While the idea of tracking down every partner on your roster may sound both anguishing and impossible, one woman has made it her mission to find every last one of her exes — from a fifth-grade pizza date to a strip club hookup — and grill them about what went wrong, or right.
Miriam Katz, an LA-based actor and writer, recently launched the podcast “Ex-Appeal,” where, driven by the holy trinity of curiosity, closure and titillation, she interviews everyone with whom she’s ever had a romantic entanglement.
In the show’s intro, Katz sings, “It’s over, but I still have questions,” a feeling anyone who has walked the precarious line of love and loss can relate to.
“I wanted to reconnect with my past loves to find out what they thought had happened and to share my own perspective. I felt like I could process my past with them and make it a project,” Katz exclusively told The Post.
And it’s a big endeavor: Katz intends to interview 10 exes a year for the next 10 years, and the range includes a sex addict, a rabbi, a female stripper, a well-known comedian and a former beau battling cancer.
“Some of these people I might never have talked to again outside of the show, so I wanted to have one final conversation — a funeral for the relationship,” she shared. “It’s me wanting to ask questions and figure out certain things that I’d always wondered, but also being able to say certain things that I didn’t say during the relationship, especially at the time of the breakup.”
Katz calls hearing and telling the truth “a really fun drug,” and she doesn’t hold back from seeking or speaking it — and nothing, so far, has been off-limits or off-putting.
“Sometimes my voice changes because I feel less comfortable with certain people or certain subjects. The whole podcast has tension in it, and uncertainty, and excitement, and a definite frisson,” she said.
“I don’t find talking to exes awkward; my curiosity overpowers any oddness there might be between us. Mostly, I want to know what they think happened.”
However, there have been revelations that were challenging to hear.
“The hardest parts were hearing my guests’ struggles; how difficult it is for the sex addict to feel close to people, hearing the man in an open marriage talk about how hard and scary it was for him to be with me, and feeling like he could lose his wife.”
Her connection seems borderline empathic: “I felt the struggles of my guests deeply.”
‘I’m not trying to hook up with anyone’
Some epiphanies did stun her.
“It surprised me that the sex addict didn’t want to date me because I was 10 years older and an actor; I had no idea those were issues for him,” she revealed. “I was surprised that the stripper grew up Christian and her family completely supports her, and that a big part of her work revolves around making people who don’t always feel sexy — older women, plus-sized women, trans men — feel sexy.”
While Katz admits that she felt a recurrent spark with “almost everyone, in moments,” she insists the podcast is about revisiting — not resuming — a romantic relationship.
“I’m not trying to hook up with anyone. But if I was once drawn to people, I am probably still a bit drawn to them in some way.”
She also underscored one important outcome: “I’m proud of the people I’ve been with, and they’ve affected me and helped me become the person I am.
“We’ll see how I feel when I’m interviewing the 87th person … but I think all of these relationships and encounters have been meaningful and have brought me closer to who I am supposed to be.”
She prefers to record her exes, who can choose to remain anonymous, in her LA home. Of the loves and lovers she’s tracked down so far, only a handful have opted out of being interviewed.
“They may change their mind, or the circumstances that led them to say no may change. I am holding out hope that I will eventually get everyone.”
While sex is a mainstay of “Ex-Appeal,” the podcast is about everyone Katz has ever had a romantic relationship with, including but not limited to her body count.
“It’s not a sex podcast. It is a relationship podcast. There are people I was not sexual with, like my first date in the fifth grade, and there are people who I was mostly sexual with, like a one-night stand.”
Sometimes, the not-sex has proven more erotic than actual consummation, particularly with an orthodox rabbi Katz shared a summer romance with before a long-distance move set them on different courses.
“We didn’t touch, and we only held hands on our last night together. We both said in the episode that we wished we had kissed, but I also remember the longing, and the ‘wanting it so badly,’ so maybe that’s just as good a memory.”
Wherefore art thou?
Katz keeps an ever-evolving “ex-list” — but some past paramours are more accessible than others.
“There are people whose names I can’t remember. In those cases, I’ll describe the situation on the podcast and hope that the person, or a person who knows the story, will listen.”
One such lost, nameless lover? A man she hooked up with on an overnight bus to Boston.
“He was about to go into basic training in the Army. Where is that guy? Who is that guy? Maybe this article will help me find him.”
While there is a fair share of wild stories and blush-inspiring recollections, the podcast is ultimately about clarity and closure.
“The point of the podcast is to reconnect, be loving, heal, and let go. I love that it’s not me recalling what happened in a one-sided way, either as a monologue or with a friend. I am talking with the actual person, so the story remains full and complicated.”
One of those full, complicated stories crystallized the importance of the project for Katz.
Rob, who was battling stage IV cancer when they met, forced Katz to reckon with purpose and desire through the immediate lens of mortality.
“His diagnosis made the relationship very loud and intense. Every day you remember that a person is dying, and it intensifies the love,” she recalled, zeroing in on a particularly heavy point.
