Then, in May 2023, it stopped.
At first, listeners were simply told that the podcast was going on hiatus. There was no dramatic farewell episode. There was no public announcement that Tig Notaro and Cheryl Hines had ended their friendship. A few months later, however, the show returned with a major difference: Tig was gone, and Rachael Harris was sitting beside Cheryl instead.
Years later, Notaro finally explained why.
The Tig And Cheryl True Story Podcast hiatus was more than an ordinary production break. Based on Notaro’s later account, it marked the beginning of the end of both her podcast partnership and, eventually, her close friendship with Hines.
What Was Tig & Cheryl: True Story?
Tig & Cheryl: True Story launched in 2020 through the Headgum podcast network.
The idea was wonderfully simple. Comedian Tig Notaro and actress Cheryl Hines would watch a documentary and then talk about it.
But the documentary was often only the starting point.
Their conversations wandered into friendships, celebrities, strange personal memories, attraction, relationships, and whatever else made them laugh. That loose chemistry became a big part of the show’s appeal.
Headgum’s archive still identifies the earlier program as Tig and Cheryl: True Story and contains episodes covering documentaries ranging from The Inventor to Pretty Baby.
For regular listeners, Tig and Cheryl themselves were really the main attraction.
That made what happened in 2023 especially noticeable.
When Did the Tig and Cheryl Podcast Go on Hiatus?
The warning came before the final original episode.
On May 1, 2023, Headgum’s description for the Brooke Shields: Pretty Baby episode told listeners that the podcast would go on hiatus after May 8.
Then came the May 8 episode about The Amazing Johnathan Documentary.
Its official description again confirmed:
“True Story goes on hiatus after this episode.”
After that, the feed began publishing replay episodes instead of fresh Tig and Cheryl conversations.
At that point, listeners knew the show was pausing.
What they did not yet know was whether Tig would ever return.
The Podcast Came Back Without Tig Notaro
The answer arrived on October 2, 2023.
Headgum published a new episode about Telemarketers and announced that True Story was returning after its hiatus. The episode description warned listeners that there were “some changes to the show.”
The biggest change was the host lineup.
Rachael Harris joined Cheryl Hines, replacing Tig Notaro as Cheryl’s regular partner.
From there, the podcast continued under the shorter name True Story. Apple Podcasts currently describes it as a show in which Cheryl Hines and Rachael Harris discuss documentaries together.
So the May 2023 hiatus was technically followed by a return.
But Tig and Cheryl as a podcast team never returned.
Does Tig Notaro Still Do a Podcast With Cheryl Hines?
No. Tig Notaro does not currently host a podcast with Cheryl Hines.
The original partnership ended in 2023.
After the hiatus, Cheryl continued True Story with Rachael Harris. Episodes from late 2023 repeatedly describe Cheryl and Rachael as the show’s duo.
The latest episode currently displayed by Apple Podcasts is David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived, published December 18, 2023. Its description also says Cheryl and Rachael discussed the documentary together.
That means there are really two separate questions here:
Did the podcast return after its hiatus? Yes.
Did Tig return with Cheryl? No.
And it took much longer for listeners to learn why.
Why Did Tig Notaro Leave Cheryl Hines’ Podcast?
When the hiatus happened in 2023, the public announcement did not explain a major disagreement between Tig and Cheryl.
Notaro discussed the situation much more openly in October 2025, during an appearance on Tom Papa’s Breaking Bread. That episode was published October 14, 2025.
Notaro described Hines as someone with whom she had shared enormous amounts of laughter. But she also connected her decision to step away professionally with the growing political role of Hines’ husband, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Notaro expanded on the issue again in 2026. Reporting on her comments said she felt increasingly unable to continue the podcast because of major disagreements involving Kennedy’s public positions and political activity.
One detail matters here.
This explanation comes primarily from Tig Notaro’s account of the relationship. It should not be treated as an independently proven description of everything Cheryl Hines privately thought or felt.
What is firmly documented is the timeline:
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2020 | Tig Notaro and Cheryl Hines launch True Story |
| May 1, 2023 | Upcoming hiatus is announced |
| May 8, 2023 | Last regular Tig-and-Cheryl episode before hiatus |
| Summer 2023 | Replay episodes appear |
| October 2, 2023 | Show returns with changes |
| Late 2023 | Cheryl Hines and Rachael Harris host together |
| December 18, 2023 | Latest episode currently listed on Apple Podcasts |
| October 2025 | Tig publicly discusses the friendship fallout |
| 2026 | Tig gives further details about why she left |
That timeline turns what once looked like a mysterious hiatus into a much clearer story.
Who Stopped Being Friends With Cheryl Hines?
In the context of True Story, the person people usually mean is Tig Notaro.
But saying simply that Tig “stopped being friends” with Cheryl misses some important detail.
Notaro has said she chose to leave their professional podcast relationship. She later described trying to maintain some personal connection with Hines, while the friendship gradually became more distant. Reporting on Notaro’s later interviews says she continued expressing affection for Hines even while acknowledging that their relationship had essentially ended.
That makes the situation more complicated than a single argument followed by an immediate breakup.
There appears to have been a separation between ending the podcast partnership and losing the friendship.
The first was a decision.
The second seems to have happened over time.
Perhaps that is why the story attracted so much curiosity. Anyone can understand a business partnership ending. Losing someone who once made you laugh until you could barely speak is different.
Did Cheryl Hines Continue True Story?
Yes.
Cheryl continued the program with actress and comedian Rachael Harris, known for projects including Suits and The Hangover.
The October 9, 2023 episode about Wham! already described Cheryl and Rachael talking together, and subsequent episodes followed the same format.
Apple Podcasts still describes True Story using Cheryl and Rachael as the hosts, although its latest listed episode dates to December 2023.
So it is more accurate to say that the Tig-and-Cheryl version ended, rather than saying the entire podcast immediately disappeared when Tig left.
What Happened to the ’80s All Over Podcast?
This question sometimes appears alongside searches for discontinued podcasts because ’80s All Over had another famous unfinished run.
Film critics Scott Weinberg and Drew McWeeny created the podcast with an enormous goal: review the major movies of the 1980s month by month.
They made it from January 1980 into April 1985.
Apple Podcasts lists the program as active from 2016 to 2019 with 118 episodes. Its final regular episode, April 1985, was released April 29, 2019.
The project went on hiatus and never completed the decade.
Weinberg later described the show as extremely demanding and confirmed that it would not return. A later transcript records him calling it a “maniacally busy” project.
McWeeny eventually continued exploring 1980s cinema through his own written work rather than finishing the original podcast with Weinberg. His current site still refers to ’80s All Over as his previous podcast.
So unlike True Story, which returned with a different host combination, ’80s All Over simply stopped before reaching its original goal.
What Is the Longest Podcast Ever?
There is no simple permanent answer because records can be defined in different ways: longest single episode, longest continuous live podcast, longest-running series, or most total hours.
One notable documented attempt belongs to Mike Russell.
Russell’s The Longest Podcast in the World records a 36-hour nonstop podcast marathon held on April 21 and 22, 2016. Russell describes it as a world-record continuous podcast at the time.
That should not automatically be treated as the current record for every podcast category. Record definitions and later attempts can change.
If someone asks simply for an unusually long continuous podcast, though, Russell’s 36-hour broadcast remains a well-documented example.
Why the Tig and Cheryl Hiatus Still Gets Searched
The mystery was created by timing.
In May 2023, listeners were told they were getting a hiatus.
In October, they discovered they were getting a different version of the show.
Only years later did Tig Notaro publicly connect her departure to deeper disagreements and the deