Is Happy Wife Happy Life the Queer Relationship Advice Podcast We Need?
Kendahl Landreth and Jordan Myrick photographed by Lee Jameson
Your next best dining experience might be a comedy podcast.
“I think Happy Wife Happy Life as a meal is like a kooky sushi dinner,” Jordan Myrick tells me over Zoom, wearing a black baseball cap with white text that reads HOLLANDAISE. "It’s not traditional,” they say, nor is it like—they clarify when I ask—the vibe of the Harry Styles song.
“No, it’s like a sushi place with a conveyor belt [per their co-host and fiancé, Kendahl Landreth, seated next to Myrick on our Zoom call] and the rolls have deep-fried green beans and cream cheese in them, and there’s every type of fish you could think of because our podcast is not about traditional relationships,” Myrick continues. “We welcome anything different, interesting, or fun while still having great respect and appreciation for what matters most.
“So this meal would have incredible fish quality because we care so much about love and connection and kindness and people finding whatever makes them happy and feel good regardless of what that is,. It might be omakase [“I leave it up to you,” or a chef-curated dinner] because Kendahl and I are picking all the stuff for you. It’s fun. It’s a little zany. It’s not traditional, but it still has a strong respect for the classics,” Myrick concludes.
Vegans and vegetarians need not worry: In addition to offering impeccable fish, Myrick assures me the hypothetical Happy Wife Happy Life dining experience would also offer “deep fried hearts of palm” and “faux shrimp rolls with a mango salsa on top. We’re really doing a lot.”
Oh, and it would all be served by unionized robots overseen by unionized human staff, all of whom can take breaks at any point, sit down, and eat for free, according to Landreth. She answers the other half of my icebreaker question: If Happy Wife Happy Life were a travel itinerary, it would be “a really nice hotel, but in Las Vegas where there’s no judgment. We’re open to anything, but I think the quality of what we’re saying is good. I would hope.” There is no dress code: “We’ll match whatever. We’ll be greeting at the restaurant and I would like to think we would put on whatever you’re wearing. It’s a small dining experience.”
If robots are serving at the Happy Wife Happy Life restaurant, then surely Myrick and Landreth can don holographic clothes that change to suit each guest’s preferred ensemble, I offer, and they happily take the suggestion.
As wild as this conversation sounds, it’s on par with the curiosity-forward, informative, funny, and vulnerable conversations the pair have on each episode of their weekly podcast. Launched in January as a pseudo-extension of their in-person live show, Dating Gayme, Happy Wife Happy Life is a relationship advice podcast that’s inherently queer because of its hosts—”two very unqualified but deeply in love comedians”—and also open to talking about any and every kind of relationship, as well as adjacent topics like addiction, celebrity, social media, and even Dungeons & Dragons with a variety of guests.
“Kendahl and I are very honest on our podcast and very upfront. We’re not lying about anything, but there are also things we keep to ourselves because you have to create separation.”
However, making the jump from doing an in-person show to a podcast gave Landreth some pause: “[Our relationship] is the most precious thing in my life, and I was nervous to put that on the Internet for everyone to comment on and have opinions on. And also just in general, I've been pretty private [online], so there's not a lot of sharing of me or who I am. I think I had a little bit of anxiety around it, but it has been nice to navigate and feel appreciated for who we are. I've only ever done comedy, so it's nice to have people show up every week for something that is just us and authentic to us,” they say.
“Kendahl does character comedy more, so she’s always playing a character,” Myrick adds. “I have been doing standup for a long time, so I think I am more accustomed to sharing private things about myself, making fun of myself, and having people know things about me. For years, I did standup, taught improv, whatever. That was my whole career. And now I'm a personality for many different things with very large fan bases, so I do have to be more careful. I do have to try to protect myself more.”
Creating a podcast is also a much bigger financial investment than either Myrick or Landreth realized. When fans comment on their videos asking why they don’t have a larger, more elaborate set, the answer is simple: they can’t afford one (yet). It is by far the least of their worries in the early stages of establishing Happy Wife Happy Life as a brand.
