The Clay Aiken Story You’ve Never Heard Before (Fame, Fear & Finally Becoming Himself)

In this unfiltered and wildly funny conversation with Clay Aikin, Cat Greenleaf unpacks the American Idol legend’s truth behind overnight fame, losing half his fanbase overnight, price of fame, coming out as gay in the public eye, running for Congress, and rebuilding his identity — again and again.

In this episode of Soberness, Clay reveals:

✨ The whiplash of going from schoolteacher to global superstar in 12 weeks

✨ Touring with Kelly Clarkson after American Idol

✨ The paranoia and loneliness that fame quietly creates

✨ Why Broadway had to STOP a performance because fans 

✨ The moment People Magazine told him he had to come out and his coming out story

✨ How he processed losing a massive portion of his fans

✨ The lawsuit claiming he was “false advertising” his sexuality

✨ Why he left entertainment for politics — and why he walked away

✨ How GLP1 changed his life (and almost made him puke onstage)

✨ What age has taught him about confidence, embarrassment, and giving zero f*s

If you grew up with Clay, loved Idol, or care about the psychology of fame, identity, and reinvention — this is one of the most vulnerable interviews he’s ever done.

MORE EPISODES YOU’LL LOVE:
Jason Biggs https://youtu.be/TLU8NO2cOm8

Submit your story: https://soberness.com/

 

For more content from Cat Greenleaf, check out her socials below! 

 

https://www.instagram.com/catgreenleaf/

https://www.instagram.com/sobernesspodcast/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cat-greenleaf-52900279/

 

ABOUT SOBERNESS: 

Soberness—the concept—is freedom from f**kery: 

The f**kery of addiction. 

The self-inflicted f**kery. 

And the f**kery that shows up uninvited. 

 

Soberness—the podcast—is where celebrity raconteurs spill what broke them, what saved them, and what still f**ks with them today. 

 

From Talk Stoop creator and host Cat Greenleaf, Soberness is recorded at the Algonquin Hotel’s iconic Round Table in Midtown Manhattan. 

 

Once home to Dorothy Parker and her Vicious Circle of drunken critics and wits, the Gonk is a legendary hotbed of brilliance and bad behavior. A f**kery free-for-all. 

 

In other words, it's a perfect fit.

 

ABOUT CAT GREENLEAF:

 

Cat created and hosted NBC’s long-running series Talk Stoop—the celebrity interview show filmed on her Brooklyn front steps. Yep, the one with the bulldog that dominated NYC TaxiTV and USA Daytime in the 20teens. Over nine years, she hosted hundreds of guests, racked up four Emmys, launched countless adventures—and had so much fun.

 

Then she got fired. No fun.

 

After losing her job, she thought she’d never to go back to journalism. With no other marketable skills and no idea what to do next, she entered an epic dark night of the soul. 

 

Looking for light, her family moved to the beach in Coney Island. There, Cat got serious about her own sobriety and began bringing recovery meetings to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and men. That work inspired her to found the nonprofit Restorative Housing Organization. RHO is dedicated to training formerly incarcerated men and women to renovate undervalued NYC waterfront properties, which are then rented to Section 8 tenants. She loves it. But once a journalist, always a journalist.

 

So when she weirdly got name-checked on Hacks last season, she took it as a sign.
Soon after, she heard her old friend, musician Steve Earle, talking openly about his sobriety on a radio show —a thing she didn’t know people were even allowed to do. And she realized she wanted to be the one talking to Steve Earle about sobriety on a show! Soberness was born in September 2024.

 

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