Everyone’s Favourite Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Rachel Bloom is the latest Guest on Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend

Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) stops by the show to talk about the inspiration for her somewhat obsessed and lovesick character Rebecca Bunch, making “a romantic comedy that shits on romantic comedies,” how she once was an “irresponsible asshole,” growing up in Southern California, therapy, anxiety, OCD and looping thoughts, spirituality, Love and Limerence, Unrequited, discovering musical theatre, the pitching process and how Crazy Ex-Girlfriend came to be, real life analogues for some of the characters and relationships on the show and so much more.

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About Alison Rosen is Your New Best Friend
Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend began life in 2009 as a live streaming internet talk show broadcast from my apartment in Brooklyn for three hours every Sunday. Much of the music and many of the segments on the present-day podcast began on this Ustream iteration of the show including the most popular and enduring segment, “Just Me Or Everyone.”

The story of “Just Me Or Everyone”: One day I was walking near my apartment and a fire truck went roaring by. I wonder if it’s headed to my apartment. I wonder if I left my straightening iron plugged in. I wonder if my apartment is on fire, I panicked. Then I realized every single time a fire truck goes by anywhere near my apartment, I have this series of thoughts. Does everyone? Or just me? This was the birth of the segment which we still use to close out every show.

In late 2010, I moved back CA, was quickly hired by The Adam Carolla Show and in early 2012 I brought the show back as a podcast featuring, instead of the cast of characters who would appear on the Ustream show, a one-on-one interview. Initially it was focused on relationships and relationship history, which prompted early guest James Gunn to refer to it as, “Loveline times a thousand.” But soon I expanded the focus to people’s emotional lives in general.
These days the interviews are free-ranging but I tend to be fascinated by people’s genuine struggles, what they’re truly experiencing and feeling under the surface—the kind of stuff that you’d tell your best friend—so my interviews usually head in that direction. In 2013 I began releasing episodes twice a week. Mondays were the one-on-one episodes and Thursdays featured a panel and has been referred to by fans as “The Seinfeld of Podcasts” in that it’s a podcast about nothing. Except I’d argue it isn’t about nothing. It’s about the minutia of daily life that we all share.

The most rewarding thing people tell me is my show makes them feel less alone. It’s my belief that we’re all much more similar than we’re aware. That underneath it all we all wish we could be a little cooler and a little smoother and suspect maybe everyone is living these amazing lives filled with beautiful people and wonderful memories while we’re just sitting on the sidelines wondering if that thing we just said sounded normal. The thing is, we all feel this way. Life is uncomfortable and messy and beautiful and sad and people are weird and silly and uneasy and scared sometimes. At least I am. I bet you are too.

About Alison Rosen
As host of the Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend podcast and former “newsgirl” and co-host of the Adam Carolla Show, Alison Rosen reaches hundreds of thousands of listeners weekly.

Alison has built a loyal following through her blogs and videos, social media and interactive Ustream show for which she was dubbed, “The future of television,” by former AOL CEO Barry Schuler.

Alison’s roots are in traditional media, having written for Rolling Stone, the NY Post,Vibe, Spin, Maxim, the Village Voice, People, Seventeen and Elle, among others. Alison began her career as a professional journalist early – scoring a contributing writer byline for the Los Angeles Times while still in high school in California. Before moving to New York and helming the “Hot Seat” section of Time Out New York, where she worked from 2005 to 2008, she worked at the OC Weekly in Orange County, Calif. as a music writer and then as features editor (while playing guitar in a punk band).

Alison has also carved a niche for herself as a pretty, comical and slightly devilish TV personality, appearing regularly on New York morning news shows and the late-night gab-fest Red Eye on Fox News Channel. She pops up all over the dial, most recently on E! and Comedy Central’s @midnight.

Previously, Alison’s weekly segment “Best Bets” ran on New York’s WNBC-TV from 2005 to 2008, where she highlighted and discussed events going on in the city. She has appeared on A&E’s “Biography,” “The Montel Williams Show,” “Hannity & Colmes,” E!’s “Chelsea Lately,” Fox & Friends,” Fox 5’s “Good Day New York,” the CW 11 “Morning News,” the CBS 2 News “This Morning” and hosted numerous “Time Out On Demand” segments. In addition to “Red Eye”, Alison can most recently be seen on E!’s “Super Epic TV Moments” E!’s “True Hollywood Story”, TV Guide Channel and “The Joy Behar Show” on HLN.

In late 2008, she performed stand up at Gotham Comedy Club and won the title “New York’s Funniest Reporter.”
From January 2011 to December 2014 she was Adam Carolla’s news girl and cohost and in early 2012, Alison launched her own podcast, “Alison Rosen is Your New Best Friend,” to which her massive fanbase quickly followed.
Alison currently resides in Los Angeles and always gets lost, even though she has GPS.