PODCAST · history
Ridiculous Romance
by iHeartPodcasts
Throughout time and across the globe, from the Stone Age to the Digital Age, people have been having weird, wonderful, and downright absurd relationships. Real life spouses Diana and Eli are here to cover them all in a podcast that’s part history, part comedy, and all ridiculous. Hook up with some of the wildest and most interesting romantic partners to ever fall in love!
Episodes
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You Hate To See Us Leave But Love To Watch Us Go
You didn’t think we’d totally disappear without a goodbye smooch, did you?? Yes, sadly this is (for now) the last episode of Ridiculous Romance. But we’ve been working hard on ourselves so we can stay in your lives well into the future! Plus updates on Replika, Walnut the Crane, and some real…
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Queen Victoria’s Spooky Seance for Prince Albert
RiCRYPTulous Romance returns for a 3rd Halloween Season! When Queen Victoria’s dear husband Prince Albert died, she fell into deep mourning. But when a medium brought the queen a letter from Albert from beyond the grave, her spirit was lifted. She arranged a seance to peer through the veil and...
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Climax Change: Annie Sprinkle, Beth Stephens, and Ecosexuality
When two queer, sex-positive, environmentalist artists meet, of course they’re going to fall for each other and make something truly fascinating. Filmmaker Beth Stephens and feminist artist and porn star Annie Sprinkles started the Ecosex movement which says that instead of “Mother Earth”, maybe…
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Hoisting Husbands, Colonial Genderbending, & Sex to Save The World: A Ridiculous Goody Bag
This goody bag is bursting! We finally get to talk about Chris Martin & Gwyneth Paltrow’s conscious uncoupling and somehow get into Rebecca Black’s Friday - and that’s all before the theme song! Then it’s the clever wives from the Siege of Weinsberg, Fet-Mat’s preserved corpse, an intersex…
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Oppenheimer Pt. 2 PLUS Our Barbenheimer Review
The proverbial fallout of America’s bombs blew back at Robert Oppenheimer as the government pinned any blame on him. But Kitty was there to shield him and unleash a little fire of her own. BONUS - after we finish this Radioactive Romance, we’re having a talkback about the two biggest movies of…
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Trinity Test: The Three Loves of Oppenheimer’s Life Pt.1
J. Robert Oppenheimer is getting kilotons of attention right now, but the women in his life didn’t get a lot of screen time in Nolan’s new film. So we’re looking at the explosive force that Jean Tatlock, Kitty Puening, and Ruth Tolman had on his life, and how the atom bomb might not exist without...
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Wined, Dined, & Headlined: Current Copulations Pt. 2
We finish up our round-up of sex & marriage in the news with some celebrity weddings, a couple of symbolic ceremonies with reptiles & Replikas, & our feelings about new SCOTUS legislation. Spoiler Alert: we've got opinions! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Give Me Some Headlines: Current Copulations Pt. 1
Listeners, you've tagged us in dozens of current headlines and stories about sex and love, and we decided it was time for us to give our *expert* opinions. From throwing sex toys at Lil Nas X, to sexual harassment lawsuits in Japan, to (of course) AI sexbots, we got all the hottest - and coldest…
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Lorrie Morgan's Spicy Hot Husband Count
When all a man gets in his divorce is his beloved pickup truck, you know it's a country music story. To be fair, he also got $65k because his ex-wife was country music (and hot chicken) legend Lorrie Morgan. Her 6 marriages are the stuff country songs are made of - literally! Her messy divorce…
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Half the Virgins in Paris: Winnaretta Singer’s Little Black Book
Winnaretta Singer-Polignac wasn’t just shaping culture for generations to come while she was living in Paris and London - she also had quite a few lesbian lovers, and every single one of them was a remarkable woman with a few wild love stories of their own: the suffragette and composer Ethel...
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How To Winnaretta Friends and Influence Culture: The Singer Sewer Heiress
Winnaretta Singer inherited her father's massive sewing machine fortune, but she still had to marry an aristocrat to be part of high society. One big problem - she was a lesbian! Fortunately she found the perfect match in Prince Edmond de Polignac. They both loved music, art, and best of all - he...
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Banjos & Baseball Bats: Mae & Al Capone Pt. 2
Al Capone took his wife and son to Miami to try and retire, but he ended up continuing his murderous, bootlegging, tax-dodging ways. When he was caught and sent to Alcatraz, Mae had to work against the system to get him medical care for the syphilis that was destroying his brain. When he finally...
