but her paycheck never arrived, she said. In her lawsuit, she accused Parke and Enoch of “excessive spending” on luxury goods “while my labor and investments went unpaid.”

Cortez’s experience mirrored that of Marissa Sample, another one of Parke’s ex-assistants. Sample, a former hairdresser and newly single mom, had joined the staff in 2022. It was her first corporate job, and Parke allegedly told her the first three months would be an unpaid trial, as was supposedly standard in the white-collar world.

While working for Parke and Enoch, Sample found their behavior strange for purported high rollers. “I used to have to send back a lot of their food at restaurants,” she said. Once, they made her return to Porto’s Bakery because Enoch didn't like the size of the carrots in his sandwich. When she returned, they sent her back once more because they were missing a potato ball, she recalled. “Any time they could find a reason to get money from an establishment or something for free… they would take advantage.”

Sample later quit, alleging that Parke never paid her. She had stuck around only because Parke promised her a cut of one of E.O.A.’s supposed PPE contracts with Saudi Arabia, she said.

“It just makes me cringe to this day that I allowed that,” Sample continued. Still, she said, “I was also desperate.”

Court records and interviews suggest her experience mirrored that of many others sucked into E.O.A.

Muhammad Mansour, a Santa Rosa-based naturopathic doctor, has a roster of elite L.A. clients and a specialty in regenerative therapies, including laser treatments, nerve stimulation, and IV drips. When he met Parke and Enoch in 2024, he was under the impression that they were “very, very wealthy people” who owned a multimillion-dollar medical supplies company.

At their first meeting, the mother and son allegedly asked Mansour to provide free services in exchange for introductions to high-profile potential patients like Justin Bieber and NBA stars Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Parke even claimed to have ties to the mayor of Los Angeles and the White House, Mansour said. She showed him a photo of herself with Kardashian and a screenshot of an apparent Zoom call with Magic Johnson to prove her access.

“I told them I can’t do that, because it’s illegal. That’s called kickbacks,” he said.

Instead, they offered him a $125,000 retainer, Mansour recalled. He says Parke wrote a check—but told him not to cash it yet. She allegedly promised to pay his invoices promptly; the check was just insurance in case she didn’t follow through. She just needed a little bit of time to prepare the transfer, Mansour recounted her saying. She allegedly attributed the delay to bureaucratic issues caused by her contracts with the federal government.

Months ticked by, and Mansour continued treating Parke and Enoch on credit. Ari Rosenthal sent him a series of emailed excuses for the delays, he said.

As his unpaid bill soared, Mansour got fed up and decided to cash the check. He tried three different bank branches, but the check bounced.

In May, Mansour filed a lawsuit accusing Parke and Enoch of fraud and unjust enrichment. The language in the complaint alleged that Parke’s “intentional misrepresentations and false promises” induced him to provide services without compensation.

And it wasn’t just Parke and her son. It was also Ari Rosenthal, who should have held strict ethics by virtue of his faith and vocation.

Unless he didn’t exist. Mansour traced Rosenthal’s number, but “it came up a bust,” he said. “It was a scam number.” Cortez, who spent endless hours meeting everyone in Parke’s world, never spoke to the man either. Nor did anyone who received his emails: Mansour, Gray, McFarlane, Parke’s realtor, and at least one business E.O.A. owed money.

According to public records, no person named “Ari Rosenthal” is licensed to practice law in California, New York, or Pennsylvania. Marie Claire contacted the phone numbers in Rosenthal’s E.O.A. email signature, but no one picked up. The email account listed in his name is also no longer valid.

In her lawsuit, Cortez was explicit: Ari Rosenthal “is not a real person,” she wrote. Rather, she claimed, he was a fictional character devised to help E.O.A. get out of jams.

Mansour said he fell for Parke and Enoch’s tales because they knew which buttons to press. “They definitely wanted to target the fact [that] I was a minority in a space of doctors that are typically white,” he told Marie Claire. For a while, the message resonated.

“That’s one of the biggest things that Nicole sees in people…. What will get them to tick, what will get them to be on our team,” he said. “They’re very good at finding that Achilles’ heel, whatever it is. And they’ll just sing it. They’ll just sing it from the highest mountaintop.”

This year, yet another prominent figure walked into E.O.A.’s Burbank offices: Major General John F. Wharton, who had entered the private sector after retiring from the U.S. Army. Wharton told Marie Claire he was there to suss out the company on behalf of some friends, who were contemplating a deal involving nitrile gloves.

“Nicole and her son were very kind, cordial, and wonderful as people,” he said.

There came a point when E.O.A. was asked to write a partnership agreement, but Parke balked at paying for lawyers, the general said. For Wharton’s partners, that “was a little bit of a red flag,” considering how large of a company she claimed to be operating. The deal never went anywhere. But Parke still snagged a photo with her guest.

“SLAM DUNK!!!!” she texted one of her associates, alongside the image.

This was a familiar pattern. As with other celebrities, the photo was a victory itself, even though a business agreement never materialized. Parke used the same move last year on Kim Kardashian after she visited Burbank for a meeting.

Come January, the L.A. wildfires presented yet another opportunity for Parke to step into the spotlight. As flames engulfed the city, Parke devised her $100 million initiative.

She contacted Mansour—despite owing him tens of thousands of dollars—and allegedly asked if he wanted to participate. She told him she had already secured at least $75 million in commitments, he said. He declined to get involved. “I realized that [it] was just a ruse and a way of playing on people’s emotions during a time of crisis,” Mansour said.

According to Cortez, Mansour’s instincts were correct. “We can help rebuild L.A., and then we'll have access to whatever relationships that we want because we did a good deed for the city,” she recalled of Parke’s thinking.

Parke even hired a publicist, Erica Dumas, to help her go public with the plans. It was a chance to make herself a brand name in L.A., and perhaps land investments from ultra-rich benefactors. The details on how to follow through on such a massive pledge could apparently be sorted out later.

When Dumas arrived at their first meeting, Parke and Enoch were receiving IV drips, she said, “which seemed very unprofessional and odd.” Dumas recalled asking basic questions about where the $100 million was coming from, yet she didn’t receive clear answers.

“I immediately sensed something wasn’t right,” she said. The press release never went out.

Reached for comment about the debacle, a spokesperson for the mayor acknowledged that a member of the mayor’s staff joined one meeting regarding Parke’s plan after receiving a disaster relief proposal submitted on her behalf. He insisted, however, that the mayor’s office "had no involvement in the initiative you are referencing.”

By summer, the lawsuits had stacked up: Cortez. Cortez’s children. Mansour. Parke’s landlord. A marketing firm hired for the Dick Gregory film. Parke’s former realtor, Claudia Ilcken, sued her and Enoch, too, alleging they swindled her into investing $25,000 into E.O.A. by showing her fake contracts with Ghana and Qatar. In her complaint, Ilcken accused them of fraud and “predatory” behavior.

For some, the fallout was both personal and financial. Ilcken had bonded with Parke over their shared immigrant backgrounds and experiences as single mothers. “I just felt proud of her,” she said. Parke allegedly knew that Ilcken’s mom had recently undergone cancer treatment, so she brought Ilcken to the Burbank offices and showed her samples of gloves supposedly used for chemotherapy. Parke even sent her bible verses. The overtures moved Ilcken profoundly.

When Ilcken realized she had been duped, she was crushed. “It was hard for me to get out of bed,” she said, breaking down in tears. “I felt so stupid.”

Ilcken said she went to the Burbank Police, the Securities & Exchange Commission, the FBI, and the California Attorney General’s office to report Parke, but she said nothing came of it.

Gray was left equally wrecked. When her father died last year, she didn’t have the money to pay for his funeral, she said. “All this put a strain on my marriage,” she added. She and McFarlane are now living apart.

In the meantime, Parke went on offense. In March, her real attorney, Matthew L. Morris, sent a cease and desist to Cortez, accusing her of making “false and disparaging statements.” He sent a similar letter to McFarlane and Gray. (Morris told Marie Claire he “issued a cease-and-desist letter to certain individuals who were circulating demonstrably false claims.” He did not respond to an email asking him to elaborate on what those claims were, nor did he confirm whether he still represents Parke and Enoch; he told Marie Claire, “I don't have any greater contact with them than you do.”)

When Marie Claire reached out to Parke to ask about these mounting accusations, she answered the call with a chilly composure—and the same inexplicable British accent.

“You have the audacity to pick up the phone to call me and ask about my company,” she said. “Whichever witch hunt this is, they will not succeed.” She declined to answer specific questions, though she invited the reporter to visit her in person—only to revoke the offer hours later as the reporter was entering airport security.

Still, she remained defiant. “One thing you will learn about me,” she said, “I will always be true to who I am.”

It would be easy to cast Parke as a manipulator or a mastermind. But some former associates see a simple playbook—one where appearance, in certain circles, can be as powerful as proof. In Los Angeles, the right image—the clothes, the confidence, the company you keep—can go a long way before anyone asks hard questions.

Maybe Parke even started believing her own stories. Self-delusion can be a potent drug. After a while, said JJ Goldsbury, the PPE entrepreneur who once admired her, “it’s easy to get caught up in it.”

And apparently not easy to quit. This winter, as E.O.A.’s enemies were multiplying, Enoch reached out to Goldsbury again. He said he was working on something new—and that he needed a favor.

A small loan. Just $10 million.

When Living Single premiered in August 1993, the seminal yet undersung sitcom changed television forever. The five-season series made historic gains for creators of color working behind the scenes in Hollywood, and it originated a trend of “friends making it in the big city” stories that continues to this day. This year, stars Erika Alexander and Kim Coles continued the show’s legacy when they announced “ReLiving Single," the "official unofficial Living Single rewatch podcast,” and immediately became trailblazers in the podcasting industry.

“ReLiving Single” marks the first open-ended celebrity-hosted podcast that rewatches and reminisces on a previously aired show led by Black people in front of and behind the camera. Similar celebrity-hosted podcasts, which offer fans much-treasured nostalgia and behind-the-scenes gossip and give actors the platform to capitalize on the legacy of their best-known roles, have grown in popularity over the past tumultuous decade in Hollywood. But they’ve reflected the dynamics of Hollywood as a whole: They’re all for shows in the “mainstream,” with majority-white casts and writer’s rooms.

Although they’re an essential part of television history, series led by diverse casts tend to be buried by the industry. Anyone who grew up watching FOX, The WB, and UPN in the ‘90s and 2000s (or reruns of the legendary Black sitcoms of the ‘70s and ‘80s) knows that these shows don’t often get the props they deserve for leading the entertainment industry and inspiring the programs that came later, outside of “for us by us” celebrations like the BET and NAACP Awards. (Just look at the sparse history of Black Emmy winners before the 2020s, and even still, no Black-led show has ever won Outstanding Comedy Series.) When networks and streamers decide which franchises receive reboots, anniversary specials, or game shows, Black franchises are often an afterthought.

Thankfully, one of the hallmarks of Black fandom is a fervent need to give our icons their flowers while they’re still here to smell them. One of the avenues where this happens most often is in Black culture podcasts like “The Read,” “Vibe Check,” “For Colored Nerds,” and “The Nod,” the latter two being iterations of the eight-year hosting partnership between Brittany Luse (who’s now leading NPR’s "It’s Been a Minute") and Eric Eddings, now vice president of audio at Kevin Hart’s media company, Hartbeat. In May 2019, Alexander was a guest on Eddings’s “The Nod” for a retrospective episode, “The Rise and Fall of Black TV”—though they only scratched the surface on Living Single's legacy.

“[The stars of] Living Single were at the top of their craft when it came to creating comedy that authentically felt Black and was in conversation with the culture. It just felt like perfection then and now,” Eddings tells Marie Claire via email.

“I always wanted to ask more questions about her time on Living Single,” he says. “I wanted to understand what it was like to really build that behind the scenes, and all the little nuances that would appear when people are in front of the camera and the world doing something new and different. It felt obvious that it could create a really great framework for an ongoing show.”

So, six years later, Hartbeat and Alexander’s Color Farm Media brought “ReLiving Single” to life. The podcast is a “love letter to the fans”, but it’s a nuanced celebration. In each installment, the hosting duo breaks down an individual episode with behind-the-scenes recollections and expert analysis of the writing and performances, before diving into the societal themes of each episode to discuss how culture has evolved in the 30-plus years since the FOX hit's original airing. Now over 20 episodes into its inaugural season, “ReLiving Single” has used sitcom plots like Synclaire and Overton’s first date, Overton and Kyle’s first big fight as roommates, and Regine getting mugged, to discuss the evolution of sexual norms, toxic masculinity and male friendships, and the prison-industrial complex’s impact on Black families. For Alexander, who also serves as executive producer on the pod, the opportunity to take the series beyond nostalgia into the realm of education, or what she describes as a “masterclass talking about the industry [and life],” was why she agreed to do the show.

Of course, discussing Living Single also means revisiting back into the actress’s pasts, when the main cast and creator Yvette Lee Bowser (then Yvette Denise Lee, who became the first African-American woman to develop her own primetime series) were all in their 20s and 30s, filming a show about the similar work and dating woes they were going through in real life. Speaking to Marie Claire, longtime friends Alexander and Coles say that “ReLiving Single” has been full of revelations that they hadn’t known at the time and had never discussed.

“It’s been very sacred because we're laughing, but we are healing,” Alexander says. “We didn't know at the time that we were making a type of history, but inside of that [we were also] growing up. There were things that happened that were out of our control that were divisive and hurtful, and we hadn't talked about it in real space. We talked about it behind the scenes a little bit, but it also needed us to grow up and away from it, so it wasn't so raw and painful. So [the show’s] been a balm and a way, a sort of an entry point to some things that we just really could not face.”

It’s hard to explain how much Living Single means to me. It’s one of the shows that has made me who I am, both as a writer and TV critic and as a person. Khadijah (Queen Latifah), Max, Synclaire, and Regine gave me a vision of what I wanted for the future: a found family and a career I loved. (Yes, magazine publisher Khadijah was my favorite.) Listening to an episode of “ReLiving Single” feels like hanging out with my older sisters and role models every week; along with Alexander, Coles, and their guests, I’ve laughed a lot, learned a lot, and even teared up at the emotional moments. I often leave an episode thinking, They just don’t make shows like this anymore. And then a question pops up that can be shared by both the original series and the podcast: Why aren’t there more?

As Alexander points out, the powers that be in entertainment have a long-held practice of “devaluing” Black-led series, which Living Single has faced since its inception. (If you haven’t yet, look up “Living Single Friends.”) “There are all these shows that are beloved, but people did not want to put money [in them],” she says. “I don't know how we've gotten that because Black culture has obviously fueled American culture. All the foundation of it is rooted in African-Americans, but it doesn't mean [they’ll put money behind us]. Racism is very systemic and insidious, and in that way, it has stopped the advancement of most shows of color in all sorts of ways that you could exploit the trademarks.”

“ReLiving Single” is a bit of a miracle in 2025, as Black, Indigenous, and POC representation continues to dwindle in all industries, not just entertainment. It’s also a potential blueprint to keep the legacy of these series alive and inspire both casual fans and future storytellers to tell diverse stories. “We have seen so many rewatch podcasts,” Coles says. “Why not have all of [these shows] have their own place where the fans and the friends and people who are interested in the history get to watch and learn and [reminisce]. If these characters and shows cause a visceral response, then why not have the people who [made them] have a deep, rich, and revealing conversation about their time?”

“There are so many opportunities for creators to come back to the moments they created something that impacted us,” Eddings adds. “Rewatch podcasts are an amazing part of that, and it's important for Black people to be in community and tell our stories.

Now that ReLiving Single has been named one of the best new podcasts of 2025, will more Black rewatch podcasts follow in its footsteps? Could we get Jasmine Guy and Kadeem Hardison going deep on A Different World, or Jackée Harry and Regina King reminiscing about 227, or an extended chat between our Girlfriends? Whatever the next iteration is, I’ll be there to walk down memory lane and give long-awaited props to one of the Black shows that moved television forward.

In Exit Interview, Marie Claire has a candid conversation with someone who has left their job. We learn all about their experience—both the good and bad—plus why they decided to leave and what life looks like on the other side. This time, we talk to Tania Flynn, who spent nearly two decades rising through Nike’s design ranks before joining Athleta as head of design. Almost a year into the new role, Flynn finds herself writing a new career playbook that involves a more hands-on approach to designing sportswear around real women’s lives.

When did you know it was time to move on from Nike?

I look back on that time fondly. It shaped who I am as a creative, a designer, and a leader. But after that long in one place, you naturally start to wonder: What’s next? I became more curious about where I was heading than what I left behind.

When I stepped into my first leadership role at Nike as a design director for the brand’s youth apparel team, I had a chance to help young girls build their confidence through clothing. The stats show a lack of body confidence as a major factor discouraging developing girls from participating in sports. I realized that my work could actually help to change that.

Then I became the label’s VP of Apparel Design, where I worked more broadly across styles, overseeing product design for women’s, men’s, kids', and accessories categories. Because of the scale of my role, I was more focused on leading large teams and overseeing a broad vision for global product lines. While I had influence over product direction, a lot of the day-to-day creative decisions were managed by others.

So when Athleta offered me the chance to reconnect with my passion for helping women and girls unlock their potential—while being more involved in design choices—I knew it was the right move for me.

At the time, I was also pregnant with my little girl, Lucy. And when I thought about the world I could help create for our future generation of young women, this new role felt like the perfect place to do that.

What did it feel like to make such a big career shift while you were pregnant with your daughter?

Leaving Nike while pregnant was both exhilarating and overwhelming. It felt like I was stepping into two new chapters at once—one in my professional life and another in my personal life. There were definitely moments of self-doubt, as there often are when you’re navigating major life changes. But I maintained my confidence by focusing on the lessons I gained from the transition. For one, I learned how to manage my time and energy more effectively, both of which become increasingly limited during pregnancy. I also developed a stronger sense of patience, with myself and with others.

What was the most emotional part about the move from Nike to Athleta, and what unexpected challenges came from the transition?

I was emotional about walking away from the legacy that I had built at Nike. I created lifelong friendships with coworkers, contributed to designs that became cultural icons, and experienced the evolution of sport and style on a global scale.

Leaving such a familiar world felt extremely daunting and I surely didn’t anticipate the adjustment period that followed my departure. Adapting to new processes and unfamiliar people required patience. I had to recalibrate how I led teams and communicated my ideas, but in those moments I was reminded that meaningful growth rarely happens inside our comfort zones.

Are there any personal experiences that influenced your decision to move to Athleta?

Athleta’s commitment to empowering women resonates deeply with my own story. Similar to a lot of other girls, I struggled with my self-esteem while going through puberty. I got my period when I was 11 years old and I had boobs in the fourth grade. I had an ill-fitting bra that I layered underneath my school uniform, and I wore two of them to do any physical activity. Developing early—and ahead of my peers—was a really emotional experience. I can think of so many embarrassing moments—not only as a child, but also as an adult—that could have been avoided if a sportswear designer had considered my not-so-unique set of pain points.

Now, I’m in a position at Athleta where I can be that conscious-driven designer. That’s what keeps me fired up every day.

What was the toughest piece of criticism you received in your previous role, and how did it help you to become a better leader?

Someone once told me I’m too direct in my communication style. I took that to heart and began studying leaders who deliver honest feedback with both clarity and respect. Their example showed me how to stay candid yet considerate, and that’s the standard I work towards.

I want my teams—past and present—to see what authentic, courageous leadership looks like. By bringing my full self to work—as a woman, a person of color, a mother, and a wife—I’m modeling a multifaceted identity in leadership and encouraging others to do the same.

Which lessons from your previous work experience are guiding you now?

Early in my career, I took several roles that—on paper—didn’t match the long-term vision I had for myself. One example was moving into a position leading Nike's kids' business, which felt like a sharp departure from the work I had done—and candidly, not as exciting.

At the time, I was frustrated, but with distance, each detour stretched my skill set and widened my network. That experience ended up unlocking a new sense of purpose. It taught me the importance of showing up where I’m needed most, even if it doesn't fit my original "plan.” Rather than resist the change, I chose to lean in. I viewed those pivots as opportunities to stretch and grow. Each of those roles added dimension to my career and prepared me to be a better steward of the business.

At Nike, I also discovered how a strong narrative can give every seam and zipper a reason to exist. That insight forced me to listen harder to the athlete, not just what she does, but how she feels. Empathy became foundational. My team and I map the emotional context of a woman’s life—whether she’s moving from teen to adult or juggling a new baby and a marathon plan. We ask, What motivates her? What challenges her? And then design with that awareness.

Getting dressed is an emotional decision; what we put on our bodies is an extension of identity. So every product has to work twice: perform technically and serve as a tool for self-expression.

In hindsight, the sum of all those winding choices—and the narrative focus I honed at Nike—brought me exactly where I’m supposed to be.

For anyone eyeing a career pivot but paralyzed by “what-ifs,” how would you help them reframe that fear?

Making a career pivot is rarely easy—in fact, it’s usually uncomfortable. But if you find fear along the path toward your purpose, that’s actually a good sign; those uneasy moments are where the biggest growth happens.

Transitioning from Nike to Athleta felt intimidating. Not only was I pregnant, but I had to navigate an entirely new environment and its dynamics. However, taking that leap was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I had to look inward for the strength to navigate tough stretches and trust that my skills and experiences would carry me forward.

I also leaned hard on my trusted tribe—mentors, close friends, and especially my family. Spending time with them always re-centers me—drawing superheroes with my seven-year-old, playing peekaboo with my eight-month-old, or debriefing the day with my husband. Stepping away from my desk and connecting with my people brings me peace, recharges my energy, and reminds me that I’m never tackling a pivot alone.

It was on a visit to Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon when Evelynn Escobar noticed it. She was 23, road tripping to a national park for the first time, and realized that among the crowds there was no diversity—no one who looked like her. "I saw nothing but white people," she says, remembering how she clocked the stares. "I'm Black and Indigenous to Guatemala. My ancestors are from just south of there, and yet I'm the one who looked out of place."

After returning home to L.A., Escobar learned she wasn't alone in feeling like an outsider in the outdoors: Nearly 70 percent of today’s outdoor enthusiasts are white, creating what she refers to as the "nature gap," a lack of diversity on trails and in parks, in part because of racial and economic disparities affecting access.

Addressing those inequalities inspired her to forge a new path, and became the guiding force behind Hike Clerb—a collective Escobar began in 2017 to "reimagine a more equitable and inclusive outdoors." The group offers guided day hikes, overnight backpacking trips, gear workshops, trail stewardship days, and community socials—all in the spirit of providing Black and brown people with the opportunity to connect with nature, and ultimately, find healing through the land.

Since its inception, Hike Clerb has grown from a ten-person inaugural trek to Griffith Observatory in L.A. to a coast-to-coast movement with over 45,000 digital club members and regular programs in L.A., New York City, and the Bay Area. It's joined forces with brand like Timberland and The North Face to expand its community, including the ability to provide gear grants to first-time hikers.

But Escobar isn't done. “I want people to use their imagination and help build a world where the most excluded are actually the most included,” she says. Below, she shares what's next for Hike Clerb, the progress she's seen since she first began, and why movement is medicine.

What were you doing before Hike Clerb, and what inspired you to change gears?

My background is in social media management. I was working for different fashion and beauty brands while I was building Hike Clerb, and while it felt fun from the expression standpoint, I just didn’t feel totally fulfilled. That shift crystallized during a moment of curiosity after my visit to Zion; it set off this big moment of clarity of just like, Why is it like this? I wanted to bring other women like myself to come together and take up space in the outdoors. I was able to channel my social media knowledge and skills into actually creating a community that is very social-first. That was the catalyst.

A big part of Hike Clerb's mission is obviously to get people out hiking, but it's also much bigger than that. Can you share any moments that illustrate that?

Someone recently told me they met their best friend at one of our events, and then attended her wedding. Parents in our family program say their kids now connect every camping trip back to Hike Clerb. It’s become this really beautiful thing where we’re a fixture in people’s core memories, and that’s my favorite piece of it.

Moments like that show we’re not just logging trail miles; we’re flipping the script on who gets to belong outside. We center women, femmes, and non-binary folks precisely because the trail hasn’t, but anyone who’s down to reimagine the outdoors is welcome to lace up and come along.

You have grown from an Instagram account to a full-fledged nonprofit. What has funding and leadership looked like for you as a woman of color?

When it comes to for-profit businesses, Black women get about one percent of venture-capital dollars—in philanthropy, it’s even less. A lot of what I’ve done has been making the impossible possible with limited resources. Imagine what we could do if someone actually said, ‘Here’s the capital, we’ve got your back.’

I was a reluctant leader—introverted, shying from attention—but the work taught me to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Real self-care isn’t a spa day; it’s prioritizing my wellness so the community can thrive. I’ve learned to ask for help, honor my bandwidth, and lead with vulnerability and honesty. Nature has also been integral to my journeys in mental health and motherhood.

