RISK!

This is a classic RISK! episode from January 2014, and it holds up with a particular kind of ferocity.

(Content note: sexual assault)

Ellie Jackson spent 12 years convincing herself she had moved on from being raped at a college party her freshman year. She'd built a careful system for managing intimacy, or avoiding it, and mostly it held. Then a routine visit to Planned Parenthood, a persistent social worker, and an accidental encounter with a Crest commercial undid all of it at once.

(Content note: physical abuse, domestic violence, child abuse)

Liz Stewart grew up with a sociopathic father and a paranoid schizophrenic mother who once pinned her to the floor to perform a homemade exorcism. She had boxed for eight years and never once hit back. Until she did.

Two stories. Both women fought back.

Full episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/fighting-back-cre515 

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Three stories so worth your time, from darkly funny to devastating. Our 34th compilation of some of our favorite recent stories shared on the podcast.

(Content note: sexual assault) Fixxy starts a summer in Pittsburgh doing sex work for quick cash before a move to New York City. One night a client seems different, with an unusually easy request and a ride out to the suburbs. Things escalate in ways Fixxy never anticipated, leading to one of the more genuinely terrifying stories we’ve ever aired. In a completely different vibe, Kevin Allison tells the family legend he’ll never live down: a Super 8 film project, a borrowed jar of jumbo pickles, and an ADHD brain running out of options with the clock ticking.

(Content note: child abuse, death) Then there’s Mishelle Roberts, who grew up believing her mother was a devoted caregiver. Years later, she started finding records, asking questions, and pulling at threads that had held her family's story together her entire life. Mishelle’s story was also the focus of Season Six of Nobody Should Believe Me.

Full episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/the-best-of-risk-34

Support RISK! & Get Involved

🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in New York City on Tuesday, June 9th 2026

✍️ Pitch your story⁠

❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ or ⁠make a one-time PayPal donation⁠

📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠

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Three stories about snap decisions and what happens next: a classic RISK! episode from December 2013 that still hits hard.

Lauren Cook found her date for a stranger's New Jersey wedding on Craigslist Casual Encounters. She showed up with a fake identity, a room full of people who knew nothing about her, and a night that kept escalating in directions she did not plan for.

(Content note: gun violence)

JJ grew up in 1980s Bushwick, Brooklyn, fought his way into Wesleyan and then Wall Street, but one afternoon a neighborhood confrontation pulled him back to a version of himself he thought he had left behind. He came very close to throwing everything away.

Daniel Lobell sank $2,000 into a hairless cat as the foundation of a breeding empire. When the cat ended up at a friend's apartment and she stopped returning his calls, his plan to get it back got increasingly creative.

Full episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/impulsive-cre510

Support RISK! & Get Involved

🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in New York City

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❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ or ⁠make a one-time PayPal donation⁠

📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠

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Kevin hears Timothy Vaux's "Males of the City," a story from So Say We All, for the first time. In RISK! Reacts episodes, there's no preview, no prep, just Kevin listening along with you and sharing everything the story brings to his mind.

The story: Timothy is a happily single gay man living in the heart of North Park, San Diego, where a buzzy Saturday night out ends with a casual wave to a stranger that sets off a chain of spontaneous, increasingly elaborate, and very adult events.

The reaction: Kevin is instantly charmed, finding echoes of his own younger self in Timothy's freewheeling urban adventures. He shares his own surprisingly relatable stories about role play, improv, and the particular chaos of letting a night take you wherever it wants to go.

For more info and music featured in this episode, visit risk-show.com/podcast/males-of-the-city-risk-reacts 

Support RISK! & Get Involved

🎟 See RISK! live⁠ June 9th, 2026, in NYC

✍️ Pitch your story⁠

❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ or ⁠make a one-time PayPal donation⁠

📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠

🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

True Crime News: The Podcast is your weekly dose of real-time updates on the most gripping true crime stories, current cases, investigations, scams, and schemes. Host Ana Garcia is joined by crime experts, police officers, defense attorneys, and other leading authorities in their fields as they cover murders, scams, investigations, and unsolved crimes from across the country. Join us each week as we take you inside the biggest, most shocking, and most bizarre true crime cases.
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