460: Hollywood Burnout, Redefining Wellness and Balancing Beauty & Health with Maria Menounos
Well with Arielle Lorre
Dear Media, Arielle Lorre
4.8 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2026
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Maria Menounos is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, television host, producer, bestselling author, and host and founder of Heal Squad. Known for her years on Entertainment Tonight, Extra, and E! News, Maria has also become an outspoken advocate for health, wellness, and self-advocacy after facing a series of serious health challenges, including a brain tumor and pancreatic tumor diagnosis.
In this episode, we talk about what success and wellness meant to her during her peak Hollywood years, the toll the entertainment industry schedule took on her body, and how thyroid issues became the gateway to deeper chronic health struggles. Maria opens up about balancing health anxiety with advocating for yourself, what it was like navigating both her and her mother’s brain cancer diagnoses, and how those experiences completely reshaped her priorities and approach to life.
We also get into the wellness practices and tools she genuinely relies on today, including foundational habits, red light therapy, trampoline jumping, Botox, face taping, and the trends she thinks are overrated versus truly worth it.
We discuss:
* The hidden health cost of hustle culture
* How stress impacted her body and hormones
* Thyroid issues and chronic illness
* Brain tumors, pancreatic tumors, and self-advocacy
* Balancing wellness with health anxiety
* Foundational wellness habits that actually matter
* The benefits of red light therapy
* Trampoline jumping and lymphatic health
* Botox, face taping, and beauty trends
* Underrated vs. overrated wellness practices
* Learning to prioritize herself after years of burnout
Want more Maria? Follow her on Instagram @mariamenounos, and check out her podcast @healsquad.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast is a dear media production. |
| 0:05.8 | This is Well, a podcast about wellness in all its forms. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm Ariel Laurie, and each week I'm sharing unfiltered conversations with people shaping how we feel, live, and look. |
| 0:17.2 | Come for the substance, stay for the honesty, and leave with the tools to be well, inside and out. |
| 0:25.8 | Today's guest is Maria Menunos, and I don't think that there are many people who have navigated both Hollywood and serious health challenges with as much honesty and resilience as Maria has. She probably needs |
| 0:40.9 | no introduction with you guys, but she has an Emmy Award winning journalist. She's a television |
| 0:45.3 | host, producer, bestselling author. A lot of people know her from hosting shows like |
| 0:50.8 | Entertainment Tonight, Extra, and E News. She is also now the founder and host of Heal Squad. |
| 0:58.0 | But behind the scenes, she was dealing with an absolutely relentless schedule and burnout, which |
| 1:03.5 | she gets into in this episode. And eventually major health issues that completely changed the |
| 1:08.5 | way that she thinks about wellness and success. So in this |
| 1:11.4 | episode, we get into all about. We talk about what success and wellness meant to her in those |
| 1:17.0 | peak Hollywood years and just the toll that hustle culture and the entertainment industry took on |
| 1:22.5 | her body. We talk how thyroid issues became kind of the gateway to deeper chronic health |
| 1:27.2 | struggles, |
| 1:27.7 | which I know so many women deal with. |
| 1:29.9 | We also get into something I think so many people will relate to, which is balancing health |
| 1:35.1 | anxiety with genuinely advocating for yourself and listening to your body. |
| 1:39.8 | Maria opens up about both she and her mom being diagnosed with brain cancer, discovering her |
| 1:45.1 | pancreatic tumor, and how those experiences forced her to reevaluate everything from stress |
| 1:51.3 | to boundaries to the way that she prioritizes herself. And then, of course, we have to |
| 1:55.8 | lighten things up and get into her favorite foundational wellness practices, underrated |
... |
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