The Friend Who Became Family With Emily Fortner
Barely Famous
PodcastOne
4.6 • 5.6K Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2026
⏱️ 74 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
On this episode of Barely Famous, Kail sits down with her best friend Emily Fortner, the one you’ve seen in the background of real life: school drop-offs, kids’ sports, Book Club, and all the in-between moments that don’t make the highlight reel. Just two moms reflecting on how a real friendship forms, grows, and becomes family.
They get into the invisible work: what it’s actually like to be a teacher carrying other people’s kids all day and then going home to do it again as a single mom, the mental load that never clocks out, and how burnout can look like “tired” in a way sleep doesn’t fix. Along the way, Kail opens up about what school felt like for her growing up, why certain adults can change a kid’s entire trajectory, and how motherhood shifts when you’re trying to take care of everyone while still learning how to take care of yourself.
It’s funny, emotional, and wildly relatable, especially if you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything and still wondering if it’s enough.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the shit show. |
| 0:02.9 | Things are going to get weird. |
| 0:04.0 | Get weird. |
| 0:04.5 | It's your fave villain, Kail Lowry. |
| 0:06.4 | And you're listening to Barely Famous. |
| 0:24.7 | Welcome back to another episode of Barely Famous Podcast. |
| 0:27.8 | Super excited to be here with one of my best friends, Emily Portner. |
| 0:28.4 | Hi. |
| 0:40.5 | So I really wanted to do this episode and kind of just like sprung it on Emily because I know that you guys all see her on my socials, on book club, on Patreon, and our kids' sports, |
| 0:41.5 | our kids go to school together. |
| 0:45.6 | And so I kind of wanted to just like run it back for everyone because Emily wasn't on teen mom. |
| 0:45.9 | Like some of my other friends were on teen mom. |
| 0:48.2 | So you kind of know who they were. |
| 0:49.6 | You followed them. |
| 0:50.6 | And Emily didn't get the chance. |
| 0:52.2 | So we first became friends when Lincoln was in kindergarten. |
| 0:57.6 | Yeah. So Lincoln's 12 now. Yeah. So we've been friends for like seven years. Yeah. Seven years. That's a long |
| 1:05.2 | time. And it's a long time. And you were his kindergarten teacher. Obviously since, you have changed, not careers, but positions. |
| 1:14.7 | Yeah, several times, yeah. |
| 1:15.8 | So, okay, let's start with starting back in the beginning. |
| 1:20.9 | Okay. |
| 1:21.3 | When you found out Lincoln was in your class, what first, did you know who he was? |
... |
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