I’m world-building; creating the place I want my kids to exist in. I’ve led hikes while seven months pregnant, I bring my daughter, and I make space for every age to be out there. If you hear a kid having a tantrum or crying, that’s just them being them. It might feel weird at first because it’s not normalized to be in community with children, but they’re people too, and they need to be out here. Showing that parenthood belongs outdoors has also been liberating for me and for others who see it.

What does the future of the outdoors look like when the people who were once left out are welcomed?

We’re leaving a legacy of healing, curiosity, exploration, and changing narratives about who takes up space. If you care about nature, you connect it to everything: climate, justice, community, wellness. This journey has fundamentally changed my life in every way. The blueprint we’re leaving shows people taking their own healing seriously and giving their kids the opportunities they never had.

How did you picture inclusivity on the trail back in 2017, and what does it look like now?

There’s absolutely been a positive evolution. We’re breaking the stereotype of what an outdoorsy person looks like; people are embracing their own version of nature and naming the healing piece—mental health, self, and community care. I wanted to bring the fashion and the cultural part in, and make the trail itself a kind of creative expression. But I still go to places like Yellowstone and think, Wow, it feels like no work has been done here. There’s a ton left to do.

I want to get to the root. Hiking is our vessel to surface the challenges we see in society, ground them, and inspire action. Without political education, we can’t dissect why these spaces look the way they do.

Where do you see Hike Clerb in the next few years?

We’ve accomplished so much in eight years, but when I look to the future, I envision a Hike Clerb that is well-resourced and [even better] supported. One that is activating across the globe, tapping into more unique cultural experiences that connect people to the land in exciting new ways, led by the people of those cultures. Instagram is our biggest funnel into the Hike Clerb universe, and that digital momentum keeps fueling growth on the ground. We’ve done a lot with limited resources, but real funding would let us scale our impact even further for the long haul.

With 3.6 million followers on Instagram, 2.7 million on TikTok, and a New York Times bestselling book, Vivian Tu, best known by her moniker "Your Rich BFF," has a lot of besties.

The financial expert and content creator began to gain a following at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and has since continued to share short, easy-to-digest videos filled with her money tips and economic explanations, from the expenses of being a bridesmaid to understanding tariffs. The self-described former "Wall Street girlie" discusses these topics and more on the latest episode of the Marie Claire podcast "Nice Talk" with editor-in-chief Nikki Ogunnaike.

If you've been noticing warnings of a looming recession—whether by reading the news or seeing all of those "recession indicator" memes—she has plenty of advice on how to prepare.

As Tu explains on "Nice Talk," a recession is generally defined as "two down quarters of GDP growth in a row."

"We're not quite there yet," she says, but "whether or not we're in a technical recession, I think people should start preparing."

For Tu, this means a few different things. First, "making sure that you have a bigger emergency fund than usual."

"I don't think people really understand the whole point of having an emergency fund," the 31-year-old says. "Yes, it's for catastrophic events—like you walk down the sidewalk, you trip and break your arm—but it's actually more so for the predictable things that could happen, like layoffs."

Plus, during a recession, it could take longer to find a job if you are laid off, which means you'd need a bigger safety net, if possible. Tu also suggests getting your résumé up to date. She shares her thoughts on the podcast about what people with debt and investments should do ahead of a recession.

For those with summer plans involving travel or weddings, Tu has advice for you, too.

"What I think we should all acknowledge is that we should not go into financial duress for other people's life moments," she says. "You can say no, and you should not feel weird about saying no." (Anyone invited to multiple weddings this year can breathe a sigh of relief!)

For bridesmaids, she suggests having an honest conversation with the bride if you are concerned about the costs of the bachelorette party, dress, travel, and hotels adding up. "'What are the most important things to you that I'm at?'" she suggests asking. "Make them pick or say, 'This is my budget for this. I want to be there for you on your special day, and I don't want your vision to be hindered by what I am able to spend. Is that okay? Or is there some way else I can support you?'"

Whether you're traveling for a wedding or otherwise this summer, you probably should have booked your tickets already, according to Tu. "You can't book your flight two weeks out anymore, my friends, you gotta plan this out three to six months in advance," she says. "If you are going international, if you can book that flight a year in advance, you're gonna be better off."

For more of Tu's advice—including the best time of year to travel and how to make the most of credit card rewards and airline miles—check out this week's installment of "Nice Talk". The episode is available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

The Cost of Starting Your Own Business talks to founders to get an honest look at what it really takes to create a company. Not just the financial, but the personal and emotional costs, too.

Danielle A. Scruggs didn't expect that Ava DuVernay's debut film I Will Follow would change her life. But seeing a movie created by, and starring, a Black woman was enough to inspire her to start Black Women Directors—a digital library where she cataloged movies by Black female and nonbinary filmmakers, while advocating for the further hiring of diverse filmmakers.

"I started Black Women Directors because I wanted to learn more for myself," says Scruggs, 40, who primarily works as a photojournalist and photo editor in Chicago. "What I realized as it gained a lot of traction is that this isn’t just something I’m interested in; a lot of other people want this information, too.”

Information that Scruggs hopes doesn't just educate—but leads to real change. According to a USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study only 5.3 percent of 2024’s top-grossing movies were made by women of color. “There’s really great work being done by Black women, and they deserve a fair shake at equity,” Scruggs says. “I hope that Hollywood also sees that they don’t have to hire the same people over and over again. There are so many people to choose from, and you’re not gonna get a monolithic point of view if you hire someone featured in this archive.”

Since its launch in 2015, Black Women Directors has continued to expand its footprint. Scruggs collaborated with Black Film Club Chicago last August to launch the Chicago Film Symposium, which is in the planning stages to return later this year. She’s also begun to pick up more accolades, like two 2025 Webby Awards and an upcoming fellowship with Archiving The Black Web. Filmmakers from Justin Simien to Radha Blank—and even DuVernay herself—have even shown their support for the site.

On a video call in April, we talked with Scruggs about how she transformed her educational Tumblr into an expansive platform, where she sees the future of Black Women Directors going, and the shoutout that shocked her.

Seeing the I Will Follow posters was a moment that stuck with me. In 2015, I realized, I want to have all these things I’m seeing in one place, so let me start a Tumblr like everyone else. It went through a couple different cycles. Eventually, I moved it to Squarespace. I worked with a developer and designer to do a redesign of it two years ago to make it more search-friendly, easier to use, and more aesthetically pleasing.

When I started the site, I would get a lot of messages and emails from people saying, “That’s so great that you featured this person. Make sure you check out this other person.” I looked at a lot of different sources to figure out who to feature, putting my journalism skills to use.

Hosting a site on Squarespace is $196 for the whole year. I decided to start doing it by year, more so for psychological purposes, and not seeing a monthly amount leave my bank account. It’s $40 for the domain name. I used to pay $30 a month for Mailchimp, but I moved to Substack because it’s free, and I felt like I could have a bigger reach. I also paid for movie streaming services like Netflix, Criterion Channel, HBO, and costs related to movie screenings.

I have donations set up, but to be fully transparent, I don’t get a ton of donations. I’m selling a zine and also have an option for people to subscribe to my Substack, but it’s available for free. All donations and proceeds go towards hosting the site, but I don’t have a major funder or sponsor.

Launching the Chicago Film Symposium last year, we were incredibly lucky because we reached out to Sisters in Cinema, and they had grant funding that covered the venue and AV equipment. So between Black Women Directors and Black Film Club, we only paid for catering, an event photographer, and marketing materials. Right now, we’re finding sponsors for the next iteration by reaching out to local and national businesses. Financially, it’s a bit of a challenge because none of us is independently wealthy, and we don’t have a grant sponsor yet.

Black Women Directors is a one-woman labor of love, and the biggest hurdle is time. I don’t work on this full time. My day job photo editing is pretty demanding in and of itself, so being able to make time and making sure I have the emotional capacity after work is a big thing.

I update the site, publish a monthly newsletter on Substack, and sell a zine. It takes me about 10 hours every week. The actual writing of everything takes about two hours, but there are other hours of doing the research, culling through different screening announcements, watching movies, and processing what you’ve seen. Eventually, I would like to hire someone to work with me on adding directors to the site and then featuring guest writers in the newsletter.

Last year, planning the Symposium was really challenging because I was working at The Wall Street Journal. We had our Symposium right before the DNC, which I was covering because it was in Chicago. I’m still honestly not sure how I was able to work on my day job and then work on creating that event at the same time. I never got to the point where I didn’t want to do this anymore, but there were definitely times where I felt like, Did I bite off more than I can chew? I had to remind myself, You're only one person. You also have two other people [via Black Film Club Chicago] you can lean on. You don't have to try to do everything yourself.

For the most part, people have been supportive and excited to see that there's a platform like this, but sometimes people will email me negative things. I got one last month accusing me of reverse racism. The email said, “Why do you have a site that's just about Black women directors? It should be about all women directors or it should just be about all directors.” Someone else wrote to me about the fact that I included trans women. It didn't even occur to me that that would be an issue for someone; it's called Black Women Directors. I'm hoping that because there's been more education around gender identity issues, that's not going to continue to be an issue.

I was featured in The Cut, which was surprising because I didn’t know anyone there knew about me. They had a feature about how to find out about Black women filmmakers, and they listed me along with Maya Cade’s Black Film Archive. I was like, Whoa, that’s pretty cool. I’m in very good company.

When I first started the site, I got a shout-out from the British Film Institute on Twitter. I was like, How did they even know about me? I took a screenshot to remember that people are paying attention to the work.

This is a lot of fun for me. I love doing research. I love doing deep dives. I love watching films and learning more about different filmmakers who are out there. It inspires me as well. Through Black Women Directors, I've connected with a lot of different people locally, nationally, even internationally. It's been a very humbling experience to realize that something that I started purely for my own selfish purposes of wanting to learn more about Black women in film has turned into a bigger platform.

We ask a lot of our work bags. They need to be sturdy, roomy enough to fit everything from a laptop to commuting sneakers, and thoughtfully designed with properly placed zippers and pockets. And we expect this all to show up in style, because no one wants a laptop bag that screams “Excel spreadsheet enthusiast.”

But also, we're busy. Which means not a lot of time to spend on finding the bag that makes our jobs easier. To help, we asked 10 super successful women to share the carryalls that clock in and out with them each day. Some have found heroes in five-digit designer bags; another relies on a $150 gym duffle that doubles as a commuter-workhorse-slash-survival kit. Their picks range across aesthetics and price points, but all are capable of bouncing from boardroom to pre-school pickups and beyond.

Vivian Tu; author, founder, and CEO of Your Rich BFF

Her pick: Longchamp Le Roseau L Handbag, $825

What she loves: I trust this bag with my life. I’m often running from a high-stakes boardroom meeting to the subway, then to the gym, and back again—sometimes leaving my house at nine in the morning and not getting home until nine that night. I need a bag that carries everything and then some, so I don’t have to make a pit stop at home. That’s this bag: It fits my laptop, wallet, keys, a portable ring light, all ten of my different lip glosses (God forbid, a girl wants options!), and an extra workout set of clothes for my post-work gym session.

Why it’s worth the splurge: Le Roseau is an investment piece, but it’s not outrageously priced. I live by the motto “buy nice, or buy twice," and I'm happy to pay for higher-quality material, knowing this isn’t a bag I’ll have to replace every couple of years. I’ve been a loyal Longchamp fan for years—I used to carry their iconic Le Pliage nylon tote throughout college—so I know these bags can take a beating. The leather holds up well and develops a beautiful patina over time. The bag is also super stylish, so I know that I'll feel confident and put-together no matter what room I’m walking into—which means I can focus on what I’m saying versus what I look like while saying it.

Sade Lythcott; CEO, National Black Theatre

Her pick: Vintage Prada Tessuto & Leather Gaufre Cargo Tote, $780

What she loves: After nearly two decades of use, this bag still stands strong. It has met me at every phase of my personal and professional growth, and the transition from motherhood to mogul is seamless with a tote that matches the full spectrum of my day. It’s handled everything from diaper duty and school pickups to capital campaign pitches and donor lunches with equal gravitas. That’s the rhythm of my life, and it keeps pace.

On blending fashion and function: This bag is beauty and utility in perfect balance. I love the bold brass hardware, the mix of leather and nylon buckles, and the cavernous pockets. It's elegant without being precious or pretentious—equal parts classic and chic.

Kimberly Drew; independent curator and creative consultant

Her pick: On Track Pack 35L Smart Everyday Gym Bag, $150

What she loves: I feel a little silly admitting that my favorite adult woman bag is a gym bag—but the gym is life, and here we are. I live in Brooklyn, which means that crossing any bridge might result in me not returning home for hours—if not days. So I welcome the unhinged urge to pack for the unexpected and treat my bag like a mobile storage unit.

How it empowers her: As an independent curator, I treasure my freedom and autonomy on a deep, spiritual level. I love carrying around a silly little gym bag because it makes me feel empowered to be both feral and limitless—and it’s a reminder to live above shame. My days rarely look the same, and I feel most capable with my Track Pack filled with essentials, like a change of clothes, a water bottle, approximately three to five chapsticks (I am just a girl!), and other items that remove some of the guesswork from surviving capitalism.

Lisa Ing Marinelli; lawyer and digital fashion content creator

Her pick: The Row Large N/S Park Tote, $2,600

What she loves: I've been using this bag exclusively for work (and sometimes, travel) for about three years. The leather is thick and durable, the corners are scratch-resistant, and it's bottomless—I’ve stuffed coats, laptops, chargers, wallets, more bags, etc., in there without any worry of the bag breaking. It still looks brand new despite the obvious wear and tear it goes through.

What convinced her to finally press buy: It has the subtle, quiet luxury of The Row—it doesn’t scream designer, but it is, which is the best kind of designer bag. I love to look sleek, whether at work or home, but I never want to appear too designer or loud, especially in the office. This bag reminds me—and the world—that I am strong, but it’s not in your face with it. It’s a reminder that you can be impactful without needing to scream it.

Pam Nasr; film director

Her pick: Ecco’s Upcycled Leather Tote Bag, $95

Why she loves it: This tote bag comes with me to all my sets. Every minute during a shoot is precious and the last thing I want to do is play hide and seek with all the contents in my bag. This tote gives me quick access to grab any material I need while running around. I also usually have a big, loose pile of papers—scripts, notes, call sheets—stashed in the bag, and I’ve never had a piece crinkle in this bag.

Its hard-wearing features: It's sleek and sits comfortably on the shoulder, but I was really just surprised by how durable it is. I travel a lot and can fold the tote super flat without cracking the leather material. It's also large enough to fit my laptop, toiletries, a change of clothes, and a handy cam, but not too bulky to the point where it looks like I'm carrying everything. Sometimes I look at someone who's carrying a big bag overflowing with stuff and get secondhand shoulder pain—that’s not this bag.

Sarah Kate Ellis; president and CEO of GLAAD

Her pick: Tory Burch Ella Tote Bag, $248

What she loves: To say that I'm booked and busy is an understatement. I’m bouncing between high-profile meetings with business leaders, donors, politicians, and journalists, and crucial catch-ups with LGBTQ activists, before ending the day with my wife and kids. This bag effortlessly transitions from day to night because it accommodates a lot—my laptop, a notebook, and one or two books that I keep on hand in case I need a quick moment of escape.

Its secret, standout detail: There’s a hidden outside pocket on the logo that is convenient yet secure enough that I feel comfortable keeping my phone in there when I’m jetting in and out of our New York City office and hopping into a cab at a moment’s notice.

April Lockhart; creator and disability advocate

Her pick: Liffner Sprout Tote, $675

What she loves: It’s no secret that I have a big love for bags (don’t ask me how many I have, because I don't know the exact number), but I keep coming back to Liffner's Sprout Tote. It’s a Mary Poppins bag for sure; on any given day, it fits my laptop, workout clothes, all my chargers, a daily planner, a tripod, and a camera, and it keeps up with me while I’m schlepping from my house to my content studio to meetings, events, and dinners.

How it pulls double duty: I have a habit of sacrificing function for the sake of fashion, but I didn’t want to make that choice with the work bag I’m bringing everywhere, every day. I needed a bag that can do it all and with style. This tote is a brighter, bolder pop of color departure from your typical work minimal tote, but it’s versatile enough to carry throughout the seasons. And crucially, it’s my most useful accessory and has all the makings of a great practical "everything" bag: plenty of depth, a little pocket inside for your wallet or keys, and a zip-top to keep it all secure.

Noor Tagouri; journalist and founder of At Your Service

Her pick: Andever Here and Now Tote

What she loves: Honestly, I’m such a tote girl, and I have to be because I don’t leave the house without my leather journal, a book, a water bottle, and Pure Beings Blackseed and Olive Nasal Oil. I literally keep it with me at all times, 24/7 around the clock. Also, I pack this tote to the brim, and it maintains its shape perfectly.

On its one-of-a-kind design: Designed by my partner, Adam Khafif, for his brand, Andever, this leather tote was hand-painted and made at the last remaining natural tannery in Morocco. Because it is natural leather and not treated with any chemicals, each bag has a perfectly “imperfect” look. No two bags look the same, simply because of how the paint interacts with the leather, which really elevates the look. I also love the messaging on the tote, “Here & There”—it serves as my reminder to be here now, anywhere I go.

Julia Rabinowitsch; founder of The Millennial Decorator

Her pick: Polo Ralph Lauren Polo ID Calfskin Large Shoulder Bag, $798

What she loves: This bag is like my assistant. It does exactly what I need and empowers me to my fullest. Depending on my outfit, mood, and what I'm carrying, I can switch the strap to a crossbody or shoulder bag, which is a major plus. Ralph Lauren really does it best. The quality, structure, and size of this bag—everything is 10/10.

What fits inside: I am constantly on the go and don't have a car, so unlike most people in L.A., who can use their cars as mobile offices, I need a bag I trust to carry a million of my things. This one fits the house: my laptop, a great pair of vintage heels, flats or loafers, my wallet, sunglasses, a light sweater, a small toiletry bag, a charger, and a Chanel lipstick. I feel effortless and effective due to the sheer magnitude of stuff this bag can hold.

Katie Jane Hughes; celebrity makeup artist and founder of KJH.brand

Her pick: Tumi 19 Degree Lite, $950

What she loves: Your makeup kit is your signature as a makeup artist. Everyone likes a different type of bag and size, and I've found one that is perfect for me. It’s sleek and lightweight, which is extremely helpful because the makeup I carry is very heavy, and most hard-case bags add a lot of extra weight. It feels like I can carry an entire Sephora in this bag.

Why it’s great on the go: The four wheels make it easy to maneuver around New York City streets, travel through an airport, and get to any job or set. I can literally just grab it and go. I put a monogram on the top, which is great for speeding through the airport—when it comes around the luggage carousel, you clearly know it's yours.

'Marie Claire's' Additional Selects

Team Marie Claire has our own Rolodex of overachieving work bags. Here are the styles our writers and editors vouch for, from a viral tote that earns compliments on morning Manhattan commutes to a low-profile laptop backpack that clocks in and out without complaint.

In the past, makeup was designed to mask blemishes. Breakout? Slather on some concealer and hope for the best. However, nowadays, the focus is on skincare, and many products include ingredients that can benefit your skin, too.

There's a wide world of makeup and skincare out there, though, and it can be a challenge to navigate from hyaluronic-this to ceramide-that. On a recent panel titled "The Business of Beauty: How Science-Driven Innovation Fuels Growth and Success" at Marie Claire's Power Play summit in Atlanta, three skincare experts spoke to editor-in-chief Nikki Ogunnaike and gave their advice on which skincare ingredients are worth looking for in makeup. The panel—featuring dermatologists Dr. Uchenna Okereke and Dr. Heather Woolery-Lloyd, and director of the Cosmetic Science program at Spelman College, Dr. Leyte Winfield—is now available to listen to as an episode of Marie Claire's "Nice Talk" podcast.

"I think peptides are great," says Dr. Okereke. "I think that they're a great carrier to actually bring ingredients into the skin, because when we think about our skin as a skin barrier, it's meant to keep things out, right? So, if molecules are of a certain size or too large, [peptides can be a carrier to] actually penetrate through to the skin." She adds that peptides can also "help to block neurotransmitters to reduce fine lines and wrinkles," explaining that for anyone with sensitive skin who is concerned with fine lines and wrinkles, peptides can be an alternative to retinol.

Dr. Woolery-Lloyd mentions SPF as her top skincare-in-makeup suggestion.

"I'm a big believer in double duty and multitasking in all aspects of life, including my skincare, so I love makeup products that have sun protection." She explains that an SPF of 30 or 45 is what to look for, and to ensure you're using enough SPF to be protected from the sun. "If you can use the appropriate amount to get your SPF, or layer it on top, you get a little bit of extra protection," the dermatologist says.

Additionally, Dr. Woolery-Lloyd notes how niacinamide and vitamin C are other ingredients to look for when it comes to the "skinification of makeup."

Dr. Okereke explains that event sponsor Clinique's new foundation, Even Better Clinical Vitamin Makeup, fits the bill, because it has SPF 45, "which is something that you don't usually see, as far as makeup goes." It even contains vitamins C and E to help improve "overall skin texture."

On the panel, the experts also share what skincare buzzwords mean ("Clean" can be vague, right? And what qualifies "science-backed?") and discuss how the beauty landscape—including legacy brand Clinique—is evolving scientifically. You can hear their entire chat now on "Nice Talk," available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Bozoma Saint John was a newbie on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 14, but she didn't shy away from speaking her mind. Often referencing her success as a communicator in the boardroom, the marketing exec was able to translate her business skills to navigating a dramatic group of reality TV pros. But Saint John wasn't only speaking with her voice on her first season—she was also communicating with her clothes.

On the latest episode of the Marie Claire podcast "Nice Talk," Saint John opens up about her decision to wear exclusively Black designers on RHOBH, and why she plans to keep this up for the next season.

According to Saint John, wearing only Black brands wasn't initially her plan, but it fell into place after she attended the first event of the season: a surrealism-themed party thrown by castmate Sutton Stracke.

"I partnered with one of my favorite designers, Mimmy Yeboah, who is Ghanaian. She does couture. I've worked with her numerous times, and she made me this extravagant confection of a cape, which was all roses, and it's this off-white and structured body of a dress. I mean, it was just spectacular," Saint John explains. "When I wore it, I knew the significance of wearing her and what that would signal."

At that point, Saint John recognized her mission. She teamed up with Yeboah again for the season's promotional photos, and they drew inspiration from legendary Black designer Zelda Wynn Valdes for her gown.

"After that, I was like, Well, I can't go backwards," Saint John says. "So I just started pulling things out of my closet that were Black designers." From there, she got help from a stylist friend, who helped assemble her outfits for the rest of the season. "The entire season, 53 looks were all Black—every single thing that I wore."

She will keep this up for her sophomore season. "Fashion is such an important topic on this show, right?" the business executive explains. "I'm like, Okay, well, if everybody has a thing, then why can't my thing be Black?"

On "Nice Talk," Saint John also talks about her career before joining Housewives full-time in 2024, including how she and Beyoncé impacted each other's careers.

Saint John, who has held executive-level positions at brands like Netflix, Uber, and Apple Music, worked as an assistant at Spike Lee's advertising agency Spike DDB early on in her career. On the podcast, she recalls suggesting Queen Bey should be the star of a campaign the agency was working on for Pepsi. That kicked off a lengthy collaboration between the soda brand and the pop icon.

Years later, the RHOBH star worked with Beyoncé again for her 2013 Super Bowl Halftime Show—this time, with Saint John as the head of music and entertainment marketing at PepsiCo, the event sponsor.

Saint John shares more about her various professional endeavors, pivoting to reality TV, her new show with Jimmy Fallon, On Brand, and more on this week's installment of "Nice Talk." The episode is available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

One of the past year's biggest trends is a slogan T-shirt with a powerfully succinct message: "Everyone watches women's sports." It's not quite an exaggeration. Viewership for basketball, soccer, and more are on the rise, at both the collegiate and pro levels. WNBA tunnel 'fits get as much attention as their NBA counterparts. Brands are inking major sponsorship deals with women's teams. According to athletes, executives, and founders in the industry, the momentum is only getting started.

At Marie Claire's Power Play summit in Atlanta on May 15, two-time Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles, Atlanta Dream COO and President Morgan Shaw Parker, and Jolene Jolene sports bar founder Chelsea Fishman agreed the attention was long overdue. In a conversation presented by Zales with journalist and analyst Tabitha Turner-Wilkins, they said the state of women's sports isn't simply "strong" or "growing." "I would say, we are up there," Chiles told the room to applause. Expanding viewership isn't just on account of their physical prowess; it's on the passion and purpose they bring.

