RISK!

RISK!
  • 4.6 (5.5K)
  • PERFORMING ARTS
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY

If you like The Moth, This American Life or Snap Judgment, take a walk on the wilder side with RISK! Your colorful host Kevin Allison (of the legendary comedy group The State) helms this surprisingly uncensored show where people tell jaw-dropping true stories they never thought they'd dare to share in public. RISK! is hilarious, heart-wrenching and remarkably real. Think you've heard it all? Fasten your seatbelt.

  1. 3D AGO

    Live From NYC Podfest 2014

    Originally recorded live at NYC Podfest in January 2014, this is one of those classic RISK! episodes where the theme, confession, actually delivers on its promise. Kevin Allison opens with a story he has told for years, then stops midway to admit he has been leaving out the best part. What he adds reframes everything. Alex Edelman turns a power strip at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport into a secret-collecting operation, until a soldier from Ramstein Air Force Base shares something that neither of them can easily walk away from. Chemda recounts her first time getting high, which escalated from bong novice to shirtless Hulk impersonation to improvised superhero capes, and ended face-first in a party-size snack mix. Keith Malley spent months in a baffling odyssey through free clinics and baffled physicians over a rash that ultimately resolved without medical intervention. Selena Coppock traces her lifelong suspicion of genuinely nice men back to a seventh-grade ski trip, then confesses to acting on that suspicion in a way she is not proud of. Full episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/live-from-nyc-podfest-2014-cre514  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠! ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to kevin@risk-show.com 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 10m

  2. 5D AGO

    What the Body Keeps

    Two stories about what the body holds onto and what it eventually gives back. Ali Mac took a job in crypto after two years of Nazi death threats courtesy of Fox News. At the Miami Bitcoin Conference in 2022, she finds herself escorting her boss down a hallway and comes face to face with Tucker Carlson, broadcasting live, sitting very low, blissfully unaware of what is about to happen to him. (Content note: death of a partner) Gordon Blitz had been with his partner Scott since 1973, through an informal wedding, years of infidelity Gordon never told anyone about, and the terrifying early years of the AIDS crisis. "Bonded" follows Gordon through an HIV test, a week of waiting, and the long, complicated road of caring for the man who put him at risk. Leave your reactions and find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/what-the-body-keeps Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in NYC on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to kevin@risk-show.com 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    37 min

  3. MAY 7

    The Best of Mother’s Day Stories #4

    Two mothers' days that look nothing alike, but hit just as hard. Jobim Santos grew up watching his mother Linda lose her battle with ALS piece by piece, from cane to wheelchair to hospice bed, all while praying at church each week that she would just live long enough to see him turn 13. She didn't quite make it. What he didn't expect was that grief would take another 13 years to fully arrive. (Content note: domestic violence, murder) Amy Brooks got a phone call one Monday morning about a blue-eyed three-year-old whose father had killed his mother. She said yes before the social worker finished the sentence. What followed was two and a half years in court while raising a child whose trauma was showing up in holes in the walls and phone calls from the police. For more info and music featured in this episode, visit risk-show.com/podcast/the-best-of-mothers-day-stories-4  And you can find all of our Mother's Day Stories at risk-show.com/mothersdaystories  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in [CITY] ([MONTH & DAY]) or [CITY] ([MONTH & DAY]) ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to kevin@risk-show.com 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    41 min

  4. MAY 5

    The Best of RISK! #35

    This episode brings together two of the most gripping conversations in the show's recent run: a man who survived an extended stint in a Philippine jail on fabricated charges, and a medical student whose addiction and grief turned out to be more entangled than she had ever let herself understand. (Content note: accusations of sexual assault, child abuse, false imprisonment) Scott McMahon went to Manila for a construction job, ended up befriending a Belgian neighbor, and got pulled into a nightmare when that neighbor's wife turned the Philippine justice system against him. What followed was five and a half years in a maximum-security cell with 300 men, corrupt cops showing up every six weeks with a cash demand, and a family he could only see through a chain-link fence. It is one of the most staggering survival accounts this show has ever aired. (Content note: addiction, overdose death) Chelsea Dalsey was a medical student with a photographic memory, a habit she couldn't shake, and a lifelong partner in crime named Alex. Her conversation with Kevin Allison is part confession, part excavation, arriving at a truth she had spent 14 years burying alive. Leave your reactions to these stories and find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/the-best-of-risk-35  You can find all of our Best of RISK! episodes at risk-show.com/bestofrisk Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to kevin@risk-show.com 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 42m