Separation of Love & Work
In addition to doing live comedy, Myrick and Landreth have also built large followings online. During the first few months of the pandemic, Landreth became known for doing hilarious impersonations of her mom on TikTok, and in addition to co-hosting Happy Wife Happy Life, she also co-hosts The BCC Club with Sarah Schauer. Myrick is a professional food taste tester, writer, and on-screen personality for Good Mythical Morning and Sporked. Both have significant followings on social media, so Myrick makes a concerted effort not to post about places they’ve been until after they’ve left and to practice other such forms of separation and safety. Landreth, despite self-identifying as the more private one of the couple, admits to being more careless about it.
Whatever their celebrity, Landreth and Myrick strive to separate the content they create—even if they create it together—from the life they’re building.
“A really big thing is always remembering that this is a job. And I don't think that's hard for us, but I think sometimes that can get lost in the sauce with people who aren't in this industry,” Myrick says. “Kendahl and I are very honest on our podcast and very upfront. We're not lying about anything, but there are also things we keep to ourselves because you have to create separation.”
For example, after returning from a trip to Japan and Taiwan, Myrick and Landreth released an episode of Happy Wife Happy Life with tips for traveling as a couple. Rather than rehash every single detail of the trip, which would likely turn off their audience and create unnecessary drama in their relationship, the couple focuses on how they got through moments of frustration and why it’s important to prioritize healthy, honest communication before traveling together so that it’s already ingrained during the trip.
“We were in a different country where we didn't speak the language for three weeks. We were both overtired, exhausted, and smelled bad. Of course we got into a couple of arguments, but in none of them did either of us disrespect the other person or actively try to hurt their feelings,” Landreth says. “It was just both of us being kind of like, ‘You're annoying me right now.’ Sometimes, it's almost comforting to share things like that. People on the Internet are sometimes so afraid to share their problems because their problems are so maybe big that they can't open that door. But I think it's nice to see a relationship where there aren’t any huge problems, where we can just share little, normal fights that happen and are easy to work through.”
Upholding boundaries between their personal and professional lives is also important because Happy Wife Happy Life is largely borne of Myrick and Landreth’s desire to spend more time together. Although they live together and have an in-person show, they both have intense work schedules predicated on the general volatility of the industry.
“We wanted to do something that had legs of its own that was just ours,” Myrick explains. “We do so much stuff for other companies, other places, other shows, whatever. And we really wanted to build something together that was ours that would hopefully have longevity to it because we're in it for the long haul. We're engaged, we live together. We have a dog. The whole thing. We've committed to being life partners.
“Being in this industry, you're always looking for ways to make money because two years ago, we were living paycheck to paycheck. Now we're doing really well for ourselves in terms of being comedians, which is awesome,” they continue. “We have things that we never thought we would be able to have. I have a job that has vacation days. I'm 31 and I've never had anything like that. So we have had a big shift over the last two years. That's huge for us. But at any point, we could go back to living below the poverty line. This job doesn't have job security. I think trying to figure out a way to create as much career longevity as possible, work together, make something sustainable, make something that's ours [is important].”
“We just had a guest on who had been single for 10 years. Neither of us has ever been single for 10 years. We don’t know what that looks like. We don’t have that experience even if we think we might know what it would be like.”
Landreth notes that for freelancers in any industry, balancing work, socializing, and hobbies is hard. She and Myrick both recognize the importance of staying flexible. Landreth explains, “If we have a date plan and one of us gets a really cool audition, we have to reset. We work so in tandem with trying to push each other's careers and move forward, but at the same time make time for one another. So I think [Happy Wife Happy Life] felt exciting to do. And we worked together for a really long time on other projects as well, so we know we work well together.”
Co-hosting the podcast has also grown their personal relationship. They admit that the way they speak to each other in the studio isn’t much different from how they talk to each other at home (although there is a much lower occurrence of baby talk, per Myrick), and they’ve heard new stories about each other often prompted by guests of the show. After recording, Landreth says they talk about what they learned from a guest, or how their perspectives may have changed.
