How To Fail With Elizabeth Day
Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment
How To Fail with Elizabeth Day is a podcast that celebrates the things in life that haven’t gone right and what we might learn from them along the way. Every week, Elizabeth’s guest explores three failures, and what these failures have taught them about how to grow and succeed, better.
We’d love to hear from you! Get in touch with Elizabeth to share your failures, problems or questions - anonymously or otherwise. She'll go through these each week with the help of her very special guests. And remember: a fail shared is a fail halved. Click here to get in touch.
An Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Original Production.
Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow @sonypodcasts
To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email podcastadsales@sonymusic.com
We’d love to hear from you! Get in touch with Elizabeth to share your failures, problems or questions - anonymously or otherwise. She'll go through these each week with the help of her very special guests. And remember: a fail shared is a fail halved. Click here to get in touch.
An Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Original Production.
Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow @sonypodcasts
To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email podcastadsales@sonymusic.com
Episodes
Mentioned books
Mar 25, 2026 • 45min
Chris Appleton - ‘I Felt Shame Before I Felt Love’
Chris Appleton, celebrity hairstylist and memoirist, reflects on a life of red carpets, viral looks and hard-won resilience. He talks about shame and coming out, imposter feelings driving his work, identity expressed through hair, social media pressure, and how personal healing and relationships shaped his story.
Mar 24, 2026 • 1h 20min
Mel Schilling - ‘She was the embodiment of vibrant life’
Mel Schilling, therapist, leadership coach and relationship expert known from Married at First Sight and author of Confidence. She shares candid stories about mindset shifts, reframing failures as feedback, navigating TV and public scrutiny, patterns in dating and how she found love, and her fertility and IVF journey. Short, warm, and reflective conversation celebrating vibrancy and growth.
Mar 23, 2026 • 21min
ON STARTING OVER AFTER GRIEF… With Stanley Tucci and Geri Halliwell-Horner
Stanley Tucci, actor and author, speaks candidly about losing his first wife and rebuilding family life. Geri Halliwell-Horner, former Spice Girl and author, reflects on losing her father young and how writing helped process long-held grief. They discuss grief, guilt, practical steps for raising children after loss, and how loss can shape ambition and renewal.
Mar 18, 2026 • 1h
Atomic Kitten’s Natasha Hamilton - ‘We were young and working-class. We were dismissed.’
Natasha Hamilton, singer and former Atomic Kitten member who now runs Morpho Records to support young artists. She recalls teen fame, tabloid cruelty and feeling dismissed for being working-class. She describes postnatal breakdown, financial collapse after divorce and the creative rebirth behind her new single. The conversation focuses on resilience, rebuilding and caring for artists' wellbeing.
Mar 16, 2026 • 19min
ON MOTHERHOOD… with Jessie Ware and Francesca Segal
Jessie Ware, singer-songwriter learning to slow down while balancing a public career and parenthood. Francesca Segal, novelist who faced premature twin birth and neonatal-ward realities. They talk candidly about exhaustion, guilt, shifting expectations, solidarity among parents, and finding presence amid chaos.
Mar 11, 2026 • 57min
Rosamund Pike - ‘Failure Is Pretending To Be Someone You’re Not’
Rosamund Pike, acclaimed actress known for Gone Girl and Pride & Prejudice, reflects on career twists and personal risks. She discusses her rule of never reading reviews, battles with perfectionism and fear, motherhood raising two sons, and her creative role with the Luminate meditation mask. Conversations touch on failed attempts—from action roles to cooking rabbit—and what it means to stop pretending and be yourself.
Mar 9, 2026 • 41min
SPECIAL EP: On Fertility and Finding Your Family… with Rebecca Coxon
Rebecca Coxon, journalist and memoirist of Inconceivable, explores donor conception, fertility struggles and family identity. She recounts discovering her origins via a DNA test. The conversation covers endometriosis, choosing to donate eggs, the emotional fallout of IVF and breakup, meeting her donor, and the tangled feelings of belonging and loss.
Mar 4, 2026 • 55min
Toni Laites - Love Island Healed My Toxic Dating Patterns
Toni Laites, reality TV star and the first American to win Love Island UK, who also lives with ulcerative colitis. She recounts being cast from Vegas, life inside the villa, early rejection and redemption, navigating toxic dating patterns and anxious attachment, the impact of sudden fame and social media, and learning to rest and forgive herself.
4 snips
Mar 2, 2026 • 12min
ON AMBITION… With Gillian Anderson and Munroe Bergdorf
Gillian Anderson, an award-winning actor balancing high-profile work with motherhood and examining her drive. Munroe Bergdorf, a model and activist challenging fashion gatekeeping and fighting for trans representation. They discuss workaholism, pleasure as power, boundaries and guilt, resilience after rejection, tokenism versus true inclusion, and hope for wider change.
Feb 25, 2026 • 50min
Baz Luhrmann - ‘I self-medicate with creativity’
Baz Luhrmann, Australian filmmaker behind Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby, reflects on a career of bold, theatrical filmmaking. He talks about creativity as self‑medication. He shares the origin of the Romeo + Juliet fish tank idea, why Elvis fascinates him, discovering lost Vegas footage, his workshop casting method, and rebounding after early setbacks.