  5. APR 30

    I'm Okay, You're Okay

    From the RISK! archives, this January 2014 episode gathers three storytellers around a theme that sounds simple and turns out not to be: actually being okay with yourself. Joel Kim Booster grew up as a gay Korean adoptee in an evangelical family, and it wasn't until he fell for a man who specifically desired him because of his race that he realized how thoroughly someone else's rejection had shaped his sense of his own worth. Dylan Brody has been performing the postmortem on his own victories since fifth grade, and it took competing in a full-contact TaeKwondo tournament at 41, with blood running down his face, to get a piece of advice he hadn't been able to give himself. Jolenta Greenberg built an entire adolescent identity around the belief that she was a diamond in the rough, and her high school crush Brian eventually put that idea to the test. Full episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/im-okay-youre-okay-cre513  Support RISK! & Get Involved 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in New York City on Tuesday, June 9th ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ or ⁠make a one-time PayPal donation⁠ 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    46 min

  6. APR 28

    Pop Obie’s Vibrator

    Guest-hosted this week by Taj Easton, stepping in for Kevin to present a story by LeCount Holmes Jr., now Taj’s surrogate pops. (Content note: explicit sexual activity involving a minor) LeCount Holmes Jr. grew up with a father who told him he loved him, hugged him, cried in front of him, and believed that teaching his son how to love a woman was one of the most sacred things a father could do. This is the story of that education, of what was passed down through three generations of loving men, and one of the most unusual love stories RISK! has ever told.  Full episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/pop-obies-vibrator  Support RISK! & Get Involved 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in NYC ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ or ⁠make a one-time PayPal donation⁠ 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    52 min

  7. APR 23

    The Best of Adventure Stories #3

    Two RISK! stories pulled from the archive, and both are worth your time. "The Best of Adventure Stories #3" is funny and unsettling in equal measure, sometimes within the same story. Winter Tashlin was 16 years old, at a Jewish summer camp in New York, and desperately wanted one good day. The plan was the Empire State Building and a performance of Les Mis. He has Tourette syndrome, the city is unforgiving, and the day keeps getting worse. Meanwhile, Marshall York drove solo across the American West, pitched a tent alone in the Grand Tetons, and went to sleep. Sometime in the night, a voice started speaking to him from inside the tent, calm and close and saying something he could not explain. Full episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/the-best-of-adventure-stories-3 Support RISK! & Get Involved 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in New York City! ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ or ⁠make a one-time PayPal donation⁠ 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    31 min

  8. APR 21

    Weirdos

    This episode is a love letter to people who are magnificently, irrepressibly, sometimes accidentally weird. Larry Dorsey Jr. opens with the true account of his first day teaching standup comedy at Northern California's top improv venue. He has TAs, a curriculum, a strategy. None of it survives contact with a visibly high student who, roughly fifteen minutes into class, pulls out his ding-dong and just starts going, putting Larry in an impossible position. And Tuesday Thomas moves to LA fresh from a divorce, meets Alexis Arquette within her first week, and ends up at a film premiere with Danny Elfman, where she personally escorts a legless, increasingly volatile Susan Tyrrell down Hollywood Boulevard in stiletto heels on a Friday night. She thought she had finally made it in Hollywood. And in a way, she had Full episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/weirdos  Support RISK! & Get Involved 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ or ⁠make a one-time PayPal donation⁠ 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    51 min
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Hosts & Guests

4.6
out of 5
5,482 Ratings

About

If you like The Moth, This American Life or Snap Judgment, take a walk on the wilder side with RISK! Your colorful host Kevin Allison (of the legendary comedy group The State) helms this surprisingly uncensored show where people tell jaw-dropping true stories they never thought they'd dare to share in public. RISK! is hilarious, heart-wrenching and remarkably real. Think you've heard it all? Fasten your seatbelt.

Information

  • Creator
    RISK!
  • Years Active
    2009 - 2026
  • Episodes
    1.2K
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © RISK! 462509
  • Show Website
    RISK!

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