Putting their entire selves on the mat, court, or fan circuit comes with its downsides. Chiles, for example, faced harassment on a global scale after her Olympic medal was revoked last summer (never mind that the entire controversy wasn't her fault). For every supporter who couldn't wait to visit Fishman's new bar, there were dozens of Reddit commenters doubting a women's sports-dedicated spot could last.

The detractors hurt, but they also motivated panelists to keep advocating for equal attention (and pay). "We're not going to solve it all in this lifetime, but if I could help push this industry, this movement, a small step forward, and we can actually see it in our lifetime, that's a life well lived," Shaw Parker said.

Ahead, read the best quotes from these barrier-breakers' wide-ranging conversation on ambition, pressure, and authenticity, on and off their preferred playing fields. If you're not watching women's sports already, you will be by the end.

Jordan Chiles, Two-Time Olympic Gymnast

On bullying after the Paris Olympics: "Since Paris...I think that was the hardest thing that I've ever had to do in my life. I've been racially attacked online, and told to get hung and and lynched and all these things. But I think this moment was the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with, and I did go down into the deepest of all deeps. I didn't know if I deserved. I didn't know if I was great.

I was like, why does every single time I do something great, it always gets stripped? [...] The only reason why it happens to me is because I am strong. I get to be put into the next thing that's being given to me. Since then, I've been able to present at VMAs. I've been able to use my platforms to help with mental health and encourage the younger generation. I went to college. That past is the past, and I can only control what's the future. Being myself is the biggest thing that I could ever do in life."

On learning from her sister: "My older sister had this ability to really embrace who she was as just being her authentic self. She went through a lot. [...] Obviously, my mom, she's the queen of all queens. But my sister gave me this ability to be like, 'You know what, sis, if you wanna do this, go do it. If you wanna have this ability to really change what you're trying to see within gymnastics, go do that.'"

On staying true to her purpose: "I'm always gonna be that authentic self because at the end of the day, I didn't wake up to be somebody else. I woke up to be the person I'm supposed to be, because that's the gift that I was given."

Morgan Shaw Parker, Atlanta Dream COO and President

On the difference between men's and women's sports: "What's interesting with men's sports is it's built in a very specific way. Every time you walk into an NFL team, there's one mission, and that one mission is to win a championship, right? I've always thought, in service of what? Why?

What am I winning a championship for? I want to bring home that ring. Absolutely. Do I want to celebrate those players? Absolutely. But for women's sports, it's just so much more. And I think about in service of what? In service of the hundreds of thousands of young girls that need to have visibility and access to see this game.

On building an inclusive workplace in the WNBA: "I was told for years, 'Oh, it's so hard to find diverse employees.' I'm sorry, look at the women in this room and tell me it's hard to find diverse talent. It's not. You just have to fish in different ponds.

"Year two, we were named the most diverse business operations engine in the WNBA. It's not hard. It takes what it takes. Just focus on why you're there.

"I always hire people that are really smart and smarter than me, and that's OK. It helps me test water, check it out, dream big, jump in that deep end, but they are always going to get me back to where we need to go, where organization is going to be pushing forward. We're going to be a catalyst for change."

Chelsea Fishman, Jolene Jolene founder

On pioneering a sports bar centered on women athletes: "Being in this infancy, what's exciting about it is that we get to define it, right? We get to make the rules. It's so cool and so fun to be a part of the women's sports space right now just because of everything that's going on. Especially as a viewer, a bar dedicated to women's sports was unheard of a few years ago, and it's still new.

"As viewers, we have these sports and these athletes and these organizations that we've been cheering on for years. Now, they're actually putting them on TV, which is helpful.

"We're in this space where the talent has always been there, , but the attention and the knowledge is finally starting to catch up. So it's a really fun time."

On men becoming fans of women's sports: "You don't have to be against something to be for something [else]. I think a lot of people, especially men, get afraid that if they cheer for a women's sport that they can't cheer for a men's sport. I think creating these spaces, like an actual, physical space where we can celebrate and tune in, moves the needle."

At Marie Claire's Power Play panel on "Making Your Voice Heard," Grammy-winner DJ Miss Milan told the crowd her 2025 word of the year: "discernment." The official definition is an ability to make strong judgments. In her world—and that of fellow panelists Marsai Martin and Carol Martin—it's the ability to navigate what happens after her wildest dreams come true to the best of her ability.

Speaking to comedian and podcaster Heather McMahan, the Martins (a mother-daughter producing duo) and Miss Milan discussed what they ended up coining "dreamer's fatigue." After hitting pie-in-the-sky successes like a recurring role on Black-ish for Marsai and a Doechii DJ-ing gig for Miss Milan, a period settled in where they weren't sure what to pursue. Bucket list items like meeting Beyoncé (in Marsai's case) were checked off before most people would ever see her in concert. Daily responsibilities sapped their energy; no's hit harder.

"I know in my industry, there are days where I wasn't feeling the best, but I still had to show up on this carpet or it was that time of the month, but I still had to go on the set," Martin said. "I think, obviously, there are so many parts in life where you hit a chapter and then all of a sudden everything snaps. You're like, wait, how did I get here? How is happening? All of a sudden I'm filled with anxiety. I don't know how I even made it to this point. How do I keep pushing? How do I go forward?"

Her mother and co-panelist, who also oversees their production company, Genius Productions, observed the post-success slump with concern. "She had a moment of time where she had this inner sadness and I didn't understand it, because all the things great were happening," Martin said. "As the mom of someone who is a master manifester, we used to tell her all the time, you can do anything. And then we're like, well, sh–t. She really can do anything." They addressed it together by creating new goals in the production space—and giving Marsai space to feel exactly what she was feeling. (Burnout was not an option.)

Miss Milan said the fear of having to maintain a high level of success is natural. But what it shouldn't do is limit your ability to try new things or to be satisfied with that first and only dream. "I think we have to remove that from the vocabulary forever—the whole thing of you're only as good as your last. I'm only as good as I choose to be," she said. "If you did something five years ago that was so impactful that people are still talking about it today, I think that's relevancy in my personal opinion."

After all, any success she has leaves a legacy. Her identity guarantees it. "Being a woman, especially a Black woman at that, I have twice the fight now to get recognized," she said. "So for me, it's just about building my own table and realizing that the fight is not just about me, it's about whoever's coming after me as well."

Even when Marsai feels "dreamer's fatigue" setting in, she finds power in the opportunity to express herself. She's come this far—and she's not stopping now. "I feel like as a business woman, we always have to get used to putting ourselves out there, in these big board meetings or walking into corporations that you wouldn't even expect yourself to ever walk into," she said. "Your voice is the most powerful instrument for yourself."

Miss Milan tied it all back to an intention she sets no matter where she is on the path to a goal: "doing exactly what I said I was going to do." She finds power in "just being able to say, 'Hey girl, you're going to wake up and be this thing,' and then you actually are this thing." Really, it's discernment in action.

The line between working hard and too hard is only getting thinner in today's workforce. A 2024 Mercer study found 82 percent of the US workforce is at risk of burnout, or the official diagnosis for emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive stress. Women at the helm of businesses from fashion to tech can feel the burn most acutely. Sometimes, they even mistake it for dedication to their jobs.

"Leaders become masters at pushing through and overriding the signs of burnout," Daisy Auger-Dominguez, the author of Burnt Out to Lit Up, said to open her panel "Navigating the Executive Burnout Phenomenon" at Marie Claire's Power Play Atlanta summit. "Recent research shows executive burnout is at record highs. Over half of CEOs say this year will be the toughest year [yet] and we're seeing rising executive attrition across government, corporate, and university sectors."

After climbing to the top of an industry's ranks, the last outcome anyone wants is a burnout diagnosis. How can leaders rise to the challenges of their fields without giving up all their energy in the process? Katie Kime, designer of her namesake label, Kat Cole, CEO of AG1, and Hillary Kerr, co-founder of Who What Wear and Future Publishing SVP, shared their tactics for navigating the demands of a high-intensity role. As Auger-Dominguez summarized onstage, their insights aren't just for "beating burnout." They're actionable steps for "thriving" at work and beyond.

Protect Your Time

Katie Kime's schedule can get hectic at the head of a growing fashion brand. But she's found a way to preserve the creativity that her business grew from. "This year, I blocked my calendar every day from nine to eleven and it says 'KK creative.' In that window, do not call, do not email—this is my time." Building time to pause, slow down, and refocus has helped fuel her ideas and start her days on an anti-burnout note.

What about when work starts to leak into dinner and the evening wind-down? Hillary Kerr shared a work adage earning the audience's applause: "It's PR, not the ER." Unless there's a true emergency, she expects her teams to save their questions, comments, and concerns for work hours. "I really try and be as respectful as I can about people's time off because I want to be respectful of my time off, too," she said. "It ultimately makes me a better leader when I can have a life outside work."

Inevitably, times will come when there's too much happening to log off consistently. That's okay too, as long as it doesn't become a pattern of sacrificing time. "There are seasons that are for hustling," Cole said, "and there are others where we have to realize that that sustained stress is not meant to be kept on forever."

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

Burnout symptoms go unnoticed when executives, and their teams, aren't speaking honestly with one another. Establishing where, when, and how to communicate sets expectations that keep both sides safe from frustrating or ineffective workspaces.

"I think the most important thing is treating people like individuals and meeting them where they are," Kerr said. "I think having those conversations early and often about the level of communication that you two would prefer to have together is really the thing that makes things go more seamlessly."

Cole referenced a method she coined "Make My Day Difficult." She'd ask her teams to write down single biggest pain point in their work before they clocked out. "By the time they came back the next day, I would have fixed the most commonly mentioned things or have conversations around things that we weren't going to or couldn't fix right away," she said. Problems couldn't fester when she was proactively solving them. Burnout couldn't fester, either.

Not every day—or year—on the road to success is blue skies and positive energy. All three executives noted the Covid-19 pandemic put additional stress on their businesses. Kerr reflected that her first major test came during the 2008 financial crisis. There's always another side to work toward—and getting there is a team effort. "Things will be bad, then things will be good because that is how life goes," Kerr said. "When things are great, fortify, build, learn, and build tech" because it will make teams that much more prepared to handle the tough times. (And, communicate effectively through them.)

Practice Self-Love

Cole admitted this piece of advice might sound "bold" to some women: "The greatest thing you can do to avoid burnout is to deeply, deeply love yourself." She explained it's not simply a matter of building confidence or strengthening the tie between work and identity. She's actually found practicing self-love beneficial to her health.

When you're practicing self-love, "You'll listen to your body more. You'll make a bigger deal about the little things before they become big things," she said. "But if you feel you are second, third, fourth, fifth or worse, you will ignore those things in service of other people's goals."

For Kime, owning high-level work and avoiding burnout comes back to a simple, self-first directive: "Knowing what you want and saying what you want."

Natasha Lyonne has written, directed, produced, and starred in several boundary-breaking projects, from the time-warping drama Russian Doll to the avant-mystery procedural Poker Face. But when Marie Claire editor-in-chief Nikki Ogunnaike asks the multi-hyphenate what she'd want to tell Hollywood's leading executives onstage at Power Play on May 15, the star adamantly asks for a change in direction. She doesn't want to re-hash her successful projects—or see anyone else re-treading the same path. "What we should all want as a community is what we don't know yet," she says.

Onstage at the St. Regis Atlanta, Lyonne dove into the path she's forging away from the body of work since been building since she was four years old and an extra on Nora Ephron's Heartburn. A personal odyssey into physics, science, and philosophy—sparked by reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything—eventually led her to start Asteria Studios: a film and animation studio based on a proprietary (and as Lyonne puts it, "ethical") AI model. Her goal runs counter to headlines you may have read about artificial intelligence tech.

"It was really about putting the artists first and figuring out a way to not have job displacement," she explains. Rather than replacing jobs with automated algorithms and models, "We're trying to help protect and sort of plant a flag for some guardrails in this area, in this small way. This is a problem that is sweeping in every industry."

Her effort starts with the upcoming movie Uncanny Valley, a video game-centric adventure in production with filmmaker Brit Marling and computer scientist Jaron Lanier. Lyonne didn't divulge too many details, but this is the gist: "It's a very personal human story about this moment we're in that's somewhat hysterical, but a big action movie. And by putting a teenage girl at the center of it and the big adventure movie, maybe you have some space to open up conversations [about AI] in a way."

The subject matter is lightyears away from her current stint as a wisecracking detective on Poker Face, but she wears many of the same behind-the-scenes hats to bring it to life. Asked which of her creative roles most scratches her creative itch, Lyonne couldn't narrow it down. In today's moviemaking economy, she almost has to do every job.

"I do it all because I pay the cost of being the boss. It's a hugely collaborative art form," she says. "I'm never doing it alone, but with other inspired people: We come up with ideas, bring them to life, write them, produce them, or write them, cast them. I'm not the editor, but I sit every day in the edit. I'm not the marketing department, but every single thing goes through us."

However Lyonne's next project is received when it hits theaters, she won't be reading the reviews. The actress finds the most power in the process than in the final cut audiences judge. "I think freedom is almost like the freedom to exist and trust it. The results are none of my business. I stay in process," she explains. "I keep my head down, do my best, and try to, in whatever projects I have, bring everybody to the table."

As a storyteller, she sees her role as helping others be seen—and when that box is checked, her job is done to satisfaction. "I can't necessarily change the whole world, but I can just do little things or I can write about things that maybe other people wouldn't. If I've learned one thing in this life, [it's that] you've just got to put pen to paper."

There's still another bullet point Lyonne has considered adding to her ever-expanding résumé. "I have not yet gotten into lifestyle, but I'm thinking about starting a brand," she says. She references her friend Reese Witherspoon, founder of the production company Hello Sunshine, as inspiration. But if she does venture from film productions into products, Lyonne will do it her way: "Hello, Darkness might suit me," she laughs.

On May 15, Marie Claire editor-in-chief Nikki Ogunnaike had big questions for the St. Regis Atlanta ballroom filled with the city's leading tastemakers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and journalists. "It feels like a time when the status quo is shifting. And yet there are still important conversations to be had," she said. "Who truly gets to be free? Do more choices mean we're more free to pursue what we truly want? How do our individual choices define or define who we are?"

Over a day packed with insightful programming, Marie Claire's 2025 Power Play summit presented by Clinique, "Freedom and Your Future: Rewriting the Rules for Your Most Well-Rounded Life" provided nuanced answers to each one, directly from successful women who'd pondered them in their own careers. No two panelists chased the exact same passions in the same way. But they each embodied what it means to do business on their own terms—and inspired everyone in attendance to follow suit.

After enjoying a range of custom Clinique experiences—including shade-matching for their perfect Clinque Even Better Vitamin Makeup SPF 45 foundation and sipping Clinique-green matcha lattes—and browsing corner office-chic finds from Zales jewelry to Banana Republic and Katie Kime spring outfits, guests settled into a floral-filled ballroom for panels packed with insight. Comedian and podcast host Heather McMahan set the tone by tapping audience members to share where they worked and what drove their passions. By the time she'd finished speaking to a social media manager for the city's mayor and a startup founder, she'd reached her conclusion: "We're a community of women who get sh–t done," she said to applause.

The day's official first panel tapped into another niche community making noticeable change: women's sports. Two-time Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles, Atlanta Dream COO and President Morgan Shaw Parker, and Jolene Jolene founder Chelsea Fishman each gave journalist Tabitha Turner-Wilkins (and the entire ballroom) their view on women's sports' ascent from their seats on the sideline bench. "We've developed a lot of recognition and a lot of space [...] for a lot of women to really be authentic to who they are. I'm one of those people," Chiles said. While each panelist reps a specific team—and in Fishman's case, a new bar concept devoted to broadcasting women's sports—they shared a belief that winning isn't the only reason to compete.

They choose to break barriers in sports, and when they win, it's "in service of the hundreds of thousands of young girls that need to have visibility and access to see this game," Shaw Parker said.

After a refreshing sound bath from Kemberly Deane, it was time to gear up to face burnout head-on. The phenomenon has claimed many corporate victims with big goals and all the freedom to chase them, but panelists including Who What Wear co-founder Hillary Kerr, AG1 CEO Kat Cole, and designer Katie Kime revealed their secrets for staying energized and grounded no matter what their pursuits bring.

They told moderator Daisy Auger-Dominguez that dedicated time for creative pursuits and clear communication are essential on the journey to making a mark without hurting themselves in the process. Then, when it's time to get rewarded for the hard work, "Advocate for yourself like you're advocating for a friend," Kerr said. (Standing up for yourself? Another defining choice each woman at Power Play had the freedom to make.)

At "Making Your Voice Heard," entertainment leaders Marsai Martin, Carol Martin, and DJ Miss Milan got into the reality of speaking up for their passions with Heather McMahan as their guide. All roads led back to staying committed to their passion no matter the cost. And if a "no" comes in, deciding to go solo is always an option. "I built my own table," Grammy-winner DJ Miss Milan said. "Because when you build it, they can't tell you whether or not you can sit at it."

Freedom isn't just what you can build for yourself; it's what you can develop to help others express themselves. In "The Business of Beauty: How Science-Driven Innovation Fuels Growth and Success" presented by Clinique, leading dermatologists Dr. Uchenna Okereke and Dr. Heather Woolery-Lloyd joined Leyte Winfield, PhD, to unpack breakthroughs in cosmetics and skincare that make more products accessible to more people. "There's not one way to be beautiful and not one way to be a woman," Dr. Winfield said. "What we're seeing now is the industry trying to catch up to those ideas."

The afternoon's conversation speakers, Kandi Burruss and keynote guest Natasha Lyonne, knew firsthand how freedom could involve bending unchanging industries to their wills. Burruss walked through the honest costs of starting her businesses across hospitality, lifestyle, and entertainment. Their fees were money, of course, and lost time—but the mogul says her "firsts" in music (like winning her songwriting Grammy) wouldn't be possible without sacrifice. If she gave up on her goals, how could she bring other women with her?

For Lyonne, taking worthwhile stories from her notebook to screens around the world is the biggest freedom she has in entertainment. Forget rehashing tired plots and living for the reviews: "I think freedom is almost like the freedom to exist and trust it. The results are none of my business. I stay in process," she says. "I can't necessarily change the whole world, but I can just do little things or I can write about things that maybe other people wouldn't."

After soaking up each panelists' segment, attendees headed up to the St. Regis Atlanta Grand Terrace for a toast to the day's takeaways. Turns out, everyone in attendance agreed their definition of freedom wasn't all work—they could choose to find strength in community and fun, too. They definitely earned it.

Take a Closer Look Inside Power Play Atlanta

Nine years after being snubbed by country music’s elite, Beyoncé opens the Cowboy Carter Tour, not by shying away from the controversy that spurred its namesake album, but by demonstrating the power of protest.

The first bars of the lead track on her 2024 album, “American Requiem,” kick off the show in complete darkness, leaving the audience to focus on the gospel-tinged challenge to America’s original sin. Minutes later, her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is backed by Jimi Hendrix’s acerbic riffs from Woodstock, bringing the politicized performance 55 years into the future. As she sings, “History can’t be erased,” during “Ya Ya,” the screen behind her punctuates the lyrics with archival footage of civil rights marches. The frenetic, emotional, joyous first minutes of her latest stadium tour delivers the message with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, but, like Bey herself, it’s bombastic in its euphoria. I’ll sum it up in the feeling that washed over me after reading an essential edict displayed on stage, several stories tall: “Never ask permission for something that already belongs to you.”

This segment of the concert is exactly why Cowboy Carter holds a special place in my heart. As I wrote last year, I see Beyoncé’s unapologetic exploration of these genres—in which white gatekeepers have tried to erase Black influence—as a reminder to never allow bigots to tell me where I don’t belong. Still, the Cowboy Carter Tour is taking place during a very dark time for America, and when I was invited by SoFi to see the concert at the L.A. stadium, I was at a down point in my mental health, finding it very hard to retain that sense of hope and resilience. And I know I’m not alone in feeling like this.

Beyoncé directly confronts these thoughts in her searing visual interlude between “Ya Ya” and “America’s Got a Problem.” Mixing Ras Baraka’s “American Poem” with an upbeat jazz-flute melody, she combines archival videos with childhood footage, placing her own performances next to legendary musicians who inspire her, like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Tina Turner. But then, the exuberant clips of Black expression are interrupted by news reels of white commentators’s outrage over the singer “inserting herself” into a genre that has been part of her DNA since she was born and raised in Houston, Texas. Here, Beyoncé proves her point to an audience of 70,000 people and whoever sees photos and video of the live show online: America has always been Black, even if you don’t want to admit it. And you can’t stop us from celebrating it.

The first 40 minutes of the Cowboy Carter Tour were the righteous, corroborated reclamation I needed, but the message gets lost in the second half as the concert becomes purely an experience in Beyoncé. This tour, which launched on April 28 and lasts until July 26, is the singer’s longest concert to date; at two hours and 45 minutes, it surpasses the length of its namesake album. When I attended night three in L.A., the singer followed up the spectacular opening with two more segments running straight through Cowboy Carter, before expanding the scope again to include more of her previous work. The concert quickly becomes less focused on the message and more on the experience of seeing this genreless project performed live. The visuals also lose their archival bent, with Beyoncé instead inserting herself into Wild West imagery and classic cinema. The setlist becomes an undirected exploration, with mash-ups and song transitions pulling from every single era of her over 30-plus years as a musician, even the Destiny’s Child years and deep cuts like 2020’s Black Is King.

This left me a bit jarred when the show jumped right back into symbolism for the closing act. The 35-time Grammy winner saves “16 Carriages” for the finale, as she rides a flying car over the arena floor. It seems like the perfect sendoff, with Bey’s lyrics reminiscing on a career of sacrifices. She even brings back the patriotic imagery in full force; she and her dancers wear looks featuring the American flag, with a giant effigy of a masked Statue of Liberty erected on the stage. Though the styling throughout the whole show played with the colors red, white, and blue, the finale is the only time she wears the American flag, which, despite the evening of assurances that America is as much hers as anyone’s, is still a subversive act.

Even with all that, the closing act didn’t land for me, and I left the concert thinking more about Beyoncé the figure than Beyoncé the artist. Though I’ve admired Beyoncé my entire life—I still have half of her choreography memorized from watching her videos over and over as a kid, and I count B'Day, Lemonade, and Renaissance among my top 20 albums of all time—my critical brain often grapples with the distinction between her artistry and business. Concertgoing sits in a weird space of jubilation through commerce; fans attend to experience a transcendent communal experience, but they pay increasingly high ticket prices, and possibly even go into debt, to access it. Ideally, the awe of the large-scale performance is enough to make every attendee forget the complicated world and just live in the music. I reached that elation early in CC’s runtime, tears and all, but by the second hour in, I couldn’t stop getting distracted by the neon Cecred and Sir Davis displays on the stage walkways, and the economics of the whole night. I wasn’t thinking of the much-needed archival history lesson two hours prior; instead, I wondered how she removed the Sphere from her Attack of the 50 Foot Woman interlude so quickly. I was thinking of money and capitalism, and power, and what that reclamation serves. Does a multi-millionaire married to a billionaire really need to be reclaiming symbols of a country built on capitalist exploitation? Is there a more effective use of Beyoncé’s artistry?

The Cowboy Carter and Renaissance eras did similar things. Both amplified forgotten Black trailblazers who crafted genres of music that often don’t give them credit. Both are celebrations of Black resilience and artistry, as well as defiant proclamations within their very existence. But Cowboy Carter’s most common critique, one I share, is that it’s trying to accomplish so much. In addition to being an ethnomusicology lesson, it’s also an artist’s declaration that she deserves recognition beyond boundaries in today’s music landscape. (It succeeded, hence her Album of the Year win at this year’s Grammys.) Compare that with Renaissance, which fills its space with innovative archival sampling, visibility for marginalized trendsetters, and a carnal joy welcoming a brighter future. In its final 30 minutes, the Cowboy Carter Tour briefly reprises Renaissance’s first three songs in the exact staging from the 2023 mega-tour, and returning to Renaissance’s chrome, Afrofuturistic utopia, reiterating what Beyoncé is capable of outside of all that reimagined Americana.

Beyoncé’s reclamation of country and Americana is important and powerful, but it’s not without its baggage. At the same time that it’s pivotal and empowering that she’s amplifying the rightful Black music legacy that mainstream country tries to hide, her message can also be muddled by her iconography and the complicated class politics it evokes. I’m glad as a fan and a critic that both Cowboy Carter and its Tour exist, but Renaissance was more successful to me as both a body of music and an era. One was about reclaiming the past and demanding space in the present, the other revived the past to welcome it into an exciting tomorrow. One Beyoncé is influential, the other is essential. And while I’m glad the Cowboy Carter Tour has both, I hope the next act focuses on the latter.

Gone are the days when self-help books were practically required to be cheesy, impersonal, and boring. Now, if you know where to look, you'll find empowering, genuinely useful self-help books designed to make you feel good, like you're receiving advice from a trusted friend or an inspiring mentor. Far from only offering overly generalized lists of life tips, the self-help genre also includes compelling memoirs and handy nonfiction guides for anyone interested in growing their creativity, career, emotional maturity, or spiritual life.

