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A Celebration of the Women Who Made Us This Way: Melissa Radke Returns to the For the Love Podcast

2025/5/14

For The Love With Jen Hatmaker Podcast

Shownotes Transcript

Description:

Melissa Radke is the best friend you never knew you always wanted with a Texas-sized heart and sense of humor to match. She’s also an author, speaker, TV personality, and For the Love fan-favorite, best known for her gut-busting sense of humor, deep honesty, and fierce Southern sass. Melissa first gained a national following with her viral videos about parenting and real life, which led to a reality show (The Radkes) and a bestselling book (Eat Cake. Be Brave.) A fierce advocate for women finding their voice—especially in midlife—Melissa brings laughter and tears to everything she touches. Her newest project, Chicken Fried Women, a collection of stories (with a companion podcast series) celebrates the women—battered on the outside, tender on the inside, some salty, some spicy—who made us who we are.

In this life-giving conversation filled with snort-laughs and tears, we talk about:

The incredible women who raised us, taught us, prayed for us, and even humbled us when we needed it most

The stories that have become legend in our families—Melissa tells a story about her Aunt Melba helping her mother with fastening her girdle in a cramped church bathroom stall that left Jen and Amy in stitches

The friends who have shown up for us in times of crisis with remedies and solutions that we never could have fathomed for ourselves

Thought-provoking Quotes:

“I have always thought that people who have an innate gift to find and communicate humor, even in the midst of sorrow, possess a gift of healing. And I can’t number how many times I have been on the other side of someone else’s gift of humor and it has restored me in a way that literally nothing else could.” – Jen Hatmaker

“Don’t waste another second being around someone who makes you feel like you’re too much. Go sit at a different table. Find a different circle.” – Melissa Radke

“I am fully committed, as committed as I am to Christ, to the moo-moo. I make no apologies and I thank the person who rebranded it by calling it a kaftan.” – Melissa Radke

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Eat Cake & Be Brave: The Funny Formula For Life With Melissa Radke) - https://bit.ly/4j29Yxm

Fierce, Free & Full of Questions: Melissa Radke Gets Jen to Tell it All) - https://bit.ly/4lkzm2Q

The Radkes) - https://www.usanetwork.com/the-radkes

Saturday Night Live’s Five Timer’s Club) - https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/snl-fiver-timers-club-member-hosts

Chicken-Fried Women: Friendship, Kinship, and the Women Who Made Us This Way) by Melissa Radke - https://amzn.to/3FS6azY

The Chicken Fried Women Podcast) - https://www.melissaradke.com/podcast

Erma Bombeck) - https://amzn.to/3DT9NoL

Leanne Morgan) - https://www.leannemorgan.com/

Tina Fey) - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0275486/

Amy Poehler) - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0688132/

Mindy Kaling) - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1411676/