The Cult of Celebrity Wellness Brands
Sounds Like A Cult
08/25/26
•67m
About
Comments
Featured In
This week, Reese dives into The Cult of Celebrity Wellness Brands, where skincare, mental health, spirituality, supplements, and good old-fashioned celebrity worship have melted together into one extremely Instagrammable belief system. From Goop and Rhode to Rare Beauty, Kardashian supplements, children's skincare, and the spectacularly messy rise and fall of Selena Gomez's mental health startup Wondermind, Marketing critic and Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults author Dr. Mara Einstein (@drmaraeinstein) joins us to unpack parasocial trust, brand cults, wellness grifts, scarcity marketing, and why the most effective sales pitch is just convincing you that something is wrong with you first. Enlightenment is only a 12 step skincare routine, GLP-1-adjacent supplement, and celebrity approved app away.
The Cut: What Happened at Wondermind by Angelina Chapman
Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on Youtube!
Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles, @imanharirikia.
Pre-order Iman's new book, Once in a Timeline, here! Your pre-order helps make more books possible!
Sounds Like A Cult is coming to you LIVE from The Elysian in LA on October 15th! Get tickets at soundslikeacult.com!
Thank you to our sponsors!
- Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns at https://Quince.com/slac
- Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at https://MINTMOBILE.com/cult
- Download the Vinted app for free and start listing. With no seller fees, you keep every dollar you earn, https://www.vinted.com/
- Save 20% Off Honeylove by going to https://honeylove.com/SLAC #honeylovepod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Previous Episode
The Cult of Dark Tourism
August 18
•65m
This week, Amanda is joined by author and travel writer Sheila Yasmin Marikar (@sheilaym) to descend into The Cult of Dark Tourism, the booming travel industry built around vacationing where very, very bad things have happened. From Chernobyl excursions and serial killer pub crawls to war zone tourism, suicide forests, nuclear disaster sites, and the "haunted house" where people willingly sign up to be tortured, we’re asking what possesses someone to look at human tragedy and think: I should book a trip there. Helping us to unpack the cultiness is dark tourism legend David Farrier (@davidfarrier), documentarian and creator and host of Netflix’s Dark Tourist, to share what he learned after traveling to some of the strangest destinations on Earth. We discuss the bragging rights, rubbernecking, questionable ethics, and impressive mental gymnastics required to turn death and disaster into a bucket list. Because apparently, a beach vacation just isn’t enough for some people.
Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on Youtube!
Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles, @imanharirikia.
Pre-order Iman's new book, Once in a Timeline, here! Your pre-order helps make more books possible!
Sounds Like A Cult is coming to you LIVE from The Elysian in LA on October 15th! Get tickets at soundslikeacult.com with code CULT!
Thank you to our sponsors!
- If your glasses are overdue for a refresh, now is the time. Use code PODCAST15 for fifteen percent off your first order
- Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns at https://Quince.com/slac
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Next Episode
The Cult of Bellum Entertainment
Tuesday
•59m
This week, Chelsea and Iman investigate The Cult of Bellum Entertainment, the true crime production company whose founder, Mary Carol McDonald, allegedly spent years building a very different kind of crime empire behind the scenes. True crime podcaster Jami Rice (@jamionair) joins us with an especially wild perspective: she was working at the bank that approved McDonald for a $15 million loan after she allegedly posed as an heiress to an $80 million fortune. We get into bouncing paychecks, unpaid freelancers, fake family lore, suspiciously persuasive baked goods, a lawyer with his own bonkers backstory, and the sunk-cost psychology that kept employees hanging on even as the red flags started multiplying. Come for the Hollywood labor exploitation, stay for the revelation that apparently even the pies were part of the grift. Granny Delvy, your table is ready.
Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on Youtube!
Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles, @imanharirikia.
Pre-order Iman's new book, Once in a Timeline, here! Your pre-order helps make more books possible!
Sounds Like A Cult is coming to you LIVE from The Elysian in LA on October 15th! Get tickets at soundslikeacult.com!
Thank you to our sponsors!
Thanks to Article for sponsoring this podcast! Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit https://www.article.com/discount/cult and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
If you like this episode you’ll love
Promoted