‘Ex Appeal’: I interviewed everyone I ever slept with — here are my surprising, sexy takeaways
While the idea of tracking down every partner on your roster may sound both anguishing and impossible, one woman has made it her mission. She is looking 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 to which anyone who has walked the precarious line of love and loss can relate.
“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. 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 said.
“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 added.
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,” Katz added.
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,” she said.
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,” she said.
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.”