Under the Influencer (with Lee From America)

Be There in Five

Kate Kennedy

Personal Journals, Comedy Interviews, Comedy, Entertainment News, News, Society & Culture

4.8 • 7.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2025

⏱️ 116 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Kate’s interviewing Lee Tilghman, also known as @LeeFromAmerica, who was one of the very first major wellness influencers on social media. To her nearly 400k followers, she shared daily updates on everything from skincare and sleep hacks to smoothie bowls, travel tips, and workout routines, and her sponsorships netted an income of over $300k a year. On the grid, her life seemed perfect. But behind her carefully curated posts, Tilghman was in crisis, suffocating from the unrelenting demand of keeping up her online facade. She found herself viewing everything she did as potential content for Instagram, her relationships suffered, and her job’s focus on food led her to develop an unhealthy obsession with eating “perfectly.” After a stay in a mental health facility to address her disordered eating and psychological decline, Tilghman quit influencing as her primary career and set out to discover who she really was by leaving it all behind. Or did she?In this episode, Kate and Lee discuss her memoir (out Tuesday Aug 12) “If You Don’t Like This, I Will Die,” with topics including the pressures of influencer culture, the evolution of wellness trends, and the complexities of social media addiction. They explore Lee's journey through extreme wellness practices, her current POV on her treatment for orthorexia, and her departure from the influencer world. Ultimately, while Lee shares a compelling personal story, the conversation reveals notable inconsistencies between her current perspectives and her memoir's narrative, so Kate also contemplates how curated online personas continue to shape real-life accountability in her outtro and will continue the conversation over at patreon.com/bethereinfive.Note: This episode covers eating disorders and wellness culture. For resources and support, visit NEDA.orgSUPPORT OUR SPONSORSOrder Kate's NYT Bestselling book, One in a Millennial here (https://www.google.com/url?q=https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/one-in-a-millenial/&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1755107304729315&usg=AOvVaw3jFNb8rI9LJ_ngmTUIAdkN)!Text or leave a voicemail for Kate at 775-HEY-BETH!Thank you to AllModern for furnishing Kate's Season 2 Studio! AllModern has the best of modern furniture and decor all in one place. With styles from Scandi and mid-century, to minimalist and maximalist, every design is hand-vetted for quality by their team of experts. Plus they have fast + free shipping! Check out allmodern.com (https://www.google.com/url?q=http://allmodern.com&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1755107304729315&usg=AOvVaw13iUbunzGWYW-AxTAHW9Te); you'll find Kate's bookshelves here (https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.allmodern.com/furniture/pdp/annora-63-h-x-63-w-geometric-bookcase-a000142700.html?piid%3D90101977&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1755107304729315&usg=AOvVaw1rJ__AtBtaLG7w0XM8zXYw) and her new rug here (https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.allmodern.com/rugs/pdp/virgina-southwestern-yellowcreambrown-area-rug-a000668129.html?piid%3D600621059&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1755107304729315&usg=AOvVaw2VkBXpR_rkSFncHf4w1ztg)!Go to cookunity.com/bethereinfivefree (https://www.google.com/url?q=http://cookunity.com/bethereinfivefree&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1755107304729315&usg=AOvVaw3OAirv1O-f7RS0a6RF-7pX) or enter code bethereinfivefree before checkout for Free Premium Meals for Life. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Cookunity.com (https://www.google.com/url?q=http://Cookunity.com&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1755107304729315&usg=AOvVaw1pltJLmxaxfvFXq3xjuL5g) for details.Head to cozyearth.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Be There in Five podcast. I'm Kate Kennedy, your host. I'm a podcast host. I'm a podcast host host host, a podcast hostess a best-selling author, a pop culture commentator, a professional nosy person. And my podcast, Be There in Five, uses
0:22.5	pop culture and nostalgia as a lens to explore millennial womanhood from going out tops to
0:28.1	girl boss feminism. Purity rings to pyramid schemes, you know? The lore of a goucho pant to the glory
0:34.6	days of a 2000s hot Girl Bath and Bodywork scent.
0:37.8	For the past going on eight years, Be There in Five has been attempting to make sense of
0:42.3	the pop culture that raised us and continues to shape us as millennial women.
0:46.3	And there's nothing that has shaped us quite like social media and the performance of
0:49.5	self that came along with it.
0:52.0	And influencer culture is something we discuss a lot on this show.
0:55.7	Given how fundamentally it's changed the way we think about ourselves, our appearance, our
1:00.7	success, how it makes us consume.
1:03.9	And even basic things like what we eat in a day, how we take care of ourselves, which
1:08.6	relates to today's topic.
1:09.9	And today I have an
1:11.2	interesting episode for you, an interesting interview, one that I'm still kind of trying to
1:17.3	figure out as the interviewer, the producer and editor of this podcast, I am left with some
1:24.9	questions. And I do feel like it requires like a little bit of context going
1:29.0	into the interview because you won't have read the book yet. It comes out on Tuesday. I don't
1:33.6	know when you're listening to this, but regardless, I think it kind of frames why I asked questions
1:38.9	the way I did and why the conversation went where it did. And I'll get into it. But to back up,
1:44.1	so today I'm speaking with Lee Tillman, author of the new memoir, if you don't like this, I don't why the conversation went where it did. And I'll get into it, but to back up.
1:47.4	So today I'm speaking with Lee Tillman, author of the new memoir.
	...

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