No matter what you're going through in life—or even if you're just looking for a life-changing book to read—we could all use a little self-help and extracurricular learning from time to time. Ahead, check out 30 of the self-help books for women that made our required reading list.

In Exit Interview, Marie Claire has a candid conversation with someone who has left their job. We learn all about their experience—both the good and the bad—plus why they decided to leave and what life looks like on the other side.

Here, we talk to ex-Nike employees Vida Delrahim and Ronit Menashe, who forged a remarkably close and supportive relationship as each other’s work wives for nearly 20 years. Together, they navigated some of life’s biggest milestones—with serendipitous synced marriages and firstborns—and leaned on each other during more complex challenges, including trying to conceive. After both experienced miscarriages in their late 30s and early 40s—dismissed by doctors with comments like “You’re lucky you even got pregnant”—they set out to find better guidance, ultimately leaving Nike to launch WeNatal, a California-based prenatal supplement.

Marie Claire: How did you land in the wellness space after your marketing careers?

Vida Delrahim: When Ronit and I met in Nike’s corporate marketing department 20 years ago, we instantly became best friends. We always assumed we might team up professionally one day, likely in events or marketing. But life had different plans. In early 2020, we both had miscarriages within a week of each other—my second and her first—and our doctors were surprisingly dismissive, saying, "It just happens.” Separately, we were both given little optimism or practical guidance—basically told there was nothing we could do. The doctors' offices were very matter-of-fact, which just happened quite a bit with "geriatric pregnancies." Since this wasn’t my first miscarriage, I took it at face value and assumed it was my fault.

Ronit Menashe: I’ve always wanted to work in the wellness space. When I got my MBA at USC, all my classmates interviewed for every job under the sun—places like Taco Bell, Kellogg’s, or General Mills. Those are considered prestigious positions from business school because they pay well, but there was a disconnect for me. I wanted my career to make a real impact.

While at business school, I had just one interview at Nike, which I got. I thought, “Wow, this will be the best thing ever. I’m going to make an impact at a huge company.” But after eight years at Nike, I realized I still didn’t feel like I was truly changing lives in the health and wellness space, so I decided to pursue functional medicine.

After Nike, I got a job with Dr. Mark Hyman, who I worked with for four years. He's a leading functional medicine doctor. When I had a miscarriage at that time, I knew that what my conventional doctor was telling me was a little bit of gaslighting and just a little bit of lack of information on her end. Researching on my own, I learned there are many root causes of miscarriage; women can do a lot to improve egg quality at any age, and men account for half the fertility equation.

VD: I was still working at Nike and remember getting a call from Ronit where she revealed what felt like a groundbreaking discovery—that men contribute just as much to fertility as women, yet nobody discussed men’s prenatal. We realized there was not only a nutritional gap but also an emotional gap: women often shoulder the entire fertility burden. Given our own experience with pregnancy loss, we knew something had to change. We wanted to educate, shift gender paradigms, and spark a broader conversation. It was the start of the brand.

MC: How did your experience at Nike shape the way you developed WeNatal?

VD: Nike is at the top of their game, and being a premium brand was ingrained in both of us when we started working on the start of our own company.

RM: We learned the importance of a strong visual identity and brand experience there. They excel at integrated storytelling across all platforms and that premium experience from customer service to how you check out, how you open the box, and the messaging. That mindset has been rooted in everything we do.

It's why we initially contacted Brightland's brand designers but received quotes in the hundred-thousand-dollar range—way beyond our budget. That led us to work with Kati Forner, who had recently left a design agency. She’s an incredible designer who helped us establish our brand’s foundation and brought our vision to life, creating the elevated experience we learned to value at Nike.

MC: What was it like getting a small brand off the ground?

VD: We kept telling ourselves, “We’ll launch next month,” only to discover we needed to do something else. We were meticulous about our formula, continually updating it as new research emerged and double-checking every detail. Our background taught us that we’d only have one chance to make consumers fall in love with WeNatal, so we invested heavily in the brand experience—from the website design to the packaging—ensuring every touchpoint would be memorable, innovative, and unlike anything else on the market. Otherwise, what’s the point of launching another prenatal product? That commitment to getting it right explains why it took two years, but it also shaped a truly holistic offering that addresses real needs in prenatal care.

MC: Vida, you still worked at Nike at the time. How did that go?

VD: I was open about the project from day one, sharing updates on social media because it truly was a labor of love—and a healing journey after my two miscarriages. It felt good to help other women facing similar struggles and to let them know they’re not alone. Since we bootstrapped the entire venture, I couldn’t afford to quit my job. I even mentioned it in Nike meetings, explaining that this was my second passion, but it had nothing to do with athletic apparel or footwear—I never wanted to compete with Nike. Since it was so different from Nike’s day-to-day work, it didn’t conflict with my role. I squeezed in work on nights and weekends. Ronit and I would get together, and while our kids played, we’d be busy cranking out work.

MC: How did your co-workers react?

VD: My boss had an idea, and honestly, so did everyone else. Every now and then, people would say, “I heard you started WeNatal!” Everyone who knew was incredibly supportive. Even now that I’ve fully left Nike, it’s rewarding to hear former colleagues—sometimes even current employees—saying they loved hearing me on a podcast or seeing what I’m doing with the brand. Friends from our Nike years have been an enormous source of support, and we’re all still cheering each other on as our careers evolve.

MC: What did you learn about work culture?

VD: My time at Nike taught me that people are at the heart of a brand; they’re the ones who truly bring it to life. We’ve been fortunate to hire people we love, respect, and admire—those who genuinely believe in our mission. The work will get done, but it’s crucial to surround yourself with a community that cares as much as you do. For instance, one of our newest hires had been taking WeNatal for two years before reaching out because she wanted to be part of what we’re building. That kind of passion is a blessing. We treat our team like family, and that’s something I learned there: when you invest in people above all else, the brand becomes real.

MC: Would you have done anything differently?

RM: The biggest learning I think we've both had is to trust our gut. When we saw red flags, we knew we should not proceed, but we didn't have the expertise to negotiate out of a contract or say the money is sunk—let's get out now and move on.

VD: Sometimes, as a first-time entrepreneur, you second-guess yourself. And I think the reality is we've been around the block long enough to trust our intuition.

Now we go back to that, and we're like, "Nope, let's stick with it. We know what we need for this brand." And trusting our gut as a female founder, I think, is a very important skill set you need to reinforce.

When there aren’t enough hours in the day, it’s hard to fathom how the super successful women we admire manage to make work look so effortless, while juggling life as a mere mortal. Talk to them, though (we did!), and you’ll learn that being at the top of their game—shaping culture, dreaming up big ideas, and creating a meaningful impact—requires more than hustle alone. It’s not just about having a sharp business plan or enviable leadership skills, either. True success often lies in the habits, gadgets, and stuff that make day-to-day life a little smoother.

And so, we asked 50 women—from founders and creatives to changemakers and CEOs—to share the one thing they rely on to give them an edge. Their answers offer a glimpse at the essentials that fuel their success. For some, it’s insightful tech that maximizes their time awake; for others, it’s a grounding daily ritual that helps them carve out some calm amid chaos.

What the items all have in common is that they reveal that true mogul status isn't just about what you achieve, but also about how and what you use to recharge, refresh, and redefine what's possible. They’re also a reminder that getting to the top isn’t about constantly adding more to your plate—it's about choosing what truly works for you and letting go of the rest.

Artemis Patrick, President & CEO, Sephora North America

Power Pick: Oura Ring

"Sleep is incredibly important to both our physical and mental health, and I don’t get a lot of sleep time, so I was a little nervous about seeing my results, but [according to my Oura Ring] it turns out that my deep and R.E.M. sleep is good. Once the Ring has some of your history, it gives great tips and tricks on how to maximize the efficiency of your sleep, as well as how to manage your daytime stress and activity levels."

Charlotte Cruze, Co-Founder and COO, Alice

Power Pick: Playfield The Bailey Kit

"My first recommendation is a dog because nothing helps you ground yourself or remember to go outside and take a break more than a pup. And once you do that, get this fanny pack that fits everything you need, allows you to go hands-free, and actually disconnect for however long your walk is."

Lindsay Goodstein, Founder and CEO, Alice

Power Pick: Superhuman Email App

"I wouldn’t be anywhere near as productive or efficient as I am today without my Superhuman email app. My business partner introduced it to me in the early Alice days, and life has never been the same. Once I made the switch, I never looked back. It’s my ride or die."

Sade Lythcott, CEO, National Black Theatre

Power Pick: Olympia Gayot’s Picks at J.Crew

"From the boardroom to weekend brunches, my cheatsheet for feeling confident and chic is to shop Olympia Gayot’s picks at J.Crew regularly. From power suits made of beautiful Italian wool to playful cashmere in every style and color, I look and feel like a million bucks without breaking the bank! Oh, and P.S., they also monogram almost anything for $10. What’s more mogul than that?"

Kat Cole, CEO, AG1

Power Pick: Clearlight Infrared Sauna 3

"Alongside drinking AG1 each morning, I sauna at home almost every day as part of my daily health routine. While I sauna at various gyms and spas when I travel, having one at home helps to keep the routine consistent. This has become a daily family habit in our home."

Laura Modi, Founder, Bobbie

Power Pick: The Skylight Calendar

"We are a household of two founder-CEOs and four young kids. It’s total chaos, but good calendar management keeps our chaos controlled. The Skylight calendar sits on our kitchen counter, and we manage it remotely. It’s traffic control for our life."

Clare de Boer, James Beard-nominated Chef, Writer, and Restaurateur

Power Pick: 'An Everlasting Meal' by Tamar Adler

"Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal is an everlasting favorite book of mine. Tamar captures what cooking—and eating—is all about, with grace, humility, and recipes that are as wide open as they are precise. Get a copy and read it every time you're uninspired."

Banu Guler, Founder, Co-Star

Power Pick: American Spirits Yellow Box Cigarettes

"A box of cigarettes (American Spirits yellows) is an expensive reminder that free will exists. Not an everyday habit, just when it counts."

Karla Welch,CEO and Founder, The Period Company

Power Pick: 'Emergent Strategy' by Adrienne Maree

"This book is my closest version to my bible. It’s a guide to remind me of our greater connection to each other and to all the systems of the natural world. I consider this essential reading for everyone."

Keia Clarke, CEO, New York Liberty

Power Pick: reMarkable Digital Notebook

"As CEO of the New York Liberty, every given day is different. My reMarkable digital notebook helps me optimize my workflow and stay organized."

Missy Tannen, Founder, Boll and Branch

Power Pick: Monica Rich Kosann 18k Yellow Gold Round Locket Necklace

"I have a gold locket that I wear, which was a gift from my daughter Brooke a few holidays ago. Inside are two pictures, one of Brooke and me, and another with all three of my daughters. This locket is a constant reminder of the love we share and the importance of being a strong role model for my girls."

Nell Diamond, Founder, Hill House Home

Power Pick: Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner

“I’m obsessed with a great cat eye. I rotate between a few different pens and pencils; my favorite is Stila’s Stay All Day liquid liner in black. I’ve been using this product for years, and it never fails me—it even stayed put while giving birth to twins in 2020. A cat eye has been my signature look that has evolved with me throughout my career. It makes me feel confident as a leader—from board meetings to pre-school drop-off and beyond, it helps me feel my best!”

Aishwarya Iyer, CEO, Brightland

Power Pick: Digital Membership with Open

"I use Open nearly every day to re-ground, re-center, and give myself five to ten minutes to reset. The meditations, breathwork, and movement exercises give me so much fuel for the day."

Tina Craig, Founder and Entrepreneur, U Beauty Founder and Entrepreneur

Power Pick: U Beauty Resurfacing Flash Peel

"U Beauty’s Resurfacing Flash Peel is my ultimate timesaving, skin-saving hero. It gives me smooth, bright, glowing skin in just five minutes."

Anna Glass, Chief Executive Officer, Dance Theatre of Harlem

Power Pick: Betrayal of a Belief Baldwin Journal

"The Betrayal of a Belief Baldwin Journal is my respite—a space to connect with my voice while reflecting on James Baldwin's legacy and Harlem’s inspiring community."

Gucci Westman, Makeup Artist; Founder, Westman Atelier

Power Pick: Gucci Westman Skin Activator Serum

"It's a very difficult task to choose only one product because I genuinely feel the same about all our products. I have an unrelenting trust and appreciation for knowing that our products are transformative for my skin and perform consistently. There is no comparison in my mind, but if I had to pick just one, I would choose our beloved Skin Activator."

Gina Duncan, President, BAM President

Power Pick: Seven Sacred Oils by Sparkle Tafao

"These luxurious smelling oils set the tone for the day, boost my mental well-being, and channel positive energy; helping me focus on my personal and professional goals."

Tory Burch, Founder, Tory Burch

Power Pick: Pierced Pump

"“Our Pierced Pump. They give everything a sharper edge."

Joey Wölffer, Chief Brand Officer and Co-Owner, Wölffer Estate Vineyard

Power Pick: Theragun Prime Plus

"With all the tension in work and life, nothing is more therapeutic and healing than heat and massages. I tend to hold all my angst in my neck, and this is my dream gift.”

Ashley Longshore, Artist, Entrepreneur, Author

Power Pick: Broadway Theatre Tickets

"Theatre tickets! Broadway baby! The stage affirms human existence; stories about love and resilience. Whether laughing hysterically or having tears streaming down my cheeks, my response to the theatrical experience always leaves me refreshed and optimistic. I moved my company to New York City to have limitless access to the stage."

Yola Jimenez, Founder, Yola Mezcal

Power Pick: The Dorothy Parker Audio Collection and The Fran Lebowitz Reader on Audible

"I’ve been trying to bring humor into my life with wonderful results for the past year. It provides a break to my worries, improves my mood, gives me perspective, and has made me more productive. My business partner and I used to laugh constantly when we started the company a decade ago, but we stopped once the work intensified. So we decided to say something funny to each other once a day, and we are closer than ever. Listening to Dorothy Parker and Fran Lebowitz for just five minutes a day is a key part of this."

Vivian Tu, Founder and CEO, Your Rich BFF

Power Pick: L'Agence Kenzie Blazer

"I’ve been focusing on investing in really high-quality pieces that are versatile enough for both work and play. The L'Agence Kenzie Blazer has saved me on countless occasions, tying together professional outfits while still feeling stylish for drinks with girlfriends."

Shruti Ganguly, Filmmaker and Producer

Power Pick: Tiger Balm Extra Strength

"This may sound basic, but I swear by Tiger Balm. The smell is nostalgic for me—I’ve known and used it my whole life. I apply it to my temples or neck, especially when I’m in the midst of production or on flights. These little self-care routines or checking in with how my head or body feels are crucial for me to power through."

Suneera Madhani, Founder and CEO, Worth; Host, CEO School

Power Pick: Invisawear Smart Jewelry

"I love Invisawear to keep myself, my mom, my children, and my family safe!"

Aerin Lauder, Founder and Creative Director, AERIN; Style and Design Director, Estée Lauder Re-Nutriv

Power Pick: Smythson Portobello Notebook in Panama

"I was taught at a young age to always write things down. To this day, I still go to meetings with an old-fashioned pen and paper to take notes, which helps me stay organized and prioritize my tasks for the day. I always carry my Smythson notebook, no matter where I go."

Jennifer Fisher, Founder and Chief Brand Officer, Jennifer Fisher

Power Pick: 'Ketotarian' by Dr. Will Cole

"I discovered Will Cole's Ketotarian in 2020, during lockdown, and it was a complete game-changer for me. The book transformed the way I think about food, helping me embrace a more anti-inflammatory lifestyle. Being home gave me the time and space to experiment even more in the kitchen, and I began sharing my journey and new recipes on @jenniferfisherkitchen. The tools I learned from Will Cole’s book improved my personal well-being and enhanced my productivity and overall quality of life."

Asima Ahmad, Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer, Carrot Fertility

Power Pick: The Sculpt Society

"I started using The Sculpt Society app on a friend’s recommendation during the pandemic and loved the blend of cardio, Pilates, and barre! It’s helpful to have options for longer sessions (less than 45 minutes) or shorter ones (less than 10 minutes), including special postpartum workouts, which I used after having my fourth child. I continue to use it since it also has workouts I can do from my hotel room while traveling.”

Rina Yang, Cinematographer

Power Pick: Porter Yoshida Tanker 3-Way Document Bag

"This has been the best work bag I have ever owned. I love its separate compartments, pockets, and different handle and strap options."

Barbara Sturm, Founder, Dr. Barbara Sturm Molecular Cosmetics

Power Pick: Dr. Barbara Sturm Super Anti-Aging Dual Serum

"My Super Anti-Aging Dual Serum is a real power product, delivering intensive hydration, visible anti-aging results, and skin longevity in one single step. I love it because it's the perfect serum for when time is of the essence—but achieving a renewed and restored complexion is non-negotiable and the best way to elevate your skincare routine. I can't be without it."

Eliza Bank, Founder, The Sill

Power Pick: Trailing Plant Collection

"My trailing plant collection helps me achieve my goals by reminding me that, like each plant, we’re all growing at our own pace. In my office, they clean the air, elevate my focus, and inspire me to stay resilient every day."

Alison Roman, Author and Chef

Power Pick: Bottega Veneta Hop Bag

"I’ve had my eye on the Bottega Hop bag for a while, and this is the year I buy it—a little gift to myself for hitting some very nice career (and personal) goals and milestones. I’m justifying the purchase since I haven’t bought much in the way of clothing, accessories, or anything 'superfluous' in a while, and, well, I want it and maybe even deserve it. I’m extremely fixated on the 'usability' of items, especially expensive things, which means I may go classic black versus the Rosewood Red, the color I really want."

Melody Lee, CMO, Mercedes-Benz USA

Power Pick: Nike Air Force 1s

"At five-foot, I used to feel a certain insecurity in a professional world where height is prized, so I was always in heels. As women have advanced, style norms have shifted, and my own experience has grown my confidence. My Nike Air Force 1s represent my own power and progress, whether they’re paired with a suit, dress, or jeans—or running for a flight."

Pritika Swarup, Model; Founder and CEO, Prakti Beauty

Power Pick: Papier Wonder Wellness Journal

"The Papier Wellness Journal is my daily anchor. It helps me reflect, set meaningful intentions, track my goals, and prioritize my mental and physical well-being, keeping me balanced and focused even during the most hectic days."

Wendy Ong, Global Co-President and CMO, Tap Music

Power Pick: HigherDOSE Infrared PEMF Mat

"I truly thought this was hocus-pocus, but now I find myself using it when I meditate in the mornings and wind down in the evening. It’s helped me fall asleep faster, grounded me when I felt overwhelmed, and helped me focus when distracted. My cat Levon loves it too and always sleeps on it, so he can attest to how great it is."

Molly Baz, Founder of Ayoh; Recipe Developer; Cookbook Author

Power Pick: Mannkitchen Pepper Cannon

“This pepper grinder makes me feel like the Hulk, which you could argue isn’t the most desirable feeling, but it's everything when you love black pepper as much as I do. Take out your rage and season the hell out of that steak every single time.”

Melanie Masarin, Founder and CEO, Ghia

Pick: Ghia

"Not drinking is my superpower; it allows me to live a much fuller life. I can work long days, still go to the party, and be fresh in the morning. I love a crisp drink to transition from work into play, and I made Ghia for me—it's just a bit fruity with a sharp dry ending that has nothing to envy to a glass of wine."

Amber Lewis, Interior Designer

Power Pick: A farm

"This may be a strange pick, but an item that fuels me, and will fuel me for the next couple of years, is—a farm! It's a new project I recently purchased and I'm beyond excited about it. It motivates and inspires me both personally and professionally. Not only do I love a project and the endless design possibilities, but I'm also thinking about making memories here with my daughter and hosting all the family gatherings in years to come."

Marta Mae, Founder of Air Milkshake; Co-Founder, Angel Therapy and Dieux

Power Pick: Agent Nateur Calm Spermidine & Taurine Daily Supplement

"I have been prioritizing sleep for the first time in my life, and for months I have looked forward to taking this before bed. It really chills me out, and it's an accessible moment of self-care."

Danessa Myrick, Makeup Artist; Founder, Danessa Myricks Beauty

Power Pick: Sensate

"The Sensate has been a game-changer in helping me relax and reduce stress as I navigate life as a busy entrepreneur. The infrasonic sounds it provides does an amazing job of keeping me calm and helps give me the clarity I need to make intentional choices that fuel my creativity and energy. It’s a critical part of my success, and I can't live without it."

Sarah O'Leary, CEO, Willow Innovations, Inc.

Power Pick: Epiphone Limited Edition Hummingbird Performer PRO Acoustic-Electric Guitar

"I was hungry for a creative outlet that wasn’t tied to my career or children, so I started taking guitar lessons. It's been a very humbling and inspiring experience, but Epiphone's Hummingbird guitar will make you feel like you're a pro. It's a 'just right' splurge for a beginner guitar player; it's beautiful in appearance, sound, and tone. The guitar reminds me how soul-fulfilling it can be to learn something completely new.”

Lauren Ratner, President and Chief Brand Officer, Rhode

Power Pick: Miu Miu Fabric-Covered Agenda

"With a fast-growing company like Rhode, where everything moves a mile a minute, I have to stay organized to keep track of things. I don’t know what I'd do without my notebook to write everything down in real time and help me remember it all. Any notebook works, but I love this one I got as a gift."

Tracy Anderson, Founder, Tracy Anderson Method

Power Pick: HeartStone

"My Heartstones are my ultimate power pick—they combine weighted energy training, meditation, grounding, and sound healing to give my spine and nervous system a spa-like reset. The unity they create between my brain and body transforms how I feel and amplifies my creativity and performance in every area of my life."

Gabby Bernstein, Spiritual Teacher and Author

Power Pick: Weighted Vest

"I turned forty-five this year and am dedicated to maintaining optimal health. Whether I'm working out, walking through the city, or cooking at home, you'll find me in my weighted vest. This piece symbolizes my daily commitment to fortify my bones, enhance my strength, and ensure my longevity.”

Beth Ferreira, General Partner, Serena Ventures

Power Pick: Manta Silk Sleep Mask

"A great night's sleep is super important for just about everything, from healthy brain function to physical health. This mask transformed my sleep. I fall asleep faster, and my overall sleep quality has improved."

Shiza Shahid, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Our Place

Power Pick: 'Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved' by Kate Bowler

"My friend Kate Bowler's beautiful book inspires me to find meaning and beauty in the good and bad days. I'm building my business, Our Place, from a place of love and an urgent desire to impact the world positively—reading heroic philosophers like Kate grounds me in the purpose of it all.”

Kelly Sawyer Patricof, Co-CEO, Baby2Baby

Power Pick: Moon Juice Magnesi-Om Powder

"Sleep is my super fuel, so I take my Moon Juice Magnesi-Om powder every night to make sure I get all eight hours. I'm also an avid sleep tracker because getting a good night's sleep helps me feel ready to take on anything at Baby2Baby to ensure children across the country have access to the basic essentials they deserve."

Norah Weinstein, Co-CEO, Baby2Baby

Power Pick: Waze App

"I have the worst sense of direction on the planet. It’s like a missing chip in my brain that I inherited from my dad. As a kid at a restaurant, I couldn’t get from the bathroom to the table and had to leave a trail. Waze changed my life! I would not be able to run a company, much less get to a meeting across the city and balance kids and a career without it—I would literally be lost."

Bobbi Brown, Makeup Artist, Founder, and Chief Creative Officer, Jones Road Beauty

Power Pick: iPad

"I use my iPad instead of a computer. I use it for everything—I do Zooms with it, respond to emails, scroll Instagram, and shop for everything I need. It's been a game-changer not to have to carry a laptop."

Vanessa Torrivilla Ariel, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Gold Belly

Power Pick: The Eight Sleep Smart Mattress

"The Eight Sleep smart mattress is absolutely, 100-percent life-changing and something I'll never be able to live without. As a mom and a founder, I'm obsessed with my sleep routine to optimize my all day performance. It tracks not just the length of sleep but the quality of my sleep and automatically adjusts itself to my body based on factors like temperature and heart rate to ensure I get the best night's sleep possible every night."

Chriselle Lim, Founder, Bumo

Power Pick: Peloton Treadmill

"I use my Peloton Treadmill almost every day right after I drop off the kids at school. Cardio has been a big part of getting me in the best mental state possible. I feel super focused, in control, and strong after doing a 20-minute session."

For decades, there has been an unfortunate but common belief in Hollywood (and beyond) that women over 40 are invisible. They’re often relegated to playing somebody’s nondescript wife. Or mother. Or in some mind-boggling cases, somebody’s grandmother.