“We love to just talk about hypotheticals, so I think it's been fun to have guests on the show who live such different lives from us,” Landreth says. “I think we just continue to learn more about each other and it's been great. It has not been tough to work together. It's been pretty seamless, which has been really nice.”
How Happy Wife Happy Life Stands out
The market for relationship advice podcasts is highly saturated. From self-help style guide ‘casts hosted by experts to more comedic jaunts like Happy Wife Happy Life, there’s not just something for everyone, there might be too much for everyone. But rather than rely on any particular marketing trick or über-niche content to give their podcast its sea legs, Myrick and Landreth are instead doing something novel: being themselves.
“If you connect with Kendahl and I, I think we provide a fun, funny, nonjudgmental space where we talk to all different types of people about all different types of love, relationships, dating, sex, whatever,” Myrick says. “And I think that is fun. I also think a lot of people on the Internet are not professional writers and performers. If I'm given an elevator pitch to an executive, I think that's something I always harp on. That’s not to say you can't be a regular person and have an incredible podcast; so many people do. But I do think it's beneficial that Kendall and I have been professional entertainers for a long time.”
“I think we're very opinionated people, but we’re also very curious,” Landreth adds. “I don't think there have been any guests that we come in with a hard opinion. We're so opinionated about stuff that relates to us, but [there are topics] we really don't know—even if we know about it, we don't have experience in it. We just had a guest on who had been single for 10 years. Neither of us has ever been single for 10 years. We don't know what that looks like. We don't have that experience even if we think we might know what it would be like. We're so open to hearing opinions and changing our opinions.”
“We're not trying to sway anyone in any way. We want to learn. We want to be a space for other people to learn. We want to be a space for people to be able to ask questions, for us to be able to ask questions,” Myrick concludes.
Myrick, Landreth, and their guests aren’t the only ones who get to ask questions in an episode of Happy Wife Happy Life. The couple solicit questions from their followers on Instagram and from their supporters on Patreon. This is something of a staple in the relationship advice podcast genre, but Landreth and Myrick also take the time to answer as many Patreon questions as possible outside of recording. Beyond creating a product, the couple has begun building a small community.
“We are queer obviously and have queer guests. We also have guests that aren't queer, and we think that's important. We think there are things straight people can learn from queer people, and there are things queer people can learn from straight people, believe it or not,” Myrick says. “I think we can all learn from each other and find more common ground. I think there’s so much more common ground in dating than people realize.”
Opening up the podcast to talk about all kinds of relationships doesn’t mean the couple is interested in cultivating controversy or inviting bad actors into the space—and they’re quick to note that anyone can be a bad actor, regardless of the kind of person someone might associate with that term. Happy Wife Happy Life is recorded at the Spotify studio in Los Angeles and Myrick and Landreth employ a friend to edit each episode, but the final say on what gets left on the cutting room floor is up to them. While they love doing solo episodes together, inviting diverse guests to the studio is high on their list of priorities.
“When it comes down to it, Kendahl and I are two white, lesbian people, and that is just never going to be the full scope. We are the ages we are. We can only know what we know,” Myrick explains. “So it is really important for us to also bring in people who are different than we are so we can get different perspectives. We've had our eyes opened to so many things. You can't think of something until someone has shown you that maybe you have blind spots. And I think the best way to do that is by interacting with other people.”
As for what’s next, Myrick and Landreth say they’re “open to whatever,” but Landreth says, “We’re loving the podcast being the center core of it. It’s honestly just been fun connecting with other people, so the more guests we can get, the more people we can chat with, and the more stuff we can hear from other people [is what we want].” She jokes, “And just continuing to try to one day get the set that everyone wants to have.”
Happy Wife Happy Life releases new episodes every Monday wherever you cast your pods. Follow the show on Instagram for updates. You can also sign up for exclusive bonus content including an additional monthly episode for $5 a month on Patreon.
Featured image by Lee Jameson
✦ Like what you read? Leave a tip!
✦ Want to have posts like this delivered straight to your inbox (with bonus content)? Subscribe to my newsletter!