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When Syphilis Ran The Mob: The Mae & Al Capone Story
Before Italian-American mobster Al Capone became Public Enemy #1, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Mae, and defied cultural customs by marrying her. They had a son named Sonny, and Al wanted to provide for his family as a legitimate businessman. But (spoiler alert) he fell into a life of...
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Reap What You Sew: Isaac M. Singer, His 4 Wives & 26 Kids
Isaac M. Singer was a struggling actor with an estranged wife, a girlfriend, and 10 kids between the two of them. But his knack for invention helped him launch America's first multi-national business, the Singer Sewing Machine Company. But he couldn't keep his stitches in his britches and...
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Reddit-ulous Romance: AITA, Baffling Bridesmaids, & Dating Dummies:
It's high time we checked in on our fellow humans' romances, so once again we turned to the most Ridiculous forum on the web: Reddit. People boldly ask if they are the a-holes in their relationships, but the answers aren't as easy as we thought! Plus Bridezilla vs Bridesmaid Kong, a husband...
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Shi Gets Real: The Seductive Spy Story of M. Butterfly
Bernard Bouriscot worked in the French Embassy in China in the 1960s, where he befriended a man named Shi Pei Pu. Soon, Shi revealed his biggest secret - he was actually a woman in disguise! They fell in love, and Bernard started spying for the Chinese government in order to stay close to her.…
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Ivan The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Tsar (& His Next 7 Wives)
After the death of Tsarina Anastasia at the hands of the boyars, Ivan IV was furious. With his 2nd wife, he started the Oprichnina, and one of Russia's darkest periods in history, resulting in the deaths of nobles, peasants, and even his own family. But it wouldn't be until his 8th marriage that...
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Ivan The Not-So Terrible? The Loving 1st Marriage of Russia's 1st Tsar
Ivan IV had a grudge against Moscow's nobles ever since they poisoned his mother. So when he was crowned Russia's 1st all-powerful Tsar, he started cutting off their power (by cutting off their heads). His 1st wife Anastasia helped him keep his cool, but when the nobles poisoned her too, Ivan...
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Queen of Hearts: The (Many) Sex Scandals of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I
Queen Elizabeth and Robert Dudley were still super into each other after Amy Robsart died, but marrying would be too scandalous. But despite taking on her own suitors, Elizabeth was still incredibly jealous when Robert Dudley hooked up with other ladies! But did Elizabeth and Robert ever actually…
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Murder in the Court: Queen Elizabeth, Robert Dudley, & Amy Robsart
Lord Robert Dudley was besties with his childhood friend, Elizabeth Tudor. After she snagged a promotion to Queen of England, she kept him close and eventually fell in love with him. But when Robert's wife Amy mysteriously died, the rumors started flying about what the Queen and her alleged lover...
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Me & Honey Stealing Money: Craig & Nova’s Lawless Lovefest
Craig Pritchert was going to be a Major League Baseball star before Barry Bonds stole his thunder. So Craig decided he would steal too - from banks! He met and fell for Nova Guthrie, a smalltown girl who craved excitement. Their spree of robberies netted them half a million dollars, and they were...
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England's Most Married: The Spousal Saga of Ron Sheppard
Ron Sheppard has been married 8 times and engaged even more. He's not a playboy or a polygamist, he just can't seem to date anyone without proposing! Now after 57 years of I Do's, he's done with divorces and retiring from romance. His manic matrimonies got us talking about some people's obsession...
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I Would Walk 3,000 Miles: The Epic Jungle Journey of Isabel Godin
Isabel and Jean Godin were so deeply in love that when distance and politics kept them apart, they waited for each other. But after 20 long years, Isabel was done waiting. In the company of 42 people, she set off through the Amazon basin to reunite with her husband. But almost immediately, things...
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Sexy Poems, Silly Accents, & Savvy Feedback: A Listener Mail Call!
Turns out we have the best fans of ANY podcast out there, and your words deserve to be heard! This time y'all filled in some details from earlier episodes, gave us some great insight for our non-binary characters, told us your own Jeopardy connections, helped with our accents, and even sent us to...
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Whip It Good: The “Cruel-Joy” of Sex With Percy Grainger
Percy Grainger was a talented Australian composer and a complicated guy. He was weirdly close with his mother. He was kind of a big racist. He invented weird, wacky instruments and challenged musical norms. And he left a package to be opened ten years after his death which shocked the world -...
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Abracadorable: The Magical Marriage of Adelaide and Alexander Herrmann the Great
Alexander Herrmann was already one of the world's greatest magicians in the late 19th century, but his best trick was making British acrobat Adelaide Scarcez's fiancé disappear! She married Herrmann the Great instead and soon became famous as The Queen of Magic herself. But the real magic was the...