While this has improved in recent years (though statistics regarding on-screen representation remain dismal), now more than ever, women in Hollywood are taking matters into their own hands and shaping the conversation around aging with their own art. And it’s paying off. Several films that see women wrestle with their age have garnered acclaim this awards season: the Demi Moore-led feminist horror film The Substance, the Gia Coppola-directed indie The Last Showgirl, which marks Pamela Anderson’s first movie in 34 years, the Amy Adams-led adaptation of Rachel Yodder’s novel Nightbitch (and, in some ways, the Nicole Kidman-starring erotic drama Babygirl). Though each film tackles the subject matter uniquely—whether following a celebrity fitness instructor deemed “past her prime,” a Las Vegas dancer facing an unknown path, or a stay-at-home mom who’s convinced she’s turning into a dog—what unites them is how their complex characters face both the internal and external. Their poignancy and power lie not just in these characters’ reckonings with their self-worth, but in realizing just how frustrated they’ve become with the glass ceilings that exist to make them feel the way they do.

These feminist movies have become frontrunners for Oscar nominations and will continue to resonate in cinema going forward. With the arrival of The Last Showgirl in theaters nationwide on January 10, Marie Claire asked The Substance writer/director Coralie Fargeat, Nightbitch co-writer/director Marielle Heller, and The Last Showgirl writer Kate Gersten about their projects and Hollywood finally embracing of stories that examine the complexities of aging.

Here, they share what they found most liberating in the writing process, the hurdles they’ve had to overcome, and where they hope the industry goes next.

Marie Claire: There’s a trend in movies that sees aging women as they come to terms with how society casts them aside. Why do you think we’re having these conversations now?

The Last Showgirl writer Kate Gersten: It's taken bravery—from writers, directors and actors but also from producers and distributors. We've actually been writing these stories for years, but they're finally coming to light because the ones putting forth the money for these projects are finally seeing how worthy, relevant, and necessary to female audiences they truly are.

The Substance writer/director Coralie Fargeat: Because women directors finally have more room to express themselves! These voices have always existed, but society didn't really allow them to be heard. That's why it's so important to have diverse voices and points of view in the cultural space.

Nightbitch writer/director Marielle Heller: It’s a good question. I don’t know why this is happening now, but I know, for me, it’s happening from a personal place of watching myself and my friends’ age and grappling with what that means as a woman.

MC: Did you have any surprising, refreshing, or even frustrating conversations while developing your project about wanting to depict aging through a female POV?

CF: There were many frustrating moments. I was hearing that movies with ‘a female lead don't sell as much as with a male lead’...which is unfortunately probably true because society has been shaped that way for so long. That's why we need all the more to support the new female voices that emerge. That means financing their films and trusting their visions even if they can be surprising and unconventional.

MH: I’ve had more frustration with some responses to the finished film. Amy [Adams] was asked by a male audience member if we’d ever considered telling the story from the husband‘s point of view, a man who goes out and feels the responsibility of making a living for his family. I wish I had been there. I would have said, ‘We’ve seen that story for decades. It’s called Death of a Salesman, American Beauty, or countless others.’ I guess I’m sort of shocked by how people are up in arms that the story is really from a woman’s perspective.

MC: What did you find to be most liberating about telling this story in such a nuanced way?

KG: I love writing female characters who don't have to be perfect. The cliches that society and Hollywood suffocate women with don't cross my mind while I'm in my writing process, because I'm basically just having conversations with the women/characters in my head. Especially with something like this, where I wasn't discussing it with anyone—no producers, no director, or actors—while I was writing it. It was just me and my imagination and my women.

CF: Being able to tell it in such a not nuanced way! Oh gosh, that was so liberating! As women, we are always asked to be delicate, polite, smiling, and it was so cool to do the exact opposite with The Substance. That is exactly what the film is about: to break free from the typical representations and constraints that have corseted women for so long.

MH: I truly was not worrying what men would think of this movie—for the first time in my life. I felt like Get Out gave me that permission. From my perspective, that movie wasn’t worrying what white people would feel about it, and I found that inspiring.

MC: Was there anything too unconventional in the script that you chose not to include or that you had to fight to include?

CF: I had to fight for literally everything. The whole movie is so unconventional and doesn’t convey the image people are used to seeing with female portrayal. This is what I wanted to fight against. I didn’t want to have my voice shaped by someone else. I wanted to be able to tell my way of experiencing the world, with its excess, its grossness, its specificity.

MH: I fought to show a woman and her aging body in a natural light. Amy was thankfully really game for this challenge and my collaborators all really understood the assignment, but I think it’s undoing some habits in Hollywood to not light, dress, stage a woman as a sex object.

MC: These films come from female filmmakers and screenwriters. What added perspectives do you think that brought to these stories?

KG: Oh, the whole damn thing. Women need to tell complex women's stories, it's that simple. Women's stories by men largely focus on sex or competition. That's the male lens. Depictions of groups of women by men are often all about conflict without care. Female characters can and should disagree and spar, but I think male filmmakers forget that we can do that with love, and that at the end of the day, most of us have each others' backs.

MH: I don’t really know how else to tell a story. My lived life informs every choice I make—which is why the more diverse voices making movies, the more diverse storytelling we get. It benefits everyone.

MC: Though these films vary in genre and tone (horror to comedy to drama) there’s a somber element at their crux. Why might that be the throughline?

KG: Because being a woman is complicated as hell. But actually, I reject the word ‘somber.’ It's just that what all of us have done here is we've been truthful. Being a woman can be wonderful and it can be miserable. We have to hold contradictions all the time, especially as we age. Being a mother is so hard, yet so fulfilling. Feeling beautiful but ignored is a real mindfuck. A truthful movie about themes like these isn't a ‘somber’ thing, it's reflecting how women feel and, to me, that is beautiful and uplifting.

CF: Well, just listen to the news. What’s happening to women everywhere is still such a fucking disaster. In the real world, we often don't have a choice but to silence ourselves to be able to make our way, so when we can really speak loud through our films, I guess it's the dark part that we can finally express.

MH: Because life is hard, man. Life is suffering. And it’s beautiful and magical. And also hard. Maybe it’s the national mood.

MC: What depictions of women aging on screen have stuck with you in the past, either positively or perhaps have shown how far we’ve come?

KG: One of my very favorite characters ever is Celeste Talbert in Soapdish, played by Sally Field. She's a soap opera star who feels obsolete at 45. She's paranoid and vengeful and completely insane, but I loved every second of it. It's a satire.

CF: One depiction that has stuck strongly with me is the old woman in the bathroom of The Shining. It’s how you represent a normal process like aging into a nightmare. This is the depiction that has unfortunately existed since the beginning of humanity and cultural representations, like the old witch, the old evil stepmother in the fairy tales, etc.

MH: I can’t think of many good ones, but I remember when I was making Can You Ever Forgive Me? [the 2018 drama about Lee Isreal] and I had this realization that Lee could only truly get away with her crimes because nobody really noticed her. As a woman of a certain age, she was fairly invisible. That was a lightbulb realization for me.

MC: What progress would you like to see from Hollywood with these kinds of stories being told? And more opportunities for older women on screen?

KG: Just let us tell more of our own stories. Female filmmakers and writers shouldn't be hard to find. P.S. Give us more money to make our films.

CF: Don’t dump these movies, support them! I want to see a real commitment to support new female voices.

MH: I just want people to watch these awesome movies. I want them to be taken as seriously as the wonderful movies about men and not be considered fringe. I want the money to reflect the reality of the world.

Brynn Whitfield became an instant fan favorite when she joined The Real Housewives of New York City reboot last year—but she can admit it's been a huge transition to join reality TV without any prior experience.

Whitfield shares what she's learned since opening up to having her life documented on screen in this week's episode of the Marie Claire podcast "Nice Talk." While the marketing and communications consultant has thoroughly enjoyed starring on RHONY, now in its second season, she also revealed what moments of being on a reality show can make her feel "powerless."

The TV personality explained that it can be challenging to watch moments when you may have been in the wrong, or realize later on how someone else perceived you. "You feel powerless when you had a conversation with someone, you know your intentions, you know what said, you know the hundred other conversations that you had with that person prior. And then you see their confessional and it's a 180," she says. "It's like, 'That's not how that went. That wasn't my intention. That wasn't what happened.' But somehow that was your reality. So that's hard. And that feels very powerless."

Whitfield adds, "Especially if it's about a serious topic, that's really close to your own heart, that's hard. That's really, really difficult to watch back."

She explains that she's learned to cope with those kinds of interactions by feeling "seven phases of grief," while wrestling with how to respond or deciding to save any confrontation for the season's reunion. "You go through many different things. You talk to your family and friends around you who know you, who can remind you who you are. And then you just try to keep calm and make a decision about what to do and how to handle it," says Whitfield.

The reality star also shares on "Nice Talk" what advice she's gotten from Housewives alum, including the beloved Luann de Lesseps, a.k.a. Countess Luann, from the original run of RHONY.

"[Luann] told me last week when I saw her, she was like, 'You're very real and that will get you very far,'" Whitfield says on the podcast. "She said, 'Keep being real because people can tell.'"

Whitfield also notes how much being on RHONY for only two seasons has made her admire Luann and other longtime franchise stars. "I've done this now for two seasons and, it's funny, as a viewer, you sit there and watch and you say, 'That's so easy. You get your dinners paid for. How hard is it?' When I now see people like Kyle [Richards] and Luann, I'm like, 'You women are made of steel.' They are badasses. It's not easy to do."

She adds, "Even when it's easy, it's not easy. It's a lot. And the calendar of the filming and the thing and then press and then the show airing and then starting the circle all over again. It's not for the faint of heart. They're just iron women, truly. It's a lot to do this and to navigate it as well as they have."

Whitfield opens up more about her decision to join reality TV, her style evolution, financial security, and more on this week's installment of "Nice Talk." The episode is out now wherever you listen to podcasts.

Astrologer and the CHANI app co-founder Chani Nicholas understands planetary alignments—and how to run a company equitably.

On this week's episode of the Maire Claire podcast "Nice Talk," Nicholas spoke about how pay transparency is just as important to her business, the popular astrological app CHANI, as horoscopes.

She explained that meeting her wife Sonya Passi—who founded the organization Freefrom, which works to financially empower survivors of domestic violence—helped inform her perception of how important it is to speak openly about money. "Economic abuse becomes one of the main levers for humans to control each other, for men to control women. If I'm just gonna be super flat about it," she says. "Obviously, there's a lot of nuance, but that's how it works, and that's how it's always works because that's how patriarchy works. But we don't talk about it."

At CHANI, Nicholas says, they're as upfront as they can be about money. "We [at CHANI] post our salarie," the co-founder shares on the podcast. "But we should all be exceptionally transparent with what we pay, what we earn."

"You need to know what somebody else is making—otherwise it will be used against you because the dynamic is the same," she continues. "If it's in a marriage, if it's in a parent-child, if it's in a boss-employee, if it's in a president-citizens, it's all the same abusive dynamic because we're still so steeped in white-supremacist-het-cis patriarchy, and so extraction is the name of the game wherever we go, and the only way to start to chip away at that is to be explicit about what it is."

Nicholas reasoned that speaking more openly about money should be the norm and can only help get you where you want to be. "Taboos are just there as an invisible jail, and all you have to do is bust through it," the astrologer/activist says. "Just ask people, 'How did you make your first whatever?' Like, whatever it is you want to do, go ask people about money. Some people won't answer you. It's fine. Move on. Someone will have a conversation with you about money, and it is going to help clarify so much for you."

On "Nice Talk," Nicholas also shares her insight into the upcoming Mars and Venus retrogrades, which begin on December 6 and March 1, respectively.

She points out that Mars can represent masculine energy, equating the upcoming transit as potentially affecting how men voted for Donald Trump after feeling "left behind" in society. However, Venus, with its feminine and queer energy, could have its own impact.

"Mars will station direct a week before Venus stations retrograde. But there's a connection there between what's happening along the gender scale," the CHANI co-founder says.

Mentioning how Venus retrograde happens in the same place in the sky every eight years, Nicholas explains, "Venus is the planet of women and queer folks and style and beauty and all things that we love. But what happened eight years ago at the end of January? Okay, so we are going through the same Venus retrograde and the same inauguration."

"And just to put a little spin on it: What happened in 2017 was the Women's March, Time's Up, #MeToo, 'Nevertheless, she persisted,'" she continues. "So we had a coalescing of activism. It was imperfect, it was messy, it wasn't all effective...but that is what happened. And we are having the same exact one now."

Nicholas opens up more about when she realized to monetize her work as an astrologer, running a self-funded business, and more in this week's installment of "Nice Talk." The episode is out now wherever you listen to podcasts.

Reshma Saujani has made many successful career pivots, from being a lawyer and working in politics to founding the nonprofit Girls Who Code to publishing several books about career and ambition. With each change, she's also learned to embrace failure.

Saujani, who just launched the "My So-Called Midlife" podcast with Lemonada Media, opens up on the Marie Claire podcast "Nice Talk" about what she's learned from failing—and how women can apply that to their own lives.

She points to her background in tech and how she lost the 2010 New York Democratic House primary as having influenced her view of failure. "In that race, I learned how to be a great communicator, a great fundraiser. I learned how to build strong teams. But had I not lost that race, I wouldn't have been able to actually do that because then I had to go dissect it after I lost," Saujani shares on the pod.

The founder describes the skill of reflecting on what worked and what didn't as her "hack on failure."

"Women are so afraid of failure because they think it will break them—that they will think about it, think about it, think about it, think about it, think about it, and they'll never be able to do anything over again," she says. "For me, I'm like, I give myself 30 days to think about it, to analyze it, and then I move the fuck on. I do not sit in it."

"That's my hack," she continues. "And so I think that I have learned that failure is a privilege."

She adds that every person who has successfully launched a brand has made mistakes, and emphasizes how important it is to talk about that so others don't shy away from their own ambitions. "I want to go through the journey and the steps and the stumbles and the challenges and the mistakes and the failures because that's living," Saujani adds.

The best-selling author also opens up on "Nice Talk" about imposter syndrome, which she describes as "a normal response to inhabiting a space that was intentionally built to exclude you."

"Imposter syndrome, though we expect women to feel it, you get dinged when you have it," she says. "The best thing that we can do in many ways to combat imposter syndrome is to reject the premise entirely."

By doing so, Saujani explains, women may not feel held back in their careers, so they can aim even higher—even if they fail along the way.

Saujani opens up more about career transitions, embracing middle age, advocating for yourself in the workplace, and more on this week's installment of "Nice Talk." The episode is out now wherever you listen to podcasts.

In August 2022, Amanda Zurawski, who was pregnant with a baby girl after months of fertility treatments, learned her water had broken prematurely at 18 weeks. Her pregnancy was no longer viable. Abortion was the standard treatment of care, but because the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade less than two months prior in June 2022, Texas, where Zurawski lives, had banned abortion except in cases where the procedure is necessary to save the patient’s life. (The law contains language that critics argue is incredibly vague.) So Zurawski, then 35, wasn’t able to receive an abortion until she went into septic shock and was therefore in danger of losing her life; that was three days after she learned her baby would not survive.

After the harrowing experience of losing her baby, a girl she named Willow, and nearly losing her own life, Zurawski also learned that she may never be able to get pregnant again. If she had been able to receive an abortion earlier, her fertility might not have been compromised.

In March 2023, Zurawski joined forces with the Center for Reproductive Rights and four other plaintiffs to sue the state of Texas and urge the state to clarify the conditions in which an abortion can be provided legally. Zurawski v. Texas was the first case brought on behalf of women denied abortions since the fall of Roe.

Since they filed the case, the plaintiffs now total 22, 20 of whom were denied abortion care. Among them are Samantha Casiano, who was forced to carry a fetus who had no chance of survival, and Dr. Austin Dennard, an OB/GYN who learned her fetus had no chance of survival and left the state to terminate the pregnancy when her doctors said they could not perform an abortion due to the state’s laws.

Zurawski has told her story dozens of times since they first filed the lawsuit—on the stage at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, to newspapers and magazines, and in advertisements for pro-choice candidates. Now, she, Casiano, and Dennard are at the center of the urgent documentary Zurawski v. Texas, which chronicles the case led by the indefatigable lawyer Molly Duane.

Directed by Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, and executive produced by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, as well as Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence, with support from Bumble Inc., Zurawski v. Texas tells the story of what really happens when draconian post-Dobbs anti-abortion laws are enacted.

Ahead, Zurawski, now 37, and Chelsea Clinton share what they hope the film—which is available to stream for free through the election— teaches people about abortion care, the type of resilience and camaraderie that can be found in the darkest of times, and what’s at stake when abortion is on the ballot.

Marie Claire: Amanda, how did this documentary come about? What was your first reaction to Maisie and Abbie saying, "We want to film this time in your life?"

Amanda Zurawski: The filmmakers actually worked with The Center for Reproductive Rights in 2016 on a movie called Jackson. I had already been working with the Center for several months preparing for filing the lawsuit, and then days before we filed, my team said, "Hey, there are these filmmakers that are interested in making a documentary.” They explained to me how much trust they had in them and the partnership that they had built before. I had built such a partnership and a relationship with the Center at that point that when they said, "We trust that this will be a compassionate, and compelling, and educational project," it did not take much convincing for me.

I then had a Zoom call with Maisie and Abbie just to get to know them and understand what they wanted to do. Right away, we were like, "Yes, this is a partnership that we trust, and they're clearly coming at it from the right perspective." It was a big of a leap of faith, but I think it was the right decision.

MC: Chelsea, what about this specific case made you and your mother want to get involved as producers?

Chelsea Clinton: When the draft of the Dobbs decision leaked—which was not surprising and yet still wrenching—in early May, my mom and I immediately started a conversation. Well, we didn't really start. We continued a conversation that we've been having for years: What can we do, in this moment, to use our platform to support every part of the ecosystem that we need now?

We wanted to support patients, providers, the patients and the providers who will become the plaintiffs, and the lawyers. And also we wanted to engage narratively to help more people understand that the picture of abortion in this country, that is often not only articulated but shouted by those who oppose abortion rights, actually has no remote semblance of what abortion looks like in this country.

We spoke to our partners at Hidden Light, our production team, to say, "We want to talk to anyone and everyone who is working on stories that will inform Americans about the catastrophic consequences that we know these bans will bring to real women's lives, to families' lives, to communities' lives."

Amanda's the first lead plaintiff in more than 50 years [to sue for abortion access]. We thought that her story and the story of her fellow plaintiffs was just so powerful, urgent, and necessary, and we have been honored to be part of this project.

MC: There were so many moments of camaraderie among the plaintiffs in this film. Amanda, there's a moment where you meet Samantha in her car, and you're just so warm. You can tell that that meant so much to her. There's another moment where Molly is telling you about Kate Cox [a woman who filed a temporary restraining order to receive an emergency abortion in the state of Texas and was denied]. The first thing you said was, "Give her my number." I'm curious what the experience was like of meeting all of these other women who had been through something similar to what you had been through. What kind of community have you built?

AZ: We are unfortunately part of this unique club that none of us want to be a part of. But once you're part of it, you realize that the folks in it are very special. That's anyone who's been through loss and denial of care, and then you add the additional layer of filing this lawsuit together.

At first, I will be honest, I think we all kind of kept our distance, because we were quite nervous. Being plaintiffs, we knew text messages can be subpoenaed, emails can be subpoenaed. We were just a little nervous on how and when and whether we could communicate. We also were, and still are, on very different paths in our family-building journeys. Some were and still have experienced additional loss, some have had babies, some have, in Samantha's case, gotten their reproductive organs removed. We are just in all of these different places, and so we didn't know in the beginning how to really build a bridge.

Fast-forward a year and a half, and I've got text threads, email threads, we're all getting together next Friday. We have Halloween parties, we have Christmas parties, so we have really built this very special and unique bond. Having that support system really is huge in the healing piece of all of this, because knowing that you're not alone, and knowing that there are others who see you, they understand you, they're there for you, it really goes a long way.

MC: You do so many interviews, you've been to the State of the Union, you were on the DNC stage, your name and your story are out there. So many of your plaintiffs have similar situations where they're telling their stories publicly. How are you dealing with having to continually put yourself out there?

AZ: I don't think there were any of us that had any sort of aspirations to live this loud, political life. Now, many of us are leaning in because we feel like we don't have a choice but to fight back. If this is the way that we can fight back, we're going to take the opportunity.

For me, it's been quite healing and quite empowering to be able to use this horrible thing that happened to me—this sadness and this grief—and turn it into action.

If nothing else, we have already seen the tides turn. We have seen positivity, just in the fact that people across the country are talking about this and they're talking about it differently. People are using the word abortion. We're talking about IVF. That to me is very encouraging.

Also, on a very personal level, the more you talk about the thing that happened to you, the less control it has over you. Now, would I have chosen to process this grief on a national stage? Probably not, but that's the hand that life dealt me. I feel very empowered to tell my story, which is really the story of so many folks in this country, and hopefully give the confidence to others to speak up and share their stories as well.

MC: Chelsea, what do you think a documentary like this has the power to do?

CC: One of the things that has been incredibly powerful for me to hear from Amanda, Samantha, and Austin—the three women who, as I always say, are American heroes who we never should have been asked to be heroes—is that every time they speak out, whether at a panel after the film, or in interviews, or certainly when Amanda spoke at the DNC, they always hear from at least one other patient who has said, "Thank you for giving me the courage to now talk to my family, to talk to my community."

On a public level, we certainly hope to change hearts and minds through just informing people around what abortion is, and that it is healthcare. And that it's not ethically or morally an entanglement for anyone to think that what happened to Amanda is just unconscionable and unacceptable and should be illegal. If anything, we need to invert the argument. We've seen in places where people have been able to vote directly on abortion since the fall of Roe and the Dobbs decision—in historically blue, red, and purple states—people have voted fairly overwhelmingly in favor of enabling women to access the healthcare that we need; enabling us to have the freedom of choice over our bodies, and our reproductive lives, and how we choose to expand our families.

Sometimes people in conversations like this think, "Well, we just have to change people's hearts, because everyone knows what abortion is in our country. Everyone knows that the vast majority of abortions happen in the first 10 weeks, and the overwhelming majority of those that happen between 10 and 20 weeks are medically necessary.”

But what we found through this film is that everyone doesn't know that. A lot of people who've had miscarriages and received care for their miscarriage management didn't realize that what they then had was an abortion.

We are educating people that abortion is healthcare and the medical reasons why some women would choose to terminate a pregnancy.

MC: There are some strong male allies in the story, like Amanda, your husband Josh. Abortion affects their lives too. What is your message to men and non-birthing people about why abortion access affects them?

AZ: The male voice is crucial in this work. For a while, we didn't see a lot of men standing up, because they felt that this was not their business. This was a woman's decision, a woman's issue, and it really seems like they needed some sort of permission structure to start speaking out regardless of how they felt.

Men are seeing other men speak up. When you talk to them, they're seeing how this impacts men. It impacts their wives, their sisters, their moms, their aunts, and they care very deeply about that. Then they take a step back and they realize, Okay, when it impacts my family, that impacts me. Now, suddenly, this isn't a women's issue, this is a family issue. This is a basic human rights issue.

I say this all the time: I have yet to have someone say to me, "Oh, yeah, what's going on in Texas, what happened to you is perfectly reasonable. This should be happening." It's just connecting the dots for them. And then with men, specifically, giving them that permission structure to speak out and to be not just an ally but an advocate. I think especially as we get closer and closer to the election, and we see more men standing up, it's this domino effect.

Some of the toughest work, but also the most important work, is happening where we don't see it. It's happening in people's living rooms during Sunday night football. It's happening at the gym, it's happening on the basketball court. Men are having these conversations. They might be doing it in their own community where we don't hear about it on a national stage, but I think that's the most important conversation you can be having. Because when you hear it from someone you know directly, that's really going to start moving the needle.

MC: We even see it within your own family. Your mom says, "This is now a single issue election for me." What is your message to people who aren't already paying attention to the fight for abortion access?

AZ: These are basic human rights that are being taken away from us. In my lifetime, I have never seen a right that I have be taken away. Certainly, I've seen the fight to gain rights, but I haven't seen something that was already guaranteed to me stripped away. If you think they're going to stop with reproductive care, you need to wake up.

As long as we are allowing people to be in a position of political power who are willing to take our fundamental freedoms away from us, we are not free as a country. We are not a democracy. If you care about your freedoms, and if you care about this country, you need to take action and you need to vote accordingly.

CC: Think about Amanda's call to all of us when you're voting, not just for the presidential election, but in every election, and in this election at every stage of the ballot. Abortion's on the ballot in 10 states. Three of the judges that you see in the documentary, who show no compassion or empathy for Amanda, nor, I would argue, a fundamental understanding of the US Constitution, or our other founding documents… they're up for reelection in just a handful of days. [Ed note: Constituents in Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Montana, South Dakota, Nevada, Colorado, Maryland, and New York will have the ability to vote on proposals and propositions regarding abortion access this year. The Texas judges who sided with the state in Zurawski v. Texas and are up for reelection are Justice Jimmy Blacklock, Justice Jane Bland, Justice John Devine.]

