Messy Situations

On this special episode, Kane, Michele and producer Mesh rehash the rude, cringe-worthy, strange, obnoxious, hyper-sexual and just plain head-scratching behavior they’ve encountered on dating apps. While we’ve all heard romantic app-assisted success stories, it’s hard to imagine how love connections actually happen judging by the lot of losers, man-children and blatant golddigers crossing our feeds these days. Take a listen to hear...

Chris met Jorge when he was on a 3-month work assignment in San Antonio, Texas —and with zero plans to relocate, he made it clear that this fling would never be a real thing. Famous last words. Four years after returning to San Francisco, Chris did move to Texas to be with Jorge, but the next few chapters of their love story would include illness, betrayal, miscommunication, a devastating family loss and a near-death experience. Tu...

When you’re a 20-something grinding it out in the nightlife and events industry in New York City, exhaustion is part of the deal. But when Sumanah Khan started feeling so unwell and fatigued that she had to go to the hospital, she wasn’t prepared for what doctors discovered: Her heart was enlarged and only working at a 5% capacity, likely the result of viral infection or some other toxic environmental exposure. Sumanah’s harrowing ...

Today we’re bringing you an episode from another one of Lola Media’s shows —Founder Stories. This installment is special to us because it follows the entrepreneurial journey of Messy Situation’s co-host, Kane Sarhan.

Follow along as Kane discusses everything from growing up in rural Michigan to moving to New York City where he became a bartender to ascending the ladder at one of the country’s chicest hotel brands. With formidable g...

After years as a free-wheeling stand-up comic, Helen Hong bought a house with her sister, who was about to undergo IVF. To everyone’s shock, her sister got pregnant on the very first try. That’s when Helen became, in her words, a reluctant “baby daddy” who shares the absurd, unglamorous responsibility of taking care of an infant who is basically an adorable asshole. Listen in as Helen describes — in unfiltered detail — how she went...

There are small messes, there are big messes and then there are epic messes. This episode kicks off a two-part series because the journey to redemption for this week’s guest was a decades-long one. Gentle-seeming Monty began scamming people when he was 8 years old and discovered he had a knack for it. Over the years he used his charm, intelligence and reckless bravado to dupe neighbors, strangers, one very wealthy older woman and t...

This week, co-host Kane shares his own Messy Situation: A close friend is hiding a potentially dangerous health secret from his new boyfriend — the operative word being potentially. And by confiding in Kane (and inviting him to dinner with his BF!), this friend has put Kane smack in the middle of a moral dilemma. Michele and Kane talk through the emotions— pressure, guilt, responsibility and more, while diving into the nuances of t...

When Laura Friedman Williams’ 22-year marriage came crashing down, she was terrified of what the future might hold. Little did she know, the next year of her life would be filled with more men, more sex and more satisfaction than she’d experienced in the previous three decades. By embracing one-night stands and no-strings sex, Laura reclaimed her sexual sovereignty and never looked back. It takes a lot to make Kane and Michele’s ja...

Messy Situation’s very own producer, Mesh Lakhani, steps up to the mic from behind the scenes to confess the stomach-seizing moments he’s experienced launching his podcast company Lola Media. With complete transparency, Mesh discusses the unexpected pain points of going it alone, while Messy Situations co-host and serial entrepreneur, Kane, jumps in to validate the universal fears all entrepreneurs face. Rahaf Harfoush, a strategis...

Entrepreneur and activist Reshma Saujani has spent her career unearthing injustices and the latest really hit close to home: As a busy working mother of two, Reshma saw firsthand how the pandemic disproportionately impacted working moms, driving them out of the workforce and causing them to take on a third shift of duties (aka Zoom school). Acting as both guest and Clean-Up Crew, Reshma, the author of Pay Up, lays out the surprisin...

During the height of the pandemic, entrepreneur and author Tina Wells followed her heart to Brazil to be with her boyfriend-turned fiancé, a pro soccer player. After many months in South America, Tina realized that a life there wasn’t viable for her personal and career happiness, so she made the difficult decision to break off the engagement and move home… but not before her ex got a giant tattoo of her face on his upper thigh, alo...

When Lorraine decided to go into business with one of her closest friends, she never imagined it would impact her personal and professional life so profoundly. But after months of strange and suspicious behavior that had Lorraine thinking she might be “crazy,” she busted her best friend/business partner in an affair with her husband. Then the worst happened. Tune in to hear the way Lorraine caught her former friend and husband and ...

When women think of menopause, they often picture suffering through some annoying hot flashes and night sweats before it all blows over. But as today’s guest reveals, the hormonal shifts that accompany the end of the menstruating years can wreak havoc on a woman’s mental health. Beth, a confident, successful, happily married 50-year-old, bravely shares how menopause upended her life in a terrifying sneak attack that drastically alt...

As cliché as it sounds, from the moment Michael and Nate locked eyes there was an irrepressible attraction. The problem: Nate was Michael’s married boss. Their work relationship required them to spend a lot of time together, including on overnight business trips — a danger zone that pushed the two to the edge. Then, their intimate text exchanges were discovered by Nate’s husband and things got really messy. Clean-up Crew experts Ma...

Josie had been a social drinker since high school, but over the years — and especially over COVID — that drinking became a daily habit, sometimes resulting in her consuming an entire bottle of wine by herself after work. Highly functional, by day Josie has held down an executive-level job for decades— what wasn’t going well was the ways in which her drinking was impacting her relationship with her non-drinking, high-school-aged dau...

Many relationships begin with a fiery physical connection, but few maintain that sexual chemistry when absolutely everything else has soured. In this episode, Kane and Michele welcome Alex on to share how a typical dating situation devolved into an extremely unhealthy cycle of behavior with his ex relentlessly pursuing him with calls, texts, threats, X-rated videos and more, until he gives in to “the best sex ever.” Clean-up Crew e...

We don’t know who needs to hear this, but nobody has their shit together 100 percent of the time — nobody. You can be excelling in one part of your life while another area is imploding. Those two states of being co-exist all the time, for everyone. Life is messy like that. And it's okay. What's not okay? Acting like you have it under control when you're spiraling. We want to help. Messy Situations empowers people to rel...