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Marital Melees & Sex Subpoenas: The Bizarre History of Divorce
As long as marriage has existed, people have been desperate to get out of it. One old German tradition had couples fight to the death for the right to divorce, swinging clubs and sacks of rocks at each other! In France, a divorce court had to monitor for proof of impotency by watching husband and...
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Love Fests, Penis Parades, & The Sex Myths Behind Them
From the legend of Baba Dochia trying to freeze out her daughter-in-law, to the Shinto creation myth of Izanami and Izanagi, to the tale of a Japanese vagina demon who broke its teeth on a steel dildo, sex myths have inspired love festivals across the globe. We'll cover two today: Dragobete, the...
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Lovers, Artists, Resisters: Claude Cahun & Marcel Moore vs the Nazis
Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore were two artists who fell in love at first sight, years before they became them stepsisters! They played with photography to create strange, surrealist works ahead of their time. But when the Nazis occupied their island of Jersey, they developed a resistance effort…
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Crazy Little Bing Called Love: Chatbots Making Threats & Withholding Sex
Artificial Intelligence is leveling up and once again rocked the worlds of sex and love this week! The new OpenAI powered chatbot from Bing had some shocking confessions of love for reporters, and made some not-so-veiled threats to one user's marriage. Meanwhile in a major, shocking change to our...
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Great Scot! Agnes of Dunbar Holds Down the Fort
In medieval times, it was pretty common for a wife to be in charge of home defense when her husband was away. But maybe no wife ever took on that responsibility with quite as much pizzazz as Agnes of Dunbar. With only a few soldiers and fewer supplies, she managed to hold off the Earl of…
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An Ode to A Sex Toy & Lament for Limp D**ks: The Bawdy Poems of John Wilmot
We've learned about John Wilmot's incredibly libertine life, but it's time to strap in and strap-on for some of his full, filthy, 17th century poems in this episode-length Poetry Corner! First Wilmot spurts beautiful rhymes a bit early in his premature ejaculation poem, "The Imperfect Enjoyment."...
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Raunchy Restoration: John Wilmot & the Sexy, Scandalous Poetry of King Charles's Court
John Wilmot was a lusty lord who wrote some of the dirtiest poetry in the Restoration era about everything from dildos to public sex to premature ejaculation! He also abducted an heiress, pretended to be a gynecologist, trained one of the great tragic actresses of the day, and had affairs with…
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Flightless and Fabulous: The Surprising Science of Gay Penguins
Roy & Silo were two male penguins who paired up and raised a chick named Tango in 1999. Since then, biologists have discovered that same-sex activity is actually very common in nature! But both scientists and LGBTQ+ activists tend to discourage “gay” as a label for animals, because it’s not…
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From Enslaved to En Vogue: How William Dorsey Swann Became The First Drag Queen
After William Dorsey Swann was freed from slavery, he found joy in becoming a female impersonator & throwing underground parties he called "drag balls," where he was the "queen" - making him the very first Drag Queen. But that’s not all - his parties got busted up by the cops frequently, and…
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The Wild Adventures of Walter & Aloha Wanderwell
What’s in a name? When it comes to Aloha and Walter Wanderwell, their name said it all: they drove across four continents in the 1920s before many places even had roads! Aloha was known as “the Amelia Earhart of the open road,” while Walter was known as “a scam artist.” They survived war-torn...
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Must Be Meant To Be: Three Mind Blowing Meet Cutes
Maybe a lot of “how did y’all meet” stories are a great time for a nap, but not these three remarkable pairs. Their origin stories defy logic, reason, and even the entire Soviet Union! From the miraculous meetup on a New York train, to the artist who crafted his perfect partner into existence, to...
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Weird D*ck Energy: King Ferdinand VII & the Four Marias
Ferdinand VII was a bad person, a lousy husband, and has been called the worst king of Spain ever. But the intense political turmoil of the time has been historically overshadowed by the legacy of his big, weirdly shaped, uncontrollable penis. His four wives (all named Maria) each had terrible...
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Alex Trebek: The Cursing, Truck Driving, Genius Playboy Bellhop (Who Also Hosted Jeopardy)
One of the world’s greatest TV hosts, Alex Trebek, is known for his composure, diction, and knowledge. But it turns out behind that prestigious facade is a foul mouth prankster who married a Playboy Bunny! Don’t worry, he’s still got a heart of gold, and through his second wife and soulmate Jean,...
