When Rayna Greenberg takes the stage at the Hollywood Improv on Sunday, she will talk about sex, lots of sex, all kinds of sex, described gleefully, graphically and in detail.<\/p>\n
But the effervescent co-host of the hit \u201cGirls Gotta Eat\u201d podcast will do more than just tell her \u201ccrazy, insane stories for an hour.\u201d Taking the plunge into stand-up comedy for the first time at age 40 \u2014 she\u2019s on a national tour that includes theaters that hold as many as 650 seats and will perform at the Netflix is a Joke festival<\/a> in May \u2014 she made sure the show wasn\u2019t just \u201ca collection of nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n The show recaps a year of dating, which is fitting given that sex and relationships are at the heart of the podcast. \u201cThis was written very intentionally as a story with a beginning, middle, end,\u201d Greenberg said in a recent video interview from her Los Angeles home. \u201cThe hour is full of b\u2014 jobs and anal sex but I definitely wanted to make commentary on dating and how it has changed in the last 20 years. I want to actually say something.\u201d<\/p>\n Embarking on this undertaking may sound daunting but that\u2019s what Greenberg thrives on. \u201cI wanted another challenge. I want to do something that really scares me.\u201d<\/p>\n But while her bubbly persona may at first make her seem simply freewheeling and free-spirited, she\u2019s also savvy and thoughtful. Trying stand-up, like all her career moves, seems like a gamble but, she notes, it\u2019s a \u201ccalculated risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Greenberg on stage at The Stand comedy club in New York City.<\/p>\n (John Cafaro)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n Raised in Pittsburgh, Greenberg graduated from Indiana University with a degree in marketing and advertising, and moved to New York the week the market crashed in 2008. \u201cEveryone was getting fired and I couldn\u2019t even get an internship where I\u2019d work for free,\u201d she recalls. But she\u2019d worked in restaurants through high school and college and so she went back into that world. She eventually went to an abbreviated culinary school and managed restaurants for Danny Meyer, a renowned restaurateur.<\/p>\n Eventually she switched careers, tempted by the salaries and stability of tech startups. Working for Groupon and then Amazon had its obvious rewards \u2014 notably, a six-figure salary \u2014 but it didn\u2019t suit Greenberg\u2019s ebulliently wild personality. \u201cThere were so many guardrails and it was so restrictive,\u201d she says, adding that she chafed at the hours, the dress and behavioral codes, and the lack of creativity.<\/p>\n It was the early days of Instagram and Greenberg had a food account on the platform, as well as a food blog, so she decided to quit her job and focus on what she knew and loved. \u201cThis was in the early days of Instagram, way before being a creator was ever a career, or you could make any money from that,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was no ladder to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n But Greenberg had $50,000 saved up to provide her some runway. And she had an intense work ethic. \u201cIt felt so fulfilling to wake up and think, \u2018I\u2019m going to outwork everybody around me and be more creative than them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n While she was building that career, she met a stand-up comedian, Ashley Hesseltine. \u201cShe was so funny and quick and unfiltered and we bonded immediately,\u201d Hesseltine recalled in a phone interview. \u201cShe comes out of nowhere and you never know what she\u2019s going to say.\u201d<\/p>\n A few months later, she asked her new friend if she\u2019d be comfortable sharing her stories about sex and dating with strangers. Unsurprisingly, Greenberg said yes and in 2018, the \u201cGirls Gotta Eat\u201d podcast was born.<\/p>\n The podcast was just an extension of what the women and their friends talked about \u2014 sex, dating, women\u2019s health and issues like assault and politics, plus food. (They later added a second show each week about pop culture.)<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted another challenge,\u201d Greenberg said of her stand-up comedy. \u201cI want to do something that really scares me.\u201d<\/p>\n (Julien Gonzalez)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a background in psychology or social work, we just had each other and a mic,\u201d Greenberg recalls. But they constantly brought on experts and she read everything she could find. \u201cWe gave ourselves a mini-psychology degree just by doing this week after week. So we strike a balance between being relatable, normal girls and people who have been in the game for years.\u201d<\/p>\n The podcast has earned more than 150 million downloads, a success Greenberg could not have imagined. \u201cI hoped it would be great but back then it was like my food blogging \u2014 there weren\u2019t a lot of examples of people who had gotten really huge and made all this money from podcasting,\u201d she says. \u201cI was so proud that I just bet on me.\u201d<\/p>\n The duo used their popularity to their advantage in several ways. \u201cWhen we poll our audience about dating or relationships we get 20,000 responses, which is an unbelievable sample size,\u201d she says, noting that they not only use that data for their show but they\u2019re planning a book based on it.<\/p>\n They also began touring a live version of the show even though Greenberg had never been on stage before, \u201cnot even for a talent show.\u201d The shows \u2014 they\u2019ve sold out 250 of them \u2014 feature strippers, dancers, T-shirt guns and plenty of banter between the women and with their audience.<\/p>\n \u201cI found it very fulfilling,\u201d Greenberg says. Still, over time, that itch to try something new returned. First, in 2022, she and Hesseltine launched Vibes Only, a company selling sex toys. Now she has created her one-woman show, seeking inspiration and influence from Hesseltine, Nikki Glaser,<\/a> Hannah Berner<\/a> and Taylor Tomlinson<\/a>. \u201cI was curious what would happen if I kind of removed that safety net of having Ashley by my side.\u201d<\/p>\n The answer: \u201cIt was really terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n Hesseltine said that beyond Greenberg\u2019s natural presence, the show is a product of her hard work. \u201cShe spent months writing this and it was impressive,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s raunchy, and hilarious without being just joke-punchline, and empowering, and you leave feeling like you got a glimpse into who she is.\u201d<\/p>\n Greenberg is already thinking about her next hour of comedy and the duo are planning television and other projects. But she remains committed to \u201cGirls Gotta Eat.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s my dream and I\u2019ll do it until the wheels fall off,\u201d she says. \u201cTo have people\u2019s ears for 60 minutes is such an honor.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Rayna Greenberg takes the stage at the Hollywood Improv on Sunday, she will talk about sex, lots of sex, all kinds of sex, described gleefully, graphically and in detail. But the effervescent co-host of the hit \u201cGirls Gotta Eat\u201d podcast will do more than just tell her \u201ccrazy, insane stories for an hour.\u201d Taking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2303718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2303717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/After-conquering-podcasting-Girls-Gotta-Eat-co-host-Rayna-Greenberg-is.com2F8a2F7d2Fec24e25b43e3affc1600abfc.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2303717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2303717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2303717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2303719,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2303717\/revisions\/2303719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2303718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2303717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2303717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2303717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\u201cI](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/240dd77\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/2730x4096+0+0\/resize\/320x480!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa3%2F72%2Fab9f48b44d0a873b77187015e92d%2F48377.jpg)
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