Family Secrets

Family Secrets. We all have them. And while the discovery of family secrets can initially be terrifying or traumatic, often these discoveries have the power to liberate, heal, and even uplift us. Join Dani Shapiro, bestselling author of the memoir Inheritance, and her guests as they explore astonishing family secrets and uncover the extraordinary lessons the truth can teach us.

Society & Culture
51
Family Secrets: Season 4 Trailer
Get ready for more incredible stories about the secrets—both big and small—that shape us from the inside out. The new season of Family Secrets launches October 1.
3 min
52
Update: Hi From Dani
Dani checks in with a quick update on season 4. (Mark your calendars for October 1!)
1 min
53
Bonus: Listener Stories, Episode 21
In this bonus episode we hear from listeners in the Family Secrets community. To share your secret, call 1-888-SECRET-0.
10 min
54
Bonus: Listener Stories, Episode 20
In this bonus episode we hear from listeners in the Family Secrets community. To share your secret, call 1-888-SECRET-0.
6 min
55
Bonus: In Conversation with Alicia Keys, Pt. 2
Dani and Alicia continue their conversation about becoming the person you were always meant to be, and Alicia shares her strategy for moving forward when you find yourself at a crossroads—learn to feel out, and trust, the resounding yeses. (Alicia’s memoir, More Myself: A Journey, is out now.)
24 min
56
Bonus: In Conversation with Alicia Keys
On this very special episode of Family Secrets, Dani speaks with singer-songwriter Alicia Keys about living unapologetically, making art without compromise, and the women who kept her grounded when she became a household name at just 20 years old—her mother and her grandmother. (Alicia’s memoir, More Myself: A Journey, is out now.)
25 min
57
Bonus: Forever35’s Doree Shafrir and Kate Spenc...
Dani calls up Doree and Kate, hosts of the hit podcast Forever35, for an in-depth conversation about self-care, shifting priorities, and why it’s so important to keep a record of what you’re doing, thinking, and feeling during this time.
42 min
58
Bonus: Listener Stories, Episode 19
In this bonus episode we hear from listeners in the Family Secrets community. To share your secret, call 1-888-SECRET-0.
8 min
59
Bonus: Listener Stories, Episode 18
In this bonus episode we hear from listeners in the Family Secrets community. To share your secret, call 1-888-SECRET-0.
8 min
60
Family Secrets Live: In Conversation with Liz P...
Dani and Liz respond to questions from the audience about shame, the power of the unthought known, and the growing community of people who find out later in life they were donor-conceived.
28 min
61
Family Secrets Live: In Conversation with Liz P...
On this special live episode of Family Secrets, recorded in Los Angeles in January, Dani sits down with indie rock icon Liz Phair to talk about the stories we choose to tell ourselves—and how the act of writing can lead to a deeper, more nuanced understanding of both our pasts and the people we’ve become.
48 min
62
Family Secrets Live: In Conversation with Gretc...
Dani and Gretchen respond to audience questions — including one from a former anonymous sperm donor, who wonders where his loyalties should lie after he’s asked not to tell one of his biological children the truth about her origins.
24 min
63
Family Secrets Live: In Conversation with Gretc...
On this special live episode of Family Secrets, recorded in Philadelphia in January, author and podcast host Gretchen Rubin interviews Dani about uncovering the family secret that became the subject of her bestselling memoir Inheritance: that her beloved father was not related to her by blood. Gretchen and Dani discuss the aftermath of that discovery — including what it was like to forge a connection with her biological dad — plus the ethics of anonymous sperm donation, and what the rise of DNA testing means for those guarantees of anonymity.
35 min
64
Bonus: In Conversation with Libby Copeland, Pt. 2
On part two of Dani’s conversation with Libby Copeland, Dani and Libby discuss the fallout on the other side of a major DNA revelation, and why DNA testing could make secrecy around a person’s origins a thing of the past.
33 min
65
Bonus: Libby Copeland, Author of The Lost Famil...
On this special bonus episode of Family Secrets, Dani speaks with Libby Copeland, author and journalist, about the psychological and emotional complexities that face families who have kept secrets, and families who have had secrets kept from them. This is an intimate conversation about the deepest parts of identity exposed by unexpected DNA results.
29 min
66
Family Secrets Live: In Conversation with Dr. B...
Dani and Bessel respond to questions from the audience about trauma, and how art—and writing in particular—can help people heal.
21 min
67
Family Secrets Live: In Conversation with Dr. B...
In January, Dani hit the road for a series of live conversations with some of her favorite writers, artists, and thinkers. Her first stop: Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where she sat down with renowned trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, for a discussion about how we move forward after traumatic events—a topic nobody could have predicted would apply to each and every one of us just a few months later.
40 min
68
Bug Dust
For years, Steven Romo just didn’t talk about the bleak landscape of his childhood—not with friends, and certainly not with his colleagues at the TV station where he works as an anchor. Until a headline that reminded him of his upbringing inspired him to open up about what he’s been through, giving everyone a glimpse at the pain he kept hidden beneath his polished, professional exterior.
36 min
69
Bonus: Stephanie Wittels Wachs, host of “Last D...
In this special bonus episode, Dani speaks with Stephanie Wittels Wachs, actress, activist, and co-host of the hit podcast Last Day, which shines a light on the real human stories behind epidemics we usually only think about in terms of their staggering — yet seemingly abstract — statistics. Recording from their respective homes, Dani (sitting in her PJs in her son’s old room) and Stephanie (holed up in the closet that serves as her makeshift studio) discuss trauma, the collective grief we’re all feeling in this era of social distancing, and making meaning out of tragedy — which is exactly what Stephanie did after losing her beloved younger brother, the comedian Harris Wittels, to a heroin overdose.
46 min
70
The Red Potion
Janny Scott grew up on an 800-acre British-style estate outside Philadelphia with a loving, gregarious father who was always the life of the party. But underneath her father’s light exterior was a darkness he struggled to keep at bay—a lifelong effort that would eventually cause him to self-destruct.
33 min
71
Fever Coat
When Axton Betz-Hamilton was in middle school, her family’s mail started going missing. Her parents told her that they’d been the victims of an identity thief, and that the perpetrator was likely someone close to them. Slowly, they began to shut out the world, enveloping Axton in a bubble of paranoia and secrecy—an atmosphere that didn’t allow her to see what was right in front of her until decades later.
32 min
72
Bubbe and Zayde and Grandma and Pa
Growing up, Adam Frankel idolized his father and his father’s father, eventually following in their footsteps to become a successful speechwriter for politicians like John Kerry and Barack Obama. But at the age of 25, Adam discovered a truth that caused him to question everything—including his place in the lineage he’d molded his life around.
46 min
73
Cold People
For most of her young life, Lisa Brennan-Jobs bounced back and forth between two very different homes—that of her mother, who raised Lisa alone for the first few years of her life and struggled to make ends meet; and that of her father, Steve Jobs, who lived exactly the way you’d expect the founder of a multimillion dollar tech company to but struggled to relate to the daughter he initially denied was his.
34 min
74
Too Busy to Die
Addiction breeds denial, in both the addict and his loved ones. And when that addiction comes wrapped in a busy, successful, ambitious package like Eilene Zimmerman’s ex-husband, a respected Silicon Valley attorney, it’s especially easy to ignore the warning signs. Until it’s too late.
45 min
75
Jeanette
Emily Bernard never felt close to her judgmental, domineering father, who, for most of her life, denied he’d ever been unfaithful to her mother. It wasn’t until her dad’s sudden death that Emily began the process of getting to know the woman who caused her family so much pain: her father’s longtime mistress.
41 min