MC: On Tuesday, if Trump wins the presidency, many fear he will enact a federal abortion ban [though he has said he would veto a ban and supports states’ right to set laws on abortion access]. How can people who care about these issues keep fighting and working against an oppositional federal government?

AZ: I think that's a really important question, because I think a lot of people don't realize that regardless of what happens Tuesday at the top of the ticket, with all of these ballot measures, there will still be a fight. I'm very hopeful that [this] week, we'll have a day of celebration, but then we also must remain vigilant.

The way that they're trying to take away our rights is terrifying, and they're taking all of these back roads to do it. That's how we got here in the first place. We know that the anti-choice movement is calculated, they are smart, and they're organized, and they're relentless, and we need to be all of those things, but more so.

CC: That's Amanda's reality right now in Texas. How could I choose to be anything but urgently engaged and optimistic that we can have a different future for all of us, and especially [for] the more than one-third of American women who are reproductive age, living under very strict abortion bans?

Amanda's getting up every day and doing what she can do. How could any of the rest of us feel anything but an obligation to do the same? There still will be so much work to do for women and families on Wednesday.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Reshma Saujani understands a midlife crisis can be an isolating experience for women—so she's changing that.

On October 2, the Girls Who Code and Moms First founder announced she's launching an all-new podcast, "My So-Called Midlife," about embracing middle age. The Lemonada Media project, set to premiere on October 16, will feature Saujani in conversation with successful women from different professional fields as they attempt to "answer the question: Is this it?"

The first two episodes will feature Emmy-winning actress/comedian Julia Louis-Dreyfus and economist/author Emily Oster. Additional episodes will drop weekly, with the activist/author/founder joined by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, author Cheryl Strayed, among others.

In a press release, Saujani stated, "Over the past decade, I’ve found myself wondering: Is this a midlife crisis, or something more? 'My So-Called Midlife' is the podcast I wish I’d had as I entered this stage of life."

She continued, "Women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s are enigmas in the zeitgeist right now—we’ve accomplished so much, yet we’re still figuring out what the rest of our lives look like. I’m excited to bring this conversation to life with Lemonada Media. I hope this show gives the millions of women who are experiencing midlife alongside me permission to rethink what’s possible and join me in exposing the con we’ve been sold about middle age."

In an audio trailer for the podcast, the host teases what kind of conversations she'll be facilitating. "Isn't this the point in our lives where it should feel good? I mean, we've accomplished big goals, we've done everything we thought we wanted, but you're so bored and unsatisfied. I don't know. It's like every day just feels like Groundhog's Day," she says. "Guess what? You're not alone. Welcome to 'My So-Called Midlife,' a weekly podcast hosted by me, Reshma Saujani. I'm the founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, I got a guy I love, two incredible kids, a really cute dog, I've written bestselling books, and I wake up each day wondering, 'Are my best years over?' On this show, we're going to figure out how to just get through it and actually start living it."

The trailer also features snippets of forthcoming guests as they discuss how they coped with a divorce, found new creative outlets, and made career pivots in their middle age. Saujani adds, "Join me each week as I talk to people we know and admire—experts, authors, actors, public figures. Together, we're going to validate our fears, explain our exhaustion, and give tips and tricks on the mundane. This is the new group chat."

"My So-Called Midlife" will be available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Welcome to Nice Talk, hosted by Marie Claire Editor in Chief Nikki Ogunnaike. Each week, Nikki sits down with fascinating women—entertainers, entrepreneurs, creators, athletes, and changemakers—to discuss money, power, and style. “Well-behaved” women have long been discouraged from speaking on these topics—style should be effortless, and conversations about money or power aren’t “proper,” “ladylike,” or “nice.” But Nikki's definition of a Nice Talk is one where all parties walk away feeling empowered. You can listen to Nice Talk with Nikki Ogunnaike on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The acne spot treatment brand Starface may be a favorite skin care product among Gen Z, but when founder Julie Schott set out to launch the company, she didn't know where to start with its finances. She simply trusted her instincts—and advises other aspiring entrepreneurs to do the same.

Schott, who became an entrepreneur after working as a beauty editor for years, opened up on the Marie Claire podcast "Nice Talk" about how she learned to accept that it's "okay" to have blind spots and seek assistance when starting a business.

"I knew that I did not know how to finance a company, and I knew that it wasn't going to be me and how my brain works," Schott recalls.

"So it was about finding that better half—that partner who I could really trust and really believe I don't need to check their homework," continues Schott, who's since expanded into founding Julie, an emergency contraceptive brand, the skincare line Futurewise, and Blip nicotine gum and sticks.

The entrepreneur says she "did find that partner" in her co-founder Brian Bordainick. "We've been working together on everything because I trust him and I don't need to check and he trusts me the same way," she adds.

Ultimately, Schott explains that understanding her strengths and knowing where to take a step back as a CEO can only help a business. "Yes, I'm aware, and, yes, I'm in the rooms, but, no, I'm not making a financial model. And it's okay to say that, right? Like, you don't have to be everything," she says. "I actually think it's important to recognize that because I'm never going to be the best at doing that thing. It wouldn't have been beneficial to the business if I had insisted upon it."

Schott also reflects on "Nice Talk" about how she didn't anticipate how beloved Starface would become by Gen Z. What she did know, she explains, is recognizing the importance of "trusting your gut" when it comes to pursuing something you're passionate about.

"I don't think [the reception] was something that we thought, 'Oh, this is going to happen,' because you can't really. You don't really know. The customer tells you how the thing affects them, or they show you through how they talk about it online, or how they talk about it offline," she shares. "But it's really meaningful."

After years of struggling with and openly talking about adult acne herself, Schott says the best part of working on Starface has been being able to help others and see how useful the product has been for them. "There are so many other challenges that young people are already going to face," Schott says, noting how frustrating it can feel to not want to go to work or school because of a breakout. "So if you can just make some of these [challenges] that are actually easy to solve better, I think that's probably one of the best parts [of running Starface].

Schott opens up more about her experience leaving fashion media to start her own business, stepping into a CEO role, and what it was like venturing into the emergency contraceptive space on this week's "Nice Talk." The episode is available now everywhere you listen to podcasts.

The GOP has a message for their rank and file: Don’t talk about Kamala Harris’s gender or race.

And I have a message for Kamala Harris: Don’t fall for it.

After the far-right started up their chorus of sexist and racist attacks on Harris—calling her, among other insults, a “DEI vice president”—party leaders rushed to shut it down. At a closed-door meeting with lawmakers this week, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson warned his membership to steer clear of comments about the vice president’s identity.

That’s because the GOP knows that, if this becomes a campaign about identity, they’re going to lose.

Like it or not, they’ve made this race a referendum on female power. Not only have Republicans gleefully stripped away women’s reproductive freedoms, but they’ve made toxic masculinity a centerpiece of their political strategy. (Just think about Hulk Hogan ripping off his shirt at the Republican National Convention.) Now they’re desperate to avoid talking about the policy issues, the women’s issues, that Harris is strongest on—with the biggest potential to galvanize Democratic voters.

And that’s why Kamala Harris absolutely should be talking about her gender and her race—loudly and proudly.

Women voters know what’s really at stake here. The Dobbs decision left young people with fewer reproductive freedoms than their mothers and grandmothers had at their age. It set off a ripple effect, too, putting access to birth control and IVF in danger. And it emboldened the far-right to reach for even more ambitious goals, like outlawing no-fault divorce—which could prevent women from fleeing domestic violence.

That’s not to mention how hard life already is for women and moms in America: the only industrialized nation without paid leave, where child care costs more than housing in every state. It wasn’t that long ago that women were struggling to re-enter the workforce after the pandemic. Now they’re struggling to make ends meet for their families, with inflation hitting parents especially hard.

Yet these very real issues are often cast as second-tier, relegated to the end of the to-do list behind jobs and health care and public safety. (Though you may notice that these “women’s issues” are, in fact, about jobs and health care and public safety.) Women are tired of seeing them brushed to the side.

And that’s why we’re seeing such a surge of excitement for the Harris campaign—44,000 people joined a Win With Black Women organizing call for her this past weekend and raised $1 million in three hours. In Harris, they see someone who is not qualified for our nation’s highest office in spite of her identity, but because of her identity.

If you look back at Harris’s long, impressive career, women’s issues have always been at the center. In high school, when Harris learned her best friend was being sexually abused by her stepfather, the Harris family took her in—an experience that later inspired her to become a prosecutor. As a senator, she fearlessly took on Brett Kavanaugh —questioning him about the allegations of sexual assault and his stance on abortion. During her 2020 campaign for president, she proposed one of the strongest paid family leave policies of all the candidates in the primary.

And as Vice President, she has been one of the most important advocates for reducing Black maternal mortality in our nation’s history. She has been an ardent champion of abortion rights and outspoken about the need to cap child care costs for American families.

For Harris, fighting for women’s rights has been her greatest strength—and positioned her to lead the country today. She should run on those women’s issues now, putting her identity as a Black, South Asian woman front and center in her campaign.

I understand why that could feel like a risky move. Women candidates have been taught, explicitly and implicitly, that leaning into their identity can be a liability.

But the alternative is risky, too—because playing it safe could mean losing this election. Donald Trump’s Vice Presidential pick is just another proof point that the next four years will be hellish for women. JD Vance has intimated support for a nationwide abortion ban, and said that the Democrats—citing Harris specifically—are “miserable” and “childless cat ladies.” With the two of them in power, you can all but guarantee that women’s rights—along with LGBTQ rights, the safety of Black Americans, and more—will be in danger.

Yes, we need to be sounding the alarm on abortion, IVF, and child care. But we need to do something bigger than that, too: challenge the entrenched systems of male power at the heart of Donald Trump’s campaign.

It’s a tall order—but Harris can lead us there. This week, we saw just a taste of what it looks like for women to step into their own power. Now let’s fully unleash it.

Welcome to Nice Talk, hosted by Marie Claire Editor in Chief Nikki Ogunnaike. Each week, Nikki sits down with fascinating women—entertainers, entrepreneurs, creators, athletes, and changemakers—to discuss money, power, and style. “Well-behaved” women have long been discouraged from speaking on these topics—style should be effortless, and conversations about money or power aren’t “proper,” “ladylike,” or “nice.” But Nikki's definition of a Nice Talk is one where all parties walk away feeling empowered. You can listen to Nice Talk with Nikki Ogunnaike on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

A'ja Wilson and her fellow WNBA teammates have long spoken out about the gender pay gap in professional basketball, and she thinks it's time for allies to stand up for them.

The Team USA and Las Vegas Aces player shares on the latest episode of the Marie Claire podcast "Nice Talk" how she thinks the issue of pay disparity between men's and women's sports can be best addressed, noting just how important it is for others in positions of power to advocate for the women on the courts.

"I can scream at the top of my lungs, 'I want my money in my bank account,' but who are the people who are on foot that can get the job done?" Wilson says. "That's where I lean to. That's where I tap into the most: making sure that those people who are in those spaces understand, 'No, this is something that you really want to invest in.'"

The star athlete explains on "Nice Talk" how she thinks it's essential that allies who can represent individual players and teams "speak highly" of them, and fight for fair deals and partnership opportunities—all the while emphasizing that money can be made by working with the WNBA, too. She explains, "I think the biggest thing is always showing up and being present and letting people know that, 'This is why you need to invest in us.' Because I feel like people sometimes got to see the product for real to really understand, 'Do I want to invest in this?'"

Wilson adds, "I may not be there to have that seat, but you do, and if you're really about it, this is how you can start addressing it at the table."

Thus far, the Olympian has partnered with multiple brands, including Nike, who named her one of the brand's signature athletes and she launched a collection with. "This is huge that a Black woman can sit here and say, 'That's my shoe. That's my collection that people are wearing,'" Wilson says of the collaboration. "I don't take a moment [like that] for granted."

While the Las Vegas Aces player notes that the fight toward pay equity isn't easy, she emphasizes that it's essential for the future of the WNBA. "Sometimes those conversations aren't the easiest, because people may not want to hear that, or they're like, 'This, isn't it.' But when you get those people that want to know more—that want to actually do the work—that's the people that I love to stay close with, because long term, not just now, you're planting seeds, so now the next generation can then flourish," Wilson says.

"Change doesn't happen overnight," she continues. "We're just now starting to see this huge growth of WNBA, and it's been 28 years. So understanding that when you can plant those seeds with those allies, we're going to start reaping the benefits sooner or later."

"I think the tides are slowly starting to turn because people are starting to invest and people are starting to see, 'Oh, no, these women get it done, both on and off the court,'" adds Wilson.

The basketball star, who will soon play in this summer's Olympic Games, opens up more about adjusting to becoming a celebrity athlete within the past few years, how she shies from setting high goals, and more on this week's episode of "Nice Talk." The podcast is available now wherever you listen to podcasts.

The 21st century introduced the rise of the girlboss: the (tastefully) badass woman who, in contrast to so many before her, can choose to prioritize her career over everything else, bursting through glass ceilings and clawing her way to executive roles, all without giving up her femininity. She’s a superwoman who “has it all,” juggling a high-powered career and a family, all while wearing a stylish power suit and painfully high heels. On paper, it may seem like a good idea, especially after women’s rights activists spent decades fighting for access first to the workplace and then, once they had a foot in the door, to the highest levels of the corporate structure. In reality, however, girlbossery leaves much to be desired.

Setting aside the inherent issue of its patronizing, infantilizing name, many are increasingly realizing that, rather than signifying a win for feminism, the idea of the girlboss only perpetuates the racist, classist, and, yes, sexist structures of late-stage capitalism. Now, it's just with a glittery, hot pink overlay to make it seem like something revolutionary and new. (It’s not.) The vast majority of those held up as the ultimate girlbosses throughout the 2000s and 2010s were overwhelmingly young, white, and cisgender, suggesting that there was only one way to be a high-achieving woman. Beyond that, girlboss toxicity is further entrenched in its celebration of an all-out sprint to the top of the corporate ladder—of “leaning in” to office policies that all but destroy the idea of work-life balance—which have proven to have major consequences on both physical and mental health.

Of course, the issue isn’t confined only to women: People of all genders, races, and ages are left overworked, exhausted, and unfulfilled by the demands of a society built around a form of capitalism that venerates the unsustainable ideal of relentless progress at all costs.

So, enter the rise of a new approach to work-life balance weighted distinctly more toward life than work and eschews hustle culture in favor of good mental and physical health habits. A decade after Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In took the world by storm, bestseller lists and round-ups of the best books of the year now contain much more nuanced takes on corporate culture. There's especially a focus on strategies for and stories of women in the workforce. Below, we're highlighting 12 must-read memoirs and nonfiction titles about ambition and in critique of hustle culture from women writers for anyone interested in breaking away from the girlboss facade once and for all.

This story contains moderate spoilers for MaXXXine. In MaXXXine, even as the titular aspiring actress played by Mia Goth finds herself and everyone around her being hunted by a killer, she refuses to be a victim. She’s the star of her own cinematic universe, and as she frequently repeats in the film, “I will not accept a life I do not deserve,” you can expect an untimely, gruesome death is not a part of her final act.

Rather, it’s clear that Maxine Minx will go to extreme lengths of self-preservation while investigating the murderer on her trail so she can step into the spotlight as she sees fit. In doing so, the new A24 horror film—Goth’s and writer/director Ti West third and final entry in their collaborative X trilogy—takes heavy inspiration from the Italian subgenre Giallo. (It marks the third time in the series that West has paid homage to a bygone era of filmmaking; 2022’s X took direct influence from classic horror slashers and Pearl was a nightmarish take on Technicolor.) But here, MaXXXine flips the script on Giallo.

The ‘60s-’80s Italian horror era is categorized as a noir-slasher hybrid, featuring signature splashy, graphic imagery (look to the filmographies of Dario Argento, Mario Bava, among others). And considering that the third X movie is set in 1985 L.A. when cocaine was abundant, the Satanic Panic and Night Stalker were terrorizing the city, and sleaze ruled the heyday of the porn and B-movie industries, the film very much lives in that same ostentatious, bloodred world. The homage runs so deep that the film’s killer even wears black leather gloves and a trench coat like many Giallo villains do. But as Maxine tries to thwart her stalker when she lands her first non-adult-film role as the lead in the horror sequel The Puritan II, MaXXXine forgoes one defining quality of Giallo: its sexploitation and brutal depictions of violence at the expense of women.

Many of the grisly depictions of violence and death in Maxxxine are wielded by the aspiring starlet herself in acts of self-defense. Instead of showing copious terrified, scantily clad women meeting their demise at the hands of greedy, vengeful men or caricatures of mentally unstable women as the Giallo titles Blood and Black Lace, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The New York Ripper, Torso, and more have done, it’s the men who wrong Maxine who end up being on the other side of the most gory attacks.

The film makes this clear early on in a scene in which Maxine gives the performance of a lifetime to an audience of one. Walking home from work after her colleague Tabby (Halsey) advises against it because of the looming threat of the Night Stalker, she winds up in an alley with a man intent on harming her. She surprises him by pulling out a gun, which she’s held onto since being the sole survivor of the infamous farmhouse massacre in the events of X. Instantly, she holds the power and makes both her attacker and the audience squirm by demanding he sucks on the barrel of her gun and lie down “ass up.” Even when she appears satisfied, she’s not done with him and steps on his testicles with her stilettos as she walks away—making for one of the most unsettling, squeamish moments in horror this year. (But, hey, how many topless women have died by a phallic weapon in horror movies in the past?)

Later, when Maxine’s had enough with the private investigator (Kevin Bacon) hired to keep an eye on her, she lets him know. After he follows her onto the Universal Studios lot where The Puritan II is being filmed one too many times, she gets out of her convertible to key, not his vehicle, but his face. And when he still won’t leave her alone, she asks a handful of her associates for their help in getting rid of him—by crushing him to death while in the car he’s been hiding behind in a junkyard, no less. She stares on, unphased, as bright red blood pours out in a steady stream.

Yes, there are many instances in Giallo’s history, including Argento’s significant film Deep Red, where the murderer ends up being a woman—but the reveal is often entrenched in misogyny surrounding how “crazy” a woman may become if she doesn’t adhere to societal standards. MaXXXine instead applies the X trilogy’s longrunning and signature feminist horror lens, as time and time again, the burgeoning star of the silver screen goes to lengths to protect herself so no one has the opportunity to interfere with the path she’s worked tirelessly for. With Goth having her first production credit on the trilogy with the new release, after previously co-writing series stand-out Pearl, you can’t help but feel her stamp on the franchise—especially as she’s spoken out previously about being fascinated with “female rage” in her career.

Meanwhile West—in all three X movies but in MaXXXine most starkly—appears to be interested in societal discomfort surrounding sex. For instance, Maxine is the new lead in a franchise about Puritanism and is cast in part because the director (Elizabeth Debicki) liked the idea of stirring controversy by hiring a sex worker. And as they’re filming, devout protestors picket their production outside of the studio lot. The (albeit unsurprising) reveal of the killer’s identity continues to play into this, especially the expectation that girls grow up to be women who are tame, chaste, and pure—all of which, Maxine Minx is not. But even still, in a movie so fascinated with the way we think about sex and sleaze, West only goes full sexploitation when a man tries to attack Goth’s character, and she stomps, literally, on his masculinity.

In the finale, as Maxine goes head-to-head with the perpetrator, and police try to interfere and tell her that backup is on the way, she declares, “So am I.” Classic Giallo would have seen the character wailing in fear while bloodied to a pulp, but yet again, the X final girl refuses the role of the victim, taking nothing less than the top billing.

Chappell Roan stomped onto the stage for her Kentuckiana Pride performance on June 15 in a ruby red gown, a leopard bra peeking out from the bodice, drawn-on eyebrows that arched up to her hairline, and a cigarette clipped between two fingers. Roan's concert outfit from the Louisville show was a top-to-toe tribute to the late drag queen Divine, the star of John Waters’s 1972 cult classic Pink Flamingos.

The musician’s look was gaudy and bodacious—completely and utterly camp. Roan's reference flew over some of her audience’s heads, but that was actually part of her point. The singer, who identifies as a queer woman, wanted to teach a history lesson to the younger generation in the audience—albeit one covered in rhinestones and set to a backtrack about dancing at the "Pink Pony Club," a break-away hit from her 2023 album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. “When we were talking about what we could do for Pride, we wanted a legendary homage to [queer] culture,” Roan’s fashion stylist, Genesis Webb, says on a video call.

What performance attendees may not have known either was the political undercurrent beneath Roan's bright red tulle dress and teased-up hair. In 2023, the Kentucky Senate passed Senate Bill 150, a law that bans gender-affirming medical care for trans minors, prohibits public school education on "human sexuality," and requires students to use bathrooms aligning with their assigned gender at birth.

So, the pop sensation pushed back against the state's anti-LGBTQ+ legislature the best way she and Webb knew how: by embodying Divine, the infamous drag icon whose most quoted line from Waters's filmography is "Filth is my politics! Filth is my life!" It was Roan’s reminder to her fans, both in Kentucky and worldwide, to be themselves, especially if that means straying from the status quo. "We like the ugly, thought-provoking, and confusing, and we admire [Divine’s] worldview to just be yourself and make things beautiful in your own way," Webb says. "I hope what we're doing shows that you can do whatever and be whoever you want."

Born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz in the small town of Willard, Missouri, Roan's drag-inspired persona is currently the name to know in music. As of now, three of her songs are on the Billboard Hot 100 chart: TikTok's favorite "Good Luck, Babe!", the punchy ballad "Red Wine Supernova," and "Hot to Go!", a catchy anthem that comes with a YMCA-style arm dance. Her music festival sets need last-minute stage upgrades to accommodate mammoth crowds, with some attendees camping out as early as 3:30 a.m. to ensure they get a good spot. The singer calls herself "Your favorite artist's favorite artist" in reference to the season 15 winner of RuPaul's Drag Race, Sasha Colby, who uses the same tagline but swaps "artist" for "drag queen."

Roan's playful catchphrase isn’t far off: Sir Elton John is one of the singer’s most fervent fans, alongside a rapidly growing fanbase of millennials and Gen Z listeners.

“We went from here to here within just a few months,” says Webb, positioning her hand under her chest and then rocketing it off-screen and out of view. Some relate Roan’s star power and showmanship to that of Lady Gaga, a comparison Webb finds cosmic since she met Roan while assisting Gaga’s stylist and creative partner-in-crime, Nicola Formichetti, for a 2022 V magazine photoshoot. Both hailing from the Midwest, the two 26-year-olds had an immediate bond and have worked together ever since. “It was this strange moment of serendipity,” Webb recalls. “When people say Chappell is the next Lady Gaga, it feels like a very interesting reality where everything has been shaped specifically for this moment and for us to work together.”

Since their fate meeting two years ago, the duo has arrived at a level of fashion artistry that can only be achieved when a star and their stylist develop their own aesthetic language. Each outfit gets its own mood board of references and inspiration points, including deep-cut horror movies, Paris Hilton's early-2000s fashion moments, and Roan's own lyrics. “She's always had themes based on her songs for [each outfit], which I think is why her looks are so impactful and a true experience,” says Webb. The singer encourages her fans to follow her style concepts too, often posting on Instagram with a call to dress accordingly—like in your "Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl" best to a performance.

Webb defines Roan's on-stage style as an amalgamation of their angsty teenage years, with looks that range from ‘80s frou-frou prom queen to a bedazzled cowgirl. “Chappell comes from a drag background, and I was a punk in high school. That's exactly where we are with her style: it's a fun mix of drag on a large spectrum with an eighties punk glam aspect," the fashion stylist shares.

She references what Roan wore for her day-one Coachella performance: a latex bodysuit emblazoned with “Eat Me,” a dominatrix-style leather harness, and a silver-studded choker borrowed from Drag Race champions and bonafide fashion icons, Violet Chachki and Gottmik. "We want to give the proper dues [to the queer community] as well. So, to have all these elements christened by our favorite drag queens felt like everything was going in the right direction," the stylist says. "You could sense that performance was a pivotal moment."

Her politics is the other throughline in Roan's concert outfits. “She's always been very vocal and considers it important to give back to the communities that have done so much for her," Webb says. "My job is to make it as easy as possible for her to provide the message she wants to give."

During her set at New York City’s Governors Ball Music Festival, Roan dressed as the Statue of Liberty in patina-green body paint, a latex dress, and a seven-pointed crown. The singer described herself as dressed “in drag of the biggest queen of all” and recited the Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on the statue’s pedestal. “That [poem] means freedom and trans rights, that means freedom and women’s rights, … and it especially means freedom for all oppressed people in occupied territories,” Roan said.

