Katherine Ryan on Feminism, Face Lifts & Controversial Parenting!

Begin Again with Davina McCall

FlightStory

Mental Health, Education, Society & Culture, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness

4.6 • 971 Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2025

⏱️ 86 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Begin Again, comedian, writer and mother Katherine Ryan opens up about the fierce, funny and sometimes controversial journey that shaped who she is today. Katherine shares her unfiltered take on feminism, aging, and identity from her early years navigating beauty standards and working at Hooters, to embracing her femininity and her candid thoughts on getting surgery without shame. She speaks openly about her parenting choices, including co-sleeping, early potty training, and raising her children in a way that challenges convention. The conversation dives into the emotional complexity of family life, including Katherine’s experience brokering her parents’ divorce at 15, her mother’s influence, and the story behind the face lift she gifted her. She also reflects on rekindling love with her high school sweetheart, and how their shared small-town values created an unexpected foundation for her family today. With trademark wit and remarkable vulnerability, Katherine Ryan invites us into her world a space where contradictions coexist, shame is optional, and motherhood, feminism, and identity are all up for redefinition. (00:00) Intro (01:22) Who Is Katherine Ryan? (01:50) Embracing Femininity and Feminism (03:59) Why Turning 40 Is Actually Great (07:09) Oversharing, Shame, and Owning Your Story (09:31) Protecting Children on Social Media (11:55) Katherine on Her Parents and Childhood (15:21) Learning to Stop Caring What Others Think (17:13) Dealing With Offense, Annoying People, and Growing Thick Skin (20:31) How Katherine Brokered Her Parents' Divorce at 15 (26:49) Single Motherhood and Spoiling Her Kids (31:29) Do Parents Really Have a Favourite Child? (32:34) Ancient & Brave Ad (33:40) Reuniting With Her High School Sweetheart (43:27) Working at Hooters: The Untold Story (49:37) Starting Stand-Up at 20 and Being a Woman in Comedy (56:33) Misogyny, the Patriarchy, Plastic Surgery, and Self-Love (01:05:56) Inside Katherine’s Parenting Style (01:15:24) Working in British Television (01:22:18) What Legacy Does Katherine Ryan Want to Leave? Sponsored by: Ancient + Brave - https://ancientandbrave.earth/pages/planet and use code BEGINAGAIN for 20% off your order Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The nice thing about getting older, and I think maybe you have a touch of it now. Botox. No. Oh. But like, yes. So I wanted to be a Hooters girl, and I kept getting in trouble for my smart mouth, and there was a comedy club next to the Hooters, and so that's where I would go. But I was not as happy as a child. My mom started dating a 22-year-old. My dad stonewalled her completely.
0:22.6	You ended up brokering the custody deal. For a 15-year-old, that's a lot.
0:26.6	Adults I didn't even know were making fun of my family.
0:30.6	And that gave you an armor, do you think?
0:34.6	I very quickly became a single mother in a foreign country in a bad relationship.
0:39.3	And I can't imagine what that would feel like there were lookers than comedians.
0:43.3	Who would be like, you don't want to dress like that?
0:45.3	Because the men will be distracted by you and the women will hate you.
0:48.3	I think it's a mistake to assume that when we dress well,
0:52.3	get Botox or plastic surgery, that that is anything to do with the male gaze.
0:57.0	It is very lonely, I think, for certain women
1:00.0	to look in the mirror and not recognize their best friend,
1:03.0	and that is just yourself.
1:05.0	We want to be the right kind of feminist
1:07.0	or the right kind of woman or the right kind of mother,
1:09.0	and then we get lost in the shame when we can't execute all of those things.
1:13.6	Well, how would you like people to remember you?
1:16.6	But I just want to be a problem.
1:22.6	So today I am talking to a woman who has begun again many times, been very brave.
1:31.3	She's always changing, always different.
1:34.9	The ultimate feminist, I feel.
1:37.8	Yes, I mean, she looks surprised when I say that, but we're going to get into this.
	...

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