Hello and welcome to Ask Me anything with Jamila Jamil. I hope you're well.

This is a podcast episode where if you haven't heard before I answer your questions directly,

no matter how serious or silly they are.

Sometimes I have a guest, but when I have millions of questions

like the ones that you sent in this week,

then I choose to do it on my own,

so I can get through and get to as many as possible.

I do also think I wanted to do this by myself because I know that we are starting to begin the

wind-down process of this podcast and I think I crave moments of

intimacy of just it being you and me and I want to quickly say a word on that

and there will be more.

But basically, I have loved doing this podcast so much for the past nearly five years.

And thank you so much for all the people who've been listening from the very start and who send me your Spotify wrapped every Christmas and show me that you spent hundreds of hours with us on this podcast. I really appreciate it. I have learned so much, not

just from my amazing guests, but also from you and you have pushed me and encouraged me and made me want to find bigger and

more interesting and more inclusive stories and I thank you so much for that.

Thank you for all the guests you recommended also because I don't think I ever would have found those people.

I really feel as though this has been a collaborative podcast between all of us and I guess it's because the subjects were also interesting that I think this type of

podcast needs to be moved to a format where I can dig deeper into each subject.

It's, we've covered so much, so much ground, so many topics on

nearly everything, but these subjects are nuanced and they have layers and they have history and it's hard to cram that into 35 or 40 minutes.

So I think when we return it will be in more of a kind of mini-series way where it's like women's health or

mental health or global politics where we can actually really sink our teeth

...