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What Is Jeopardy? Merv and Julann Griffin Give Questions To Answers
Television History for $500, please! The answer is: This couple revitalized a broken format by developing one of the most popular quiz shows of all time: Jeopardy! Though one man is credited with the show’s creation, its famous answer/question format was actually an idea from his wife!...
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The Busty, Badass, B-Movie Babe Tura Satana
Tura Satana was used to being kicked down by life: as a kid, she was held in a Japanese internment camp, then was brutally gang-raped when she got out, before being married off at only 13. But Tura turned the tables and started kicking life’s ass right back: she mastered karate, made thousands…
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Auld Lang Pine: Robert Burns's Love for Jean Armour
Revered poet Robert Burns wrote the soul of Scotland into his verses and songs in the 18th century, including the New Years banger Auld Lang Syne. But even more fascinating was his incredibly tolerant wife, Jean Armour - who defied her beloved dad to be with him. She inspired his poetry…
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Dr. James Barry: Secret Sex 'n' C-Sections
Dr. James Barry was the first European doctor to perform a successful c-section, but his attitude made him a lot of enemies, including Florence Nightingale! When he and his friend Lord Charles Somerset were accused of a homosexual relationship, the scandal threatened to upend both their careers....
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Where Are They Now? Stalking Our Ex Episodes for New Updates
As we looked back at the year, we found some ridiculous updates to some romances that just won't quit. Turns out Meirivone and her Rag Doll husband are having fidelity issues, and the magic is gone between Erica Eiffel and her towering Parisian lover! Plus, people are taking their Replikas a…
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The Last Temptation of Hans Christian Andersen
In our third and final chapter on Hans Christian Andersen, we learn it wasn't all ugly ducklings and awkward sex notes. His buddies Balzac, Dumas, and even Victor Hugo all tried to get him laid, and when that didn't work at least he got an eruption when he climbed an active Mt. Vesuvius! But late...
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Hans Christian Andersen Bugs The Dickens out of Charles
If Charles Dickens thought a visit from 3 ghosts could ruin a man's night, imagine how he felt with Hans Christian Andersen crashed his place for 5 weeks! Andersen had Great Expectations for their new friendship, but Dickens was sure this was the most annoying man on the planet. Then a scandalous...
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Hans Christian Andersen: Little Mermaid, Big Problems
Beloved children's writer Hans Christian Andersen was a lifelong virgin and chronic masturbator. This Ugly Duckling never grew into a beautiful swan, and the men and women he obsessed over just weren't interested in him. But that's lucky for us, because in his heartbreak he wrote timeless…
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The Face of Fraud: How General Townsend Became the Poster Boy for Romance Scams
Stephen J. Townsend is a retired General from the US Army whose face and name have been used countless times by scammers to swindle old widows out of their pensions. The schemes may seem obvious, but they're run by efficient and competent groups of well-trained con artists. We'll look at how…
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Victor Hugo, His Three Loves, and All the Prostitutes in Paris!
Victor Hugo was a tiny man with a big head who slept with nearly every young woman in Paris. But between the parties and orgies and writing two of the greatest novels of all time, he did find true love! The question is: with whom? His wife and life partner? The actress who risked her life for…
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Victor Hugo's Parents Were Les Misérables Together
Famed French author Victor Hugo had a life full of sex and chaos, but he came by it honestly. His father Leopold was an outrageous French revolutionary, while his mother was a soft spoken beauty from a town full of royalists. But these two crazy kids somehow got married, conceived Victor on a...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Throughout time and across the globe, from the Stone Age to the Digital Age, people have been having weird, wonderful, and downright absurd relationships. Real life spouses Diana and Eli are here to cover them all in a podcast that’s part history, part comedy, and all ridiculous. Hook up with some of the wildest and most interesting romantic partners to ever fall in love!
HOSTED BY
iHeartPodcasts
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Ridiculous Romance have?
Ridiculous Romance currently has 201 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Ridiculous Romance about?
Throughout time and across the globe, from the Stone Age to the Digital Age, people have been having weird, wonderful, and downright absurd relationships. Real life spouses Diana and Eli are here to cover them all in a podcast that’s part history, part comedy, and all ridiculous. Hook up with some...
How often does Ridiculous Romance release new episodes?
Ridiculous Romance publishes regularly with 201 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Ridiculous Romance?
You can listen to Ridiculous Romance on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Ridiculous Romance?
Ridiculous Romance is created and hosted by iHeartPodcasts.
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