Roan's Gov Ball performance made headlines across various news sites, ranging from Vogue to The Hill, and Webb considers it an accurate representation of who Roan is as both an artist and person. "She means what she said [at Gov Ball]. When you have as big a platform as [Roan] has, it makes sense to use it," the stylist says.

Some may see Roan’s performance style as driven by shock value—strutting around as the Lady Liberty in a latex dress with butt cutouts can come as a surprise. But there’s intentionality in what Webb and Roan put together. "Yes, she could wear a tight little leotard and just be hot all the time, but her style is about so much more than that. I don't try to sell sex, and Chappell doesn't either," says Webb. “Our main thing is that people scroll all day long, so we’re trying to give someone a reason to stop. Even if they're like, ‘Ew,’ and laugh or gawk at our outfits, at least they're stopping and questioning what they're looking at. Those moments of exposure are so important in art and culture."

The duo are trying to make you think and feel something—anything.

As Webb winds down the conversation, she hints that Roan’s outfit for her performance on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon (that aired June 20th) would be sensational. The day after Webb’s interview with Marie Claire, Roan appeared on the NBC talk show in her interpretation of Princess Odette from Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake"—specifically Mattel's 2003 animated adaption, Barbie of Swan Lake: a mini dress made of icy-white feathers and pearls designed by Gunnar Deatherage and a winged headpiece that looked ready to take flight.

The symbolism of Roan nodding to the 1877 ballet about forbidden love but with a campy, childlike, and Barbie-esque twist during LGBTQ+ Pride Month was not lost amongst her feathers and vocal flipping. Clutching the mic through fingernails shaped like talons, she belted “Good Luck, Babe!” at the top of her lungs and as free as a bird.

"Many of our homages are to celebrate moments that aren't in the mainstream anymore and to bring them [back] into 2024 for her younger audience," says Webb. Roan is not only making music or history, but she's preserving it as well.

In 2014, Cleopatra Coleman and V. Stiviano were both up-and-comers seeking success in their respective fields. Coleman had just moved from Australia to L.A. to pursue acting in the U.S.—and in the years since, she has become an underrated, versatile scene-stealer on projects ranging from last year’s gruesome Infinity Pool and the FOX comedy The Last Man on Earth. Stiviano was the assistant to LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling and his girlfriend at the time, and nearly overnight, she became an infamous tabloid figure when TMZ released a tape of Sterling telling her not to associate with Black people. Stiviano is still best known for the scandal and has remained out of the public eye to this day, save for one viral interview.

When the tape leaked, the private conflict between Stiviano and Donald’s wife Shelly Sterling became the nation’s monocultural scandal. It also led to a racial reckoning within the NBA revolving around players’ right to protest and what owners (now dubbed “governors”) can get away with regarding their teams.

A decade later, Coleman brings Stiviano to life in FX’s Clipped, which presents her as more than the stereotypical “other woman.” “There are so many perspectives the show could have taken,” Coleman tells Marie Claire. “The fact that we were wanting to delve into her psychology at all was really exciting to me because there could be a version of this show where you [only showed] the surface-level, tabloid version of her.”

So instead of portraying her as a caricature, Coleman portrays Stiviano as a layered, ambitious woman determined to reinvent herself, possibly to her detriment. “I felt like I was playing a character based on the myth of V,” she says. “There's this idea of her with the visor and the roller skates and the white suit and the Barbara Walters and the Silly Rabbit and all of that. But then there's this human being underneath all of it.”

Now that Clipped is airing weekly on Hulu, following its June 4 premiere, Coleman chats with Marie Claire about performing scenes with Jacki Weaver and Ed O’Neill, the difference between seeking fame in 2014 and 2024, and how growing up feeling like an outsider eventually helped her Hollywood career.

Marie Claire: When you first heard about the Sterling tape scandal, what were your first impressions of everything?

Cleopatra Coleman: I had just moved to L.A. [in 2014], so I was in the States when it happened. I remember everyone was talking about it. It was such a scandalous, bizarre, upsetting combination of things. I remember V. I remember the way people were talking about V at the time. I knew what everyone else knew, which was this surface-level version of her and what we were seeing in the tabloids. So it has been really cool to unpack her further.

MC: She's a fascinating person in this saga because she's still essentially a cipher. There’s only an interview of her with Barbara Walters that’s available, and she’s so hard to read. How do you prepare to play a character like that?

CC: I was really grateful to [showrunner] Gina Welch and her exciting, nuanced, thoughtful perspective on V. In terms of getting into the character, a lot of it is the writing. I couldn't have done the performance I did without the infrastructure that Gina laid out, in just being interested in how V feels and what her experience was.

I've never played a real person before. I did approach her like I'd approach any fictional character, except that I did have that interview and a couple of other things to look at. Other than that, I really tried to treat her like any character I would approach, and that's through compassion and empathy always—just genuinely being interested in her, where she was coming from, what her motivations were, and who she was as a human being.

MC: Looking through your previous credits with Neighbours, Infinity Pool, and The Last Man on Earth, you have a history of playing characters in wild situations, whether that's soap opera or absurd horror. V can be quite melodramatic. Did you feel like you played her as going through this experience in an emotionally heightened way?

CC: She's interesting because there are elements that are quite heightened, and then she'll adopt two children, which I think is a very down-to-earth human thing. I locked into the tone of the show and the way she was written—and it is heightened because it was a heightened scandal. Harnessing that energy in the show was really important.

There's a definite heightened idea because this show is based on a true story. It's not a documentary. It is fiction, but there are factual elements. I had so much fun playing with the heightened versions, and then the moment that you think, 'Oh, this person's not a human,' like reminding you, 'No, she absolutely is.' That was really fun as an actor.

MC: V essentially was myth-making at the moment. There’s just not much foresight or thinking ahead to what comes on the other side of that fame.

CC: It was just a different time. It was kind of a seminal, viral situation. I've been thinking about this idea of like, 'If this had happened now, would it have made as much of a lasting impact,' because there are so many scandals going on all the time that we're noticing because of social media. I don't think they're happening more; I think we're just more aware of them. Perhaps if this happened now, two days later, there'd be something else.

MC: It also makes me think of some of the imagery that comes up in the show with Kim Kardashian and Omarosa. It is very much of that time and makes you think about how the nature of influencing has changed so much since then.

CC: Absolutely. The way we treat these kinds of female figures is different too. People in L.A. who have had run-ins with V love to tell me she's this or she's that. A lot of the time it's negative, and it's very interesting to me that they don't say, 'Oh, that Donald Sterling.' But then you ask other people and they're like, 'She's an icon. She's iconic.' Had this happened today, I think she would've been seen more in that light and we would've had more space to see her humanity more. But I will also agree that there's not much to gather from what we saw at the time [from] that myth-making and the images we saw. It was a very limited idea of her.

MC: Speaking of heightened absurdity, was there a scene in which you had the most fun playing opposite the Sterlings? Like, was it fun to call Shelly Sterling a witch?

CC: A lot of actors love to play the quote-unquote 'baddie.' In that moment, V was the baddie. Also though, I love Jacki [Weaver] so much. She's so sweet, and a fellow Australian. There was part of me that was dreading it. I hated being mean to her, but she also made it fun.

There's one take [from episode 1] that's not in the show, but we were trying different things, and when I blew in her face, 'You're dust,' she blew right back. And I was like, [gasp]. It was just so playful and so fun. It helps to have an actor to work opposite like Jacki Weaver, who's just an undeniable presence, and you feel that sense of trust that you can go there and we're enjoying it.

MC: Did you also have a playful mood with Ed O'Neill, even as he's playing such a horrible person?

CC: Yes, I did. Ed is such a legend, and he and I do really have this familial bond. It was shocking to me how quickly he and I were thick as thieves. He's so caring and wonderful and I felt really safe with him. It was similar to Jackie. These are pros, and so we knew what we were doing, and I felt safe to play with that very, very complicated dynamic that V and Donald have with Ed.

MC: Clipped offers some insight into V’s thinking by including scenes with Deja, her friend who she discussed everything with, but who also pushed back. What was it like playing those scenes?

CC: Really great. I did that with Yvonna Pearson, who was so excellent. She's so good in the show. Gina gave her these amazing lines about the world, feminism, and the patriarchy. All we had to do was say the words, because they meant so much, and we could bounce off each other.

It was really interesting to play with the power balance and how that shifts in their relationship. There's a time when V's really looking to her, and Deja's in a powerful position, and then there's a time when V becomes more powerful. Even in the middle of a conversation, V will switch positions. There's a lingerie scene where V's trying on the corset to go talk to Donald and Deja's schooling her on how it works. And then halfway through the conversation, V starts schooling Deja. I had so much fun with those scenes; they are really a highlight.

MC: The show portrays the different natures of fame. In the big confrontation between V and Deja, when V becomes a paparazzi star, Deja says that V is now the bad kind and famous, and V says, "There's no such thing." How did the show make you think about whether the nature of fame is a plus or a detriment?

CC: It depends on the person. There are a lot of people who are happy to be famous. They don't care what it's for. I don't really relate to that. In my realm, that success opens doors and allows me to play more characters and make more art. It's always art-focused. But I do understand that there are people who have different priorities, and we are living in a world where you can make that happen from your living room. If your goal is to make money, you really can these days. But for me, that's never been a focus or a goal. It's always just been about what I can create, and how exciting it feels to embody characters that excite me or work with people like Gina, collaborators who push me to a new place as an artist.

MC: Every role you’ve played is so versatile and chameleonic. Why did you decide to do a bit of everything in your career rather than focusing on a certain genre?

CC: It's just about the character. I'm very, very lucky that I've been able to have such a versatile career. I used to feel self-conscious about it and that I needed to choose a lane, and then I realized, that was my lane. to be as different as possible in every role, just really throw myself in, be as immersive as possible, disappear as much as I could, and be of service to the story.

I'm very interested in counterculture and people who are outliers, either because they're defiant, or because they're vulnerable, or because they're just different. That's something that I relate to; maybe that's why I end up doing jobs like that.

MC: Growing up mixed-race in Australia, did you feel a bit different, and then maybe like a fish out of water once you moved to the United States?

CC: Absolutely. Growing up in Australia, I never saw anyone that looked like me in the media. I think for a lot of us at that time, it wasn't the way that it is now, but especially in Australia, it really was not diverse. I'm also very grateful for that time because it taught me the skills that I have. It taught me my work ethic, and this idea that you have to be undeniable. You have to make it so they can't say no. To come from a space where there was no space for me, there was no lane—I still to this day have not done an Australian film—I'm also really grateful to have been able to come to America and to be able to find my place. It's not something that would've been possible in Australia.

Ultimately as an artist, I'm so, so grateful for my experience. I feel like an anthropologist when I look at other people, and that all stems from being different, being on the outside, being so interested in their psychology, and thinking, 'What's it like to be normal? What's it like to grow up with a white picket fence and like all of that?' My childhood was incredible, but it wasn't like anyone else's. It was completely creative and wild and in nature and I was just like, 'What's it like to be a normal girl?' I just found that so interesting. It's definitely been a gift as far as being an artist and having a perspective.

MC: You do have a history of writing and producing your own projects. Have you like, felt any pull to get behind the camera, as you're now 20 years on in your career?

CC: It's definitely something that interests me. I have directed a couple of short films. The one I most recently directed hasn't been released, because I'm keeping it for myself for now, but I am developing it into a feature.

My dad was a script editor for a long time, and he's a writer, as well, and it's a very unstable business. The first lead role I ever had in a feature film, I wrote myself. I learned that being an outsider in Australia, you just develop more skills. I see it as a positive. If you can rise to the challenge, it grows you. So writing was always something I knew I was going to do. I thought I'd have an acting career first and then I would write. But what I've realized is that it's better to be able to create your own opportunities.

MC: You're currently working with Jason Bateman on his next Netflix series, Black Rabbit. Clipped is already major, but once you hit Netflix, there are so many eyes on you that it's another level. As you're getting close to another level of fame and recognition, how do you like to stay true to yourself and your self-image?

CC: We'll have to see. I don't feel at risk of losing myself at all. I don't know if that's naive, but my career has been like a slow build. There haven't been a lot of huge jumps where my world has completely changed. It has slowly changed, and I've been able to acclimatize along the way, which has been really healthy, psychologically and emotionally. I've watched it happen the other way for people, where they change and they can't get a grasp of the ground. I think because I don't really prioritize fame, if anything, I welcome the idea of having access to more characters to play. It's always about that. I've been doing this for so long, and I'm so clear that this is my calling and I get so much from it, therefore I'm very protective over my relationship to my art. I always put that first.

I'm just a low-key small-town, beach-, rainforest-dwelling person. I have amazing people around me that keep me grounded, but also know how to celebrate me when it's time to do that. I have the same friends I've had since I was 15 years old. They've seen me act my whole life. Although it's like bigger stuff than the things I did in Australia, it's essentially the same thing where they're like, 'Oh, we saw your new thing,' or they'll all get together to watch whatever the new thing is. It's pretty much the same as when I was 15. Nothing's really changed. It's just that more people are seeing it. But it all depends on your perspective, and my focus really isn't on anything apart from my art form and how much I enjoy doing it.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Welcome to Nice Talk, hosted by Marie Claire Editor in Chief Nikki Ogunnaike. Each week, Nikki will sit down with fascinating women—entertainers, entrepreneurs, creators, athletes, and changemakers—to discuss money, power, and style. “Well-behaved” women have long been discouraged from speaking on these topics—style should be effortless, and conversations about money or power aren’t “proper,” “ladylike,” or “nice.” But Nikki's definition of a Nice Talk is one where all parties walk away feeling empowered. You can listen to Nice Talk with Nikki Ogunnaike on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Not every 17-year-old negotiates business deals, but when Maitreyi Ramakrishnan went from a typical high schooler in Ontario, Canada to the star of Netflix's Never Have I Ever, that's exactly what she had to consider—on top of her overnight fame.

On the latest episode of Marie Claire's podcast, "Nice Talk," the actress opens up about how she learned to navigate financial negotiations while still a teenager, starring on the hit teen show from 2020 to its fourth and final season in 2023.

"At a very young age I had to learn that money is power and to ask for more does not mean that you're greedy, but actually respecting yourself," Ramakrishnan revealed on "Nice Talk."

The star, who landed the lead role of Devi on Never Have I Ever through a self-tape open call on Twitter, said, "I remember having to learn that sometimes you've got to ask for more because others are asking for more and people are gonna cheap you out if they can. They will walk over you. And it's not that you need X amount of dollars to live the life that you live, it's just that dollar value is the sign of respect."

The star, now 22 and a human rights and equality studies student at York University in Toronto, shared that her internal dialogue about her self-worth as it relates to money, and in general, has shifted over time. She explained, "I'd treat myself like a make-a-wish kid. Like, 'Congrats. You won this little raffle on Twitter. You actually didn't send a tape. It was actually just a random giveaway. They were giving away the lead role on a Netflix show and you won. Congrats!' I adopted that mentality for myself, which is very bad because it's not true."

"I definitely was in the right place at the right time. There is 100 percent an element of luck, especially in this biz," she continued. "But I do give myself credit for the fact that talent is what kept me there."

Ramakrishnan also credits her mother with helping her to pull those feelings out of herself. She said, "I went about learning how to advocate for myself [by] just growing some courage, understanding my self-worth, and where I want to be and how I want to be respected and how I want to be treated."

With that in mind, as she takes on more roles and brand deals, and tackles video game streaming on Twitch, Ramakrishnan shares her team has had to advise her on what passion projects may be worth doing for free, and getting paid what she's owed for others. "There's a reason why they call it the movie-making business. Not the movie-making passion. It's the movie-making business first, which sucks," she said.

"There are times where in this lovely capitalist society they will take advantage of you when they can," the Netflix star added. "It's not always about being greedy, but sometimes it's actually just about respecting yourself in an industry where my services as an individual that entails my likeness and my name, my person, it has its spot in a marketplace."

"That was kind of weird to wrap around at 17," she shared. "You are part of a marketplace. Your entity as a being, you yourself as a person, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan is now a business. Where do you fit in the marketplace?"

Ramakrishnan also acknowledged that she's still working on being confident in her career and herself. "I like to say I am 5 years old in the industry. That's it. Just a 5-year-old," she shared. "There's so much left to do to not prove to others, but just prove to myself—to add more ammunition for my own overthinking thoughts, for that one annoying voice in my brain that keeps saying I'm a make-a-wish kid."

Ramakrishnan opens up more about navigating her whirlwind success while still a teenager, her decision to pursue a college degree outside of acting, and more on the latest episode of "Nice Talk," which is available now wherever you listen to podcasts.

Just when there hasn’t been a certified, reigning bad girl in pop in a minute, Charli XCX declares herself a brat.

The British hyperpop phenom is more brash and confrontational than ever on her sixth studio album Brat (which dropped on June 7 via Atlantic Records). She laments how she’s everybody’s “favorite reference” and questions why she’s not more famous (“360”), while still feeling nostalgic for the days when she didn’t value fame quite as much (“Rewind”). She forgoes niceties to analyze the complexities of female relationships (“Girl, so confusing”) and criticizes expectations placed on women ("Mean girls," “Sympathy is a knife”). Most importantly, she confronts herself and the role of the messy girl she’s both played and has been prescribed to her (“I might say something stupid”). She’s the life of the party at a rave under club lights, and in the quiet car ride home, she can’t help but have an attitude over either the world’s or her own perception of who she is and her desires. So, she’ll be a brat, embrace it all, and do it unlike anybody else in her league or beyond it.

The narrative surrounding Charli XCX’s career has long been that she’s never quite broken into the mainstream—but only because she’s always 10 steps ahead of it. Her fans have found her more interesting for it, and she has always seemed to like creating experimental music catered toward her queer and indiehead fanbase known as the Angels, rather than making pop anthems for the masses. Now, with Brat—which comes at the height of her career, over a decade after she debuted with 2013’s True Romance—it’s as if she’s leaning into a bad-girl attitude because she’s over the wider music landscape not getting her, so she might as well have fun playing with an often misunderstood pop persona.

Charli XCX occupies a bad-girl space in pop that hasn’t been filled in some time. For as long as bubblegum has been a leader on the charts, so have boundary-pushers. Madonna built her career on controversy, sex positivity, and elevating the LGBTQ+ community. Y2K pop princesses like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera flirted with dirtiness as much as they did cuteness. Miley Cyrus came in like a wrecking ball with her hedonistic Bangerz era. In the mainstream landscape nowadays, Olivia Rodrigo is a proponent of youthful rebellion and pushing against expectations that women be “good” and polite, but in an approachable way. Lana Del Rey may be the closest, having debuted as the self-described “gangster Nancy Sinatra” and playing with counterculture American iconography throughout her work. But the bad girl now mostly pervades hip-hop, with fierce women (like Cardi B, Sexyy Red, Doja Cat, and others) leading the genre. As of late, pop itself has largely been dominated by the concept of relatability and safeness.

God forbid some of us crave for the purveyors of culture to be untouchably and effortlessly cool, though—and that’s exactly what Charli, a chic, bratty club kid through and through, is. Throughout the Brat album cycle, the singer (whose real name is Charlotte Aitchison) has playfully emphasized what an it girl she is. She released a music video for the single “360,” dubbed “the cool girl summit” with its cast of her famous friends like Gabbriette, Julia Fox, and Rachel Sennott. She’s also done copious IYKYK pop-up events at scene-y electronic music spaces like The Lot Radio and Boiler Room in Brooklyn, which thousands of fans showed up to or RSVP-ed to with just hours’ notice.

While many stars could have that pull in hosting last-minute events, few meet their fans in the spaces they occupy and also create a sense of exclusivity. Even as Charli XCX has reached a new level of fame, setting out on her first co-headlining stadium tour with Troye Sivan later this year, she’s stayed true to the underground nightlife world she came up in, and continues to love to be a part of. She’s on the dance floor with her fans, signing their poppers canisters while grinding to the beat, and making sure those on the list are the fans who’ve been with her since the beginning.

The entire Brat era began with Charli XCX launching a private Instagram (@360_brat) where she posted track teases and had frank Q&As with fans in which she offered blunt opinions on other artists and their albums, the music industry, and her personal life. For a period, she briefly only accepted requests from several thousands of fans at a time and it felt like a bold, no-f---s-given move in an age when celebrity social media is highly curated. The page now has over 150K followers, but she uses it to post tips about her pop-ups before announcing them publicly (and by then, the list is often closed).

The candidness of the @360_brat AMAs translates to Charli XCX's album in many forms, including her ability to be unafraid to explore the dynamics of female friendships, frenemies, or acquaintances you may envy or may envy you. For a long time, pop has been a proponent of uplifting female friendships and empowerment—a worthy and necessary cause—although that often feels as though it becomes warped when fandoms assume that critiques of the artist they stan is a misogynistic attack. But on Brat, Charli XCX is direct in her feelings of inferiority when faced by certain women—despite herself possessing an undeniable it girl factor—and she ponders whether it’s unhealthy and unrealistic that we all be “girls' girls,” a concept that itself ends up putting other women down. It may be controversial, but it feels more nuanced and real than some pop branded as relatable. Perhaps airing out her complicated feelings this way will be an entry point for the current phase of feminism in pop culture to feel more comfortable discussing the intricacies of women's relationships and insecurities.

Sonically, Brat (which features Charli XCX’s longtime collaborator A.G. Cook as lead producer) calls back to the London techno scene she came up in when she was a teenager releasing tracks on MySpace. Aside from a few punchy singles (“Von Dutch,” “360”), few of these songs have radio appeal, with their bumping drum beats and electroclash synths. Even the album cover resembles lo-fi rave flyers of yesteryear. It was a concept that some criticized, and while many image-conscious stars wouldn’t comment on the matter, Charli defended it with sass and confidence. She responded both on social media and in interviews about the public’s overzealous demand to see and commercialize women’s bodies. Now, the cover is a meme, and any spot of green IRL looks like guerilla Brat promo; as always, she trusted her taste, coolness, and badness, and was right.

Now more than ever, it's as though Charli XCX is harkening to the scene that raised her because if the mainstream won’t accept her in real-time, she’ll lean in harder to who she’s always been—fully knowing others are carbon copying her style and attempting to replicate her sound (“Von dutch,” “The 360 remix with robyn and yung lean”). Still, she’s bigger than ever (reaching her biggest streaming debut on Spotify with Brat), and it’s a thrill to have someone so braggadocious and a fearless trendsetter inching toward the top—and creating something truly defining—in years. Leave it to Charli to say it best on her lead single: She’s just living that life, a cult classic but she still pops.

When Candice Carty-Williams published her debut novel Queenie in 2019, the book about an imperfect 20-something Jamaican-British woman truly changed her life. Countless women connected with the titular character’s struggles with working, dating, and maintaining her friendships and mental health while reeling from her first major heartbreak, and it quickly became a critical and commercial success. Now, five years after becoming an overnight sensation in the publishing world, Carty-Williams is also an exciting new voice in the television role, bringing Queenie to the small screen as a Hulu miniseries (premiering on June 7).

“If you'd asked me at the start of my journey when I first started typing out the character Queenie sitting in the stirrups, where I would be in nine years, I wouldn't have said this at all,” the author tells Marie Claire. Despite her lack of expectations, Disney’s Onyx Collective, which produces projects from creators of color, helped her to helm the story into an eight-episode Hulu original.

Queenie marks Carty-Williams’ second stint as a showrunner and creator after her BBC musical-drama Champion premiered to rave reviews last year and later landed on Netflix. Even with just two shows under her belt, it’s clear that Carty-Williams is dedicated to bringing authentic characters and underrepresented themes to the screen while paving the way for more POC creatives. “Across all arts, all news outlets, everything really, I think that we still need greater representation of everybody in these spaces,” she says. “Fingers crossed that will happen at some point.”

Below, Carty-Williams chats with Marie Claire about finding the perfect Queenie in actress Dionne Brown, the biggest change from the book to the television series, and how she incorporates music as an emotional force in her projects.

Marie Claire: When did you know that Dionne Brown was the perfect person to play Queenie?

CCW: I had come across Dionne in the audition process for my other show Champion. She was auditioning to be this really feisty, fiery, behind-the-scenes songwriter. She was asking so many questions and I was like, 'She's a Queenie. She's in her head constantly. She's doing the right thing, she's trying to work out what the answers are, she's trying to do her best.' So I kind of parked her in my head and I was like, 'If she's Queenie, the universe will send her back 'round to me.' Then when I saw her name on the page when the new Queenies came around, I was like, 'And there she is.'

MC: You've previously been open about how hard it was to stay true to the authenticity of Queenie while creating a TV show. Were there any aspects that you really had to fight for going from page to screen?