“I knew it was finite, and he knew it was the last sex he was ever going to have. It was really an honor to spend that time with him.”
Katz recorded two interviews with Rob, who passed away at 48 in 2023, and they are in the final episode of Season 1.
“I’m glad I have recordings of our jokes and of our singing together. I’m glad people can hear us talk about death,” a wistful Katz said. “I’m glad people can hear us talk about addiction. I’m glad people can hear a small piece of him. I’m so glad he’s part of the project, because I wouldn’t have done it if it were not for him.”
Rob’s impact on Katz was profound.
“I feel so grateful to be alive. I feel a desire for life in a big way, and that is part of my ongoing connection to Rob,” she said. “I think that’s why there’s a lot of honesty in the podcast — because I understand that we die. And I want to have these conversations before I do.”
For Katz, those conversations have revealed how honesty and intimacy can be both hot and healing.
“Saying things I’ve never said and hearing things I’ve never heard, getting to thank people, having people give me the respect of coming on the podcast, that all feels so good and so healing — and in a broad way, very hot, too.”
Katz is hopeful that, in hearing these stories, listeners will find inroads to their own romantic recovery.
“I hope hearing two sides of a conversation makes people feel the nuance of human relationships, so their own stories feel less black and white. I hope there is a softening towards anyone we have sticky feelings about. I want people to feel inspired, excited, and hopeful about love. I want people to feel some semblance of release.”
What do the exes have to say?
Reggie Watts
In the first season of her podcast, Katz reconnects with musician and comedian Reggie Watts, whom she dated 15 years ago. The two first met when Katz interviewed Watts for a magazine profile, making his podcast appearance something of a full-circle moment.
Watts, known for being in the house band on “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” had no reservations about appearing on “Ex-Appeal.”
“I did it because it was her,” he told The Post, “Whatever she’s doing, I know it’ll be interesting.”
“I felt like I was in safe hands. I’m always down to get into stuff and speak plainly about intimate things,” he said of the episode recorded in person at Katz’s home. “I think it’s really empowering to be honest, even if things were suboptimal.”
Katz calls Reggie a “catalyst” whose relationship to his own creativity showed her that she was not fully accessing or expressing her own.
“Even though it was frustrating at times, to hear that it activated and reflected something in her was really cool,” he said.
Revisiting some of the challenging aspects of their relationship, including his burgeoning fame, was both therapeutic and actionable for Watts.
“Everyone has their own perspective when something happens. It’s nice to compare those and be surprised by information, to add it to the awareness loop, consider it going forward, and get ahead of tendencies and patterns.”
Watts has high hopes for “Ex-Appeal” and its potential impact.
“It was delightful; I’m really glad I did it. Hopefully, this podcast can help people feel a little bit more vulnerable in their relationships, while they’re in them, and also perhaps, in revisiting things with old partners and walking through some things and considering the information and incorporating it.”
Noel
During a visit to a strip club in Montreal, Katz requested a lap dance with a woman named Noel. It evolved into a full-blown hookup.
Katz, who was suffering from seasonal depression and feeling “disconnected from her sexuality” at the time, describes the encounter as an awakening.
“You took off my dress and my bra, and it woke me up,” Katz recalled during their podcast conversation. “I was depressed and not in my body. And you’re, like, ‘Let’s get you back in your body.’”
For Noel, the chemistry was so strong she felt comfortable letting her guard down and having a genuine, sexy experience at work.
“It happens so rarely that it was a thrill,” Noel told The Post. “I got to be in the back of this club with this beautiful woman, doing unspeakable things, and no one knew.”
Noel, who “never forgot” Katz, was happy to revisit their experience on “Ex-Appeal” and is hopeful that in sharing it, they can show others what is possible.
“Experimenting doesn’t have to be scary. It doesn’t have to be a one-night thing where you never speak to the person again. It can be a beautiful encounter where both parties walk away feeling good,” Noel told The Post.
“I think people need to hear more stories like that.”
Chad
During COVID, Katz dated Chad, a self-described tech bro from an evangelical background who was fresh off an 18-year marriage to his college sweetheart when he connected with Katz on Hinge.
Katz’s judgment-free manner regarding sex made Chad feel secure enough to discuss their time together.
“The freedom with which she approaches talking about her desire was very powerful,” he told The Post.
“Being able to say what you think or want and have her be like, ‘You know what, no judgment, you’re safe,’ that was huge.”
Katz even introduced newbie Chad to the wild world of psychedelics.
“We went to Joshua Tree, took mushrooms, and spent hours wandering around. She made me come in with some intentions, and I had a very profound experience.”
Interestingly, that led both Chad and Katz to the same realization: they should not be in a romantic relationship.
However, the podcast gave them a chance to reflect on what might have been.
“I think there’s wistfulness, maybe on both of our parts, that we were at a different place. We weren’t fundamentally mismatched; we’re just better friends for lots of reasons,” said Chad.
That “better off as friends” sentiment is the real deal: Chad introduced Katz to her current boyfriend — and Katz gave the closing speech at Chad’s wedding this year.
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