Audible’s newest podcast series The Unusual Suspects With Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell is pulling back the curtain to offer listeners unprecedented access to the minds of the world’s most extraordinary individuals and their distinct paths to success.
Premiering January 30th, writer, actor, and producer Kenya Barris and journalist and author Malcom Gladwell are joining forces and “bypassing pleasantries and promotional banter to deliver raw, unfiltered conversations with some of today’s most influential figures.”
The podcast will kick off with a special conversation with former WNBA star Sue Bird. Listen to an exclusive clip here:
In the clip, the basketball legend talks about her experience as a queer athlete. She shares that, “In my high school and then some of my college experience, there was no way I was going to be gay. It was still gossiped about in a way that was negative. There was some fear wrapped in there, you know, scared of what people might think, scared of this friends, family, all the things.”
She continues to say that, “And so even being on a team didn’t help that because I think we were all feeling that a little bit. The big joke, looking back on my college team now, when we were in college, none of us were gay,And then now it’s like 80% of us are gay.”
Bird shares that the culture of gossip that existed “made me not want to do it even though deep down I think we all knew what was actually happening. None of us would ever be the first to say it.”
She says that once she joined the WNBA, things became easier. There were way more openly gay women in the WNBA at that point. It doesn’t feel as heavy, after my first or second year, the heaviness about coming out, it’s starting to kind of drift away.”
Listen to the full conversation and more on January 30th on The Unusual Suspects with Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell, only on Audible.
Other guests to be featured on the pod include Grammy Award-winning rapper and producer Dr. Dre; Ursula Burns, former Xerox CEO and the first Black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company; renowned chef and founder of the Momofuku restaurant group, David Chang; acclaimed writer, director and producer Ava DuVernay; Jimmy Kimmel, comedian, writer, producer, and host of Jimmy Kimmel Live!; and Maryland Governor Wes Moore, the state’s first Black governor.