CCW: I think it was just making sure that Queenie existed in the way that I intended her to. When you are writing a novel, it's you and your editor, and your editor wants your world to be your world. They want to just help you reframe it and make sure everything makes sense. But in TV, you have different stakes. There are different budgets; there are different ways of seeing characters. You want to make sure that people are always tuning in. So I guess the main conversations were around me protecting Queenie and the way that she was, and the decisions that she made in some ways—just making sure that she stayed authentic to the Queenie of the book, but also the Queenie of my politics. That was really important to me.

MC: There are some changes from the book to the show, especially with Kyazike’s cousin Frank becoming a regular character and his romantic interest in Queenie. I love the character and his very natural chemistry with Queenie, but what made you decide to add that romantic element to their friendship?

CCW: Everyone loves Frank. It's not just you. Get in line, get in line. Frank kind of appears in the novel. He’s Queenie’s best friend Kyazike’s cousin. He asks Queenie to dance, and Queenie essentially has a stomachache, because it's very stressful to have someone be very kind to her and feel seen by someone. I wanted to explore that properly. I guess I'd seen so much stuff about Black love on TV by this point, especially coming from America—Insecure does it constantly—and I was like, 'I want to do that too. Let's see what it looks like.'

In the writing of Frank, he felt really easy. He is made up of a lot of men that I've known and that I know now, but he's not one particular person. He represents this sort of modern Black man who is from Britain. He's a hustler, right? He has this van, and he will do anything. But also, he does see Queenie. He is caring, but he's not perfect and that was important, too. I wanted to explore that for both of them. I wanted to see a character I hadn't seen on TV for Black men, and that was really important to me. I've been in the privileged position of bringing to screen people that I want to see and I want to explore, and Frank really represented that. Samuel Adewunmi did the most incredible job. I think his performance is pretty flawless, and I could not have asked him for anything more.

MC: What was the process like for selecting the music in Queenie?

CCW: I would write songs into the script so when you were reading it, [so] you could understand the tone. You were encouraged to go and have a listen, and see what Queenie was listening to. What Queenie was feeling, we should be feeling too through the music, because music says everything to me. We'd play some of the songs on set, but it was really in the edit where some of that music came to life, and we'd change things and chop things around.

Most importantly, I worked with a producer called Swindle on the score on both Queenie and Champion. We had the most incredible relationship. We both basically spoke in musical terms all the time, and we were both up in the middle of the night sending each other references, and being like, 'Okay, what do you think of this?' He was able to bring this really beautiful, cohesive sound to the entire show that takes us from the beginning and graduates and moves with Queenie. In the last three episodes, we have one sonic theme. Every time I think about it, I get chills or I'm in tears. What we do with music and emotion [on Queenie], I don't think I could have done with words, I don't think anyone could have done with acting. I think music is its own thing and for as long as I work, I will always make sure that music is one of the most important things to me.

MC: Champion is an original series you created that wasn't adapted from a novel. When it comes to your stories, how do you decide which would work better as books, such as your 2022 novel People Person, and which are better as visual media?

CCW: I think that everything can be moved and changed around. I think that as long as I'm writing, I could make People Person a film, I could make it a TV show. It just depends on what I want to do at this point. I would say Queenie felt like it would be a TV show because there's so much. I thought it would be really difficult to squeeze it into 90 or 100 minutes.

Champion, for me, felt like a quick passion project, like a fever dream. I was doing it while I was working on Queenie, and then I moved immediately onto Queenie as soon as Champion was done. I think one day I'll look back and be like, 'Oh yeah, you created like a whole 'nother TV show and a soundtrack.' It was super difficult but also super rewarding. I was happy to put it to bed because it wasn't in my plans. It wasn't in my kind of world, or the things I wanted to say and do, but I was really glad that I got to say and say and do what I did in Champion. I'm really happy.

MC: Especially Champion’s storyline about rapper Bosco's mental health was extremely important to put on TV.

CCW: Thank you. Obviously, it ends in a way where things are not settled at all for Bosco. Things are actually quite the opposite. The difference between Bosco and someone like Queenie is that we see that Queenie starts trying to do the work, but Bosco is just in a different place. For Black men, mental health is a very different thing. There are very different support systems, and maybe sometimes they're non-existent. It was important for me to talk about it, but the thing that I was saying with that is that there's still a long way to go in our community and looking after people in that way.

MC: Queenie the novel has been so important for so many women who have gone through similar mental health struggles. Now that the show is introducing the story to a whole new audience of non-book readers, what do you hope that new viewers will take away from the story?

CCW: I never set out to tell anyone what to think, but I do set out to move people. I hope people are moved by Queenie's story. I hope people are moved by the love that people have for her. She's someone who doesn't feel loved, isn't always loved in the right way, and didn't come from love necessarily, but she has made her way to finding love around her. I want people to see that, and to see what happens when Queenie says that she's happy, and all of her friends share a look. I want people to see where Queenie has come from, and to understand that she came from something that should have been love, but that was taken away.

Also this idea of the "strong Black woman," I want people who watch it to understand what it means to be living to that expectation and constantly be trying to strive for perfection—because, ultimately, it's impossible and not something that I think that we need to do. If there is one thing to take from it, it's that we don't have to be strong. We can only do what we can do. It was really important to me that Queenie as a character was always kind. She wasn't mean; she wasn't nasty. She doesn't call up Kyazike to bitch about someone. She has a lot of stuff happen to her and isn't necessarily looked after by the people who are meant to care about her, but she still finds a way to do her best and be kind. I think we could all do with a bit more of that.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Nashville-based lifestyle influencer April Lockhart proudly identifies as a "fashion girlie." She finds shopping and styling "therapeutic" and has built an audience of more than 140,000 followers by sharing clips of her colorful outfits on Instagram and TikTok. Lockhart was also born with a limb difference, and fully expressing her personal style sometimes comes with compromises.

"Seeing myself in those spheres was always missing," Lockhart tells Marie Claire. The brands she aspired to shop didn't reflect her identity back at her in advertising or required extra tailoring to be wearable. Adaptive fashion, or items designed specifically for people with disabilities, didn't offer a viable solution for someone who says she prioritizes aesthetics over function. "I never shopped adaptive, because style always came first, and if we’re honest, adaptive style has consistently fallen flat," she says.

Bri Scalesse, a model who's used a wheelchair since she was six years old, similarly found that adaptive pieces rarely catered to her sense of style—to the degree that she didn't wear them growing up. While she could find ways to shop strategically and make her favorite brands "work" for her, "what was always missing was the visual representation and voices of disabled people throughout the fashion industry and process," she says. "I longed to see a disabled body like mine in ads and magazines."

Both women are now making what they've always wanted to see available to other shoppers through an inclusivity-minded expansion at Anthropologie. Along with models and creators Maya Moore and Allison Lang, the pair are both faces of the retailer's first adaptive pieces, available online today.

Anthropologie is entering the adaptive fashion chat with eight pieces created through a year-long process of research and product development. From the $48 button-up Andie T-shirt to the $148 Bettina dress, each item takes a pre-existing Anthropologie bestseller and modifies it with proportions, closures, and details enhancing its comfort-factor for people with disabilities. The overall look is the exact same as Anthro's standard boho-chic fare; the increased accessibility is a notable innovation.

Adaptive designs sold at major retailers are a welcome addition to a large, and largely overlooked, style cohort. While some studies valued the total market for adult adaptive clothing in the United States at $238 million last year, the category isn't nearly as commonly produced as plus, petite, or tall sizes. Few retailers have pieces catered to all abilities that also take major trends and personal style into consideration. (A cursory Google search of "adaptive clothing" will mostly surface scrub-like matching sets, for example.)

The expansion, like Anthropologie's 2019 move into plus-sizes, was informed primarily by underrepresented shoppers who requested it, according to Anthropologie Women's chief merchandising officer Holly Thrasher. To "thoughtfully" turn feedback into a more inclusive repertoire, the brand looked inside (to URBN Adapt ERG, an in-house resource group promoting accessibility and inclusivity) and outside (to experts like Lucy Jones, the founder and CEO of adaptive label FFORA) for insight. "The most common request was for a line that seamlessly integrates style and functionality, prioritizing comfort and ease of wear," Thrasher says.

Richa Srivastava, chief creative officer of women's concept and design, explains that the adaptive modifications improved the experience of taking each Anthro staple on and off, as well as wearing it all day long. Take the Colette pant for example. Just like the standard design, the adaptive version has a high-rise waist and a cropped flare hem. But to make the pants more comfortable for wheelchair users, Anthropologie took a three-fold approach. "We adjusted the rise to better suit someone seated, eliminated back pockets to reduce bulkiness when sitting, and incorporated features like magnetic snap closures, zipper openings along pant inseams, as well as tabs and snaps for customizable length adjustments," Srivastava explains.

One piece of design feedback from the disability community became the team's design North Star, according to Srivastava. Shoppers who use a wheelchair or a prosthetic limb don't necessarily want styles exclusive to them; they want to be included in brands' versatile, cool lineups from the beginning.

"What often doesn’t feel right about adaptive wear is that it is its own separate line with styles that are not comparable to the non-adaptive lines," Scalesse says. "I cannot express how much I love that Anthropologie took some of its best-selling pieces and made them adaptive."

Lockhart agrees that the designs strike a balance she hasn't found in fashion before. They're "extra comfortable and a lot easier to put on compared to other pieces I own, but [they] made me feel put together, powerful, me."

Anthropologie is also displaying its pieces with "adaptive features" right next to its other size categories, not hiding them somewhere else on the site. "For that to be seen by everyone shopping Anthro is pretty major for the disabled community," Lockhart says. "It doesn’t exclude us to a separate collection page, it’s not creating new product that they 'think' disabled people might want—this is truly inclusive."

What this launch isn't is a one-and-done release. Eight pieces alone can't cover every need of every individual or fully compare to the hundreds of options available in standard sizing on the rest of Anthropologie's website. Still, it's a start. "[T]hey’ve committed to this just being step one," Lockhart says. "It doesn’t have to be perfect to be progress."

Thrasher, the Anthropologie executive, hopes that the line can be a "positive example" to other brands. An inclusivity blueprint can manifest both in the products made and in the people wearing them, Scalesse notes. "I don’t think every brand has to make one-time adaptive lines, but instead should include disabled people in the process in front of and behind the camera, always."

"My dream would be that other brands take note and start to think of ways to simply make the clothes they’re already making more universal," Lockhart says. "The disabled community loves fashion just like the rest of the fashion world. They don’t want separate collections, they just want to buy the clothes they normally buy from the retailers they love." Fashion girlies come in all shapes, sizes, and abilities. They all deserve the same options when they're getting dressed.

Shop Anthropologie's First Adaptive Clothing

Throughout a decorated career scoring 245 total award nominations and 121 wins, EGOT-holder Viola Davis has walked hundreds of red carpets like the Cannes Film Festival's. Even with all her experience getting ready for the cameras and curious reporters, the 58-year-old actor reveals that putting herself out there isn't always easy. Davis tells me from the L'Oréal Paris suite at Hôtel Martinez in Cannes, "I always have to resist the urge to not want to go home and be in my slippers."

Davis has a relatable reason for wanting to skip the step-and-repeat at times. "Here's the thing: I'm introverted, which people don't know. I'm extremely introverted," she explains.

However, when showing up and showing out are job requirements, the Academy Award winner has a few secret weapons to overcome her introversion: the makeup in her beauty kit.

Working with longtime makeup artist Autumn Moultrie and hairstylist Jamika Wilson, Davis says she's found beauty looks that can help tap into her more extroverted side. Her confidence-boosting look for her first day at Cannes this year started with glowy skin and glittery eyes, and ended with a red lip, channeling the '70s TV detective Christie Love played by Teresa Graves.

"There's a part of me that although I'm shy and I'm introverted, I am a Leo," Davis adds. "I like walking in the room and people seeing me [...] and I love eyes because I feel like that is an asset of mine."

Acknowledging and accepting the sides of herself that aren't compatible with celebrity life is all part of Davis's current personal goal: to fall even more in love with who she is this year. The star says her self-love ritual takes many forms in her beauty and wellness routine, too. "It looks like Epsom salt baths, it looks like having a real great cleanser and putting oil on my face before I go to bed. It's about laughing with my 13-year-old daughter. It's about being okay with being still," she says.

In moments when life gets busy—like, say, preparing for one of the world's biggest film festivals—Davis is also learning to cherish every second for what it is. "I can be a chronic overthink and go, 'Oh, I wish this were different. I wish that was different.' I stopped doing that, and I have to say that it's working."

When Davis walks the official Cannes red carpet later today, she says she'll give herself permission to soak up every bit of glamour it brings. "Embracing my acceptance in this environment, it's sort of like embracing my worth," she adds. "What really carries me through this entire experience is feeling like I'm a part of it instead of disconnecting from it." The slippers at home can wait.

Shop Viola Davis's Cannes Beauty Go-Tos

The Cost of Starting Your Own Business talks to founders to get an honest look at what it really takes to create a company. Not just the financial, but the personal and emotional costs, too.

Best-selling author and longtime Florida resident Lauren Groff couldn’t sit by idly as book bans became increasingly commonplace in her state over the past two years. So she and her husband, Clay Kallman, decided to open a bookshop in Gainesville to create a haven for all readers and uplift frequently challenged works. Named after the Florida native big cat, The Lynx, their slogan puts it best: “Watch Us Bite Back.”

Owning a bookstore had long been a dream for the couple, but when Governor Ron DeSantis passed legislation in 2022 that made it easier for individual books to be contested in public schools, they knew they needed to open up shop. Two years later, after renovating an old hair salon in downtown Gainesville into a store—fit with an event space, cafe, and children’s reading nook—The Lynx finally welcomed guests through its doors in late April.

The Lynx highlights historically banned books, as well as LGBTQ+ and BIPOC authors, whose work have largely become the focus of scrutiny in Florida—which has seen the highest number of book-banning cases in the past two years. Groff, who is a three-time National Book Award finalist, helped curate the store’s collection of 7,000 titles and hopes to turn the space into an integral part of the community with inclusive programming.

In the days before the store's opening, Groff emailed with Marie Claire about what this chapter of her life as a business owner has been like.

My husband Clay Kallman and I have dreamed about opening a bookstore in Gainesville since we first moved here in 2006. Clay is originally from Gainesville, and his family opened a bookstore called The Florida Bookstore in the 1930s, which they sold in the late '90s. Clay was raised in bookselling: his first job was teaching the point-of-sale system to new employees.

That said, our dream wouldn't have come to much had the state not started cracking down on freedom of expression, and had groups like (the oxymoronically named) Moms for Liberty not pressed forward on their campaign to ban books all over the state. We saw this happening and felt so deeply for the people whose voices and identities were being squelched by a loud and intolerant minority. We dreamed of a general-interest store that would have a special emphasis on banned books; that would celebrate and promote books by LGBTQI+ writers and writers of color; that would fill in the blanks that the Florida educational system is intentionally leaving in our students' education. We decided to meet the authoritarians on their own playground: private business.

The purpose of this store is to act as a lighthouse. To radiate warmth and brightness out to the people who feel as though the state of Florida is currently invalidating their lives and their history. To let them know that there are people here who love and accept them, who want for them to live happily as they are, and who will be fighting for them into the future.

We want to resist the simple story that has been told of what Florida is, to make the story more complex and interesting, to show how book bans are, in fact, deeply unpopular with nearly everyone in the state, and that, through book banning, only a tiny minority of people are trying to impose their political beliefs on the vast majority of Floridians.

We will be engaging in programming to encourage the dissemination of ideas that may be uncomfortable to those who are in power. We will encourage reading widely and well and make literature accessible to populations for whom books may currently be a luxury. We want this store to be a source of pride for Gainesville and for Florida, and for it to become a national beacon. If booksellers are the next in line to be attacked by the state government, we are prepared for this eventuality and have a very large microphone. A group of Lynxes is a watch; we want the bad actors to know that we're watching.

The majority of the startup money has come from the books I have written (thank you to everyone who has ever bought one!). We did want to invite all who wanted to be a part of the store to help us out with the Indiegogo, for which my beautiful writer friends have donated so much: from superstar agent Bill Clegg donating two manuscript critiques to people like Hernan Diaz, Kaveh Akbar, and Cheryl Strayed giving Zooms to book clubs. The public responded with great gusto. We made 116 percent of our goal! And will be fulfilling the perks and blessing the generosity of people from all over the world for a few months to come, as well.

Nothing is really a sacrifice if it's done out of love, I think. I haven't read nearly as many books since November as I normally would have—from this, it's apparent that I have so little time at the moment, and when I do have time to wind down, I usually just fall asleep! But beauty can be found in these things. My children are stepping up and taking responsibility for themselves admirably. Maybe taking a break from reading is all right at the moment, because I'll be reading between 400 and 600 books in the next six months in my role as judge for this year's National Book Awards. Everything can be an opportunity if you look at it from a different perspective.

It's extraordinarily difficult to learn a brand new set of skills in one's mid-40s, and I have never started up a business, done all of the necessary paperwork, hired people, managed the money, figured out point-of-sale systems, or dealt with contractors before. It's all hard! I haven't been able to see some of my favorite people in months, because I'm working such long hours trying to get this airship off the ground.

When I emailed Ann Patchett to tell her I was starting up a bookstore, and she emailed back, "You fool. I'm so proud of you."

Everything is worth it. I am so moved every day to see the goodwill that people are extending in our direction, as well as the hard work of our contractors and landlord and our two spectacular managers. Jackie and Gina are among the best people on the planet, and it's a joy to get to spend time with them. I also discovered how deep and powerful the love of books is in my adoptive hometown, and how hungry people have been for a more diverse slate of literary events. Also, to be honest, there are things that I have pretended to not be able to do in my home life because my husband both likes doing them, and because I wanted to protect my time and didn't want to be yoked into doing them (taxes, insurance, general household operations), and it's a little bittersweet to watch my husband begin to understand that I'm pretty competent in these things, actually.

A friend of mine owns a local bakery, Vine, and she told me not to sweat the delays that are inevitable when building out a store. "In five years, you won't even remember the date you opened," she said. She helped me see reason when I was being unreasonably strict about our timeline.

On Monday, November 11, 2019, Sam McAlister—then a junior producer and booker at BBC's Newsnight—was waiting to meet with Prince Andrew and his team at Buckingham Palace after more than a year of negotiations.

Prepared though she was, McAlister was not expecting Princess Beatrice, Andrew’s eldest daughter, then 31, to walk in the room.

“It’s very hard to imagine what it’s like going to Buckingham Palace to speak to a prince about his association with a renowned sexual predator...without the knowledge that his young daughter is going to be there,” McAlister tells Marie Claire. “Then she arrives, and you have 30 seconds to get your head around that.”

The moment is brought to life in a pivotal scene in Netflix's Scoop, which stars Billie Piper as McAlister and details the run-up to an interview that brought down Prince Andrew's career, reputation, and life as he knew it. Sitting in Buckingham Palace with the prince, his team, and his daughter, McAlister knew that Beatrice held the keys to the proverbial castle. "In my view, she was the rainmaker,” McAlister says.

In other words: Without Beatrice's approval, there would be no interview.

A question asked over and over in the years since: Why? Why did Andrew ultimately choose to sit down for the interview, a car-crash piece of television that made international headlines and cost him his royal career, privileges, and reputation, when he could have remained silent? Well, it kind of boiled down to Beatrice, actually.

Two months earlier, in September of 2019, Beatrice, Andrew's eldest daughter, had announced her engagement to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi. McAlister says now that two things mattered to Andrew when he said yes to the intervew heard 'round the world: Walking Beatrice down the aisle at her wedding; and celebrating his upcoming 60th birthday. Unless Andrew "really worked at changing the view of him during that period,” McAlister says, both events would carry the stain of his association with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

"That was always in my mind," McAlister reflects.

In the end, Beatrice green-lit the interview, as did, shockingly, Andrew's mother Queen Elizabeth. Three days later, Andrew sat down for the Newsnight interview that would change his life—and the monarchy—forever.

McAlister’s impossible-to-get booking of Andrew on the show is detailed in the quick but thorough 93-minute film Scoop, which landed on Netflix on April 5. Though many may watch for the recreation of the notorious interview, the movie isn't about Andrew. It's about McAlister, a single mom, a former lawyer, perpetually clad in a black wardrobe, a relentless and resilient producer who doesn’t balk at the word “no”. A woman whose dogged determination landed the BBC the “scoop of the decade” from an institution known for never complaining and never explaining.

"You have to keep believing in yourself and what you’re doing," she says now. "I felt that the journalism we did mattered, and so I kept that in my heart through relentless rejection, and I kept trying over and over again.”

Based on McAlister’s 2022 book Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews, the film places three women front and center: McAlister, the interview's producer and booker; Emily Maitlis, the presenter; and Esme Wren, the editor. “This is a story of women,” reiterates McAlister.

Andrew, played by Rufus Sewell in the movie, “is the one with the seventh most lines,” McAlister notes. “Five percent is that iconic moment with Prince Andrew in the interview." The rest, she notes, hones in on "the women on the Newsnight team and the other members of the team working tirelessly on their journalism."

In other words, the woman who got behind Palace walls—literally—to demand answers of the Duke of York. What they pulled off was unprecedented: Members of the royal family do not sit for interviews, especially not after Princess Diana's own BBC interview (hers with Martin Bashir of Panorama in 1995). Diana's interview, after all, was a cultural moment so damning that it led Her late Majesty to push forward a history-making divorce between the then Prince and Princess of Wales.

Even after three separate meetings at Buckingham Palace, "I never thought [Andrew] was going to say yes," McAlister says.

On the day of the interview, McAlister arrived early, as she always does. She was there as the cameras were set up: the sound, the lighting, all of the paraphernalia that comes with a television interview. Maitlis—played by Gillian Anderson in Scoop—didn’t arrive, as is customary, until just before the interview. That morning, the Newsnight team had received a message from the BBC’s director general: how incredible this was (an interview in Buckingham Palace with a senior royal!), and how, in no uncertain terms, they had better not mess it up.

“The pressure was palpable,” McAlister says.

The interview itself lasted less than an hour. It has been described as a national joke (CNN), a car crash (The Washington Post), and the worst debacle for the royal family since Diana's death in 1997 (The New York Times). Andrew feebly denied ever meeting Virginia Guiffre, the woman who had accused him of sexual assault, despite Maitlis showing him a photo of them together. (Andrew settled out of court with Guiffre for £12 million in early 2022.) He showed no empathy for Epstein's victims and described Epstein's behavior as "a manner unbecoming." In a now-famous response, Maitlis hit back: "Unbecoming? He was a sex offender."

"I knew what we had," McAlister says of the moments after the interview. “I knew how profoundly important it was. I knew how disastrous it was for him."

And yet: "Palpably, [Andrew] thought it had gone well," she recalls. "The difference in the room between the journalists—and remember, I’m an ex-lawyer, so I know how this is for him potentially legally—the difference between Emily, who looks like we’ve shot her dog, and Prince Andrew, who looks like he’s done a good job, really did encapsulate the space between his capability and his perception of his capability.”

Four days after the interview aired, Andrew resigned from his royal duties. The late Queen ultimately stripped her reported favorite son of all of his royal patronages, privileges, and military titles.

Inexplicably, even after landing one of the biggest scoops in the BBC's almost century-long history, McAlister was neither promoted nor given a pay raise. “I’m not a bitter ex-girlfriend,” McAlister says now. “I never want to say anything negative about the BBC, but that didn’t happen." She confirmed that she'd asked for a pay rise and a promotion, but was told that, "unfortunately, there wasn’t capacity to give me either.”

But McAlister wanted to write a book about the scoop of the decade—and, she says, "I wasn’t going to be able to write the book while still at the BBC." So, she bet on herself. “I threw the dice, and throwing the dice as a single parent on a part-time salary is a really big dice to throw,” McAlister said. "It could’ve ended differently, and, of course, it ended joyously. I’m the luckiest woman alive.”

As a pivotal moment in her life plays out onscreen, the power of female collaboration has translated from onscreen to offscreen for McAlister. Nobody prepares you for meeting the woman who will play you in a movie, but McAlister and actress Billie Piper have become friends, bonding over gin martinis (McAlister, a longtime aficionado, introduced Piper to her favorite drink).

Both women consider Scoop to be a feminist project, in part because—with the exception of Sewell—the biggest roles are all played by women. (In addition to Piper as McAlister and Anderson as Maitlis, Romola Garai plays Esme Wren; Keeley Hawes portrays Amanda Thirsk, Andrew's private secretary.) The film not only magnifies what can happen when women work together, McAlister says, but emphasizes the importance of "making sure that you hold powerful people to account."

For both McAlister and Andrew, the interview forever changed their lives. If their paths crossed a second time—say, on a street, or in a restaurant—what would she say to Andrew? “I would say hello,” she says, in her typically buoyant way. “I’m not awkward with people. We gave him an opportunity, and it was his responsibility to give good answers, and he didn’t. So I would smile at him and wish him a good day."

She adds, "I can’t speak for what he would say to me.”