About A Girl

Mayte Garcia, a young dancer from Puerto Rico, meets Prince and slowly becomes immersed in his extraordinary world. Their collaboration becomes a romance and then a marriage, before tragedy pulls them apart. Sources for this episode can be found on our website. This episode contains themes that may be disturbing to some listeners.

A beautiful English girl drifts into pop stardom and the inner circle of the Rolling Stones in 1960s London. As the girlfriend of Stones frontman Mick Jagger, the glare of public attention and personal misadventures take their toll on her mental health. She withdraws from her life, descending into addiction and hitting bottom before returning with a new voice (figuratively and literally) and an artistic triumph. Sources for this episode can be found on our website. This episode contains references to addiction and suicide and may be disturbing to some listeners.

Faith Evans met and married Christopher Wallace in 1994. Within a year, they both became stars. The new marriage suffered under their grueling work schedules, but their connection remained strong, despite external drama and pressure. Just as Biggie was looking forward to the next stage of his life, though, it all caught up with them.

The daughter of a blues pioneer falls in love with two brilliant musicians. Sly Stone takes her out of her quiet life, but almost drags her into the dark world of his own demons. Then she meets Carlos Santana, a long partnership built on a mutual search for transcendence.

The White Stripes. Jack and his sister Meg. His wife Meg. His ex-wife Meg. The non-musician who became a rock star. The unassuming, pretty, porcelain-complexioned woman who evoked thunder from behind the drum kit. Her silent intensity became a riddle and compelled millions of fans to puzzle for the solution. And her disappearance has made clear that none is forthcoming.

Behind Marvin Gaye's incredibly smooth, affable exterior was a soul tortured by the abuse he suffered as a child, insecurity, and paranoia. Like many victims, he turned perpetrator and dragged his child bride into his world of pain, drug dependency, and more sexual abuse. But Janis is a survivor...

Norma Tanega was a soulful American Latina artist, a one-hit wonder who never wanted stardom, but who fell in love with Dusty Springfield, the Queen of White Soul, who wanted stardom very much. They kept their contentious love affair from the public, but Norma had to leave behind Dusty's glittering world for the pain it concealed.

A songwriter and singer so erotic, raw, and ahead of her time that no one was ready for her. An earthquaking icon of feminism and Black power during a time when it was unheard of for a woman, let alone a Black woman, to own her sexuality so explicitly. Betty Davis pushed her legendary husband out of cool jazz and up to the cutting edge, before divorcing him and releasing three of the most unexpected and astonishing albums of the 1970s. Then she disappeared.

Long before June Carter came along, there was Vivian. Johnny Cash and Viv were deeply in love, and had four daughters together, before... well, you probably know the rest. But you might not know the heartbreaking story of a young woman who went through hell to save her family, whose racial identity became a scandal emblematic of mid-century American strife, and who made it through the dark times, only to be insulted and written out of history.

When Tammy Wynette was a young girl, she dreamed of singing with George Jones at the Grand Ole Opry. Her single-minded drive to be a star brought her to the top and to George Jones, and these two great voices of country music fell in love. But once seated as the queen of country, Tammy was lost, while George proved to be a troubled and dedicated alcoholic.

Lou Reed was fascinated and inspired by all kinds of real people who existed on the edges of society — junkies, street hustlers, gender non-conformists — but he fell in love with trans woman Rachel Humphreys, a beautiful mystery even to him. This episode contains references to heavy drug use, abuse, and suicide.

Linda Eastman was born a free spirit, but she was also the daughter of a strict and demanding father, a poor Jewish boy who became a wealthy lawyer and rebranded himself as a WASP. Linda fought her own nature to try and please him, and then her first husband, before finally breaking free to find success as a freelance photographer in Manhattan. Shooting and hobnobbing with ‘60s pop stars led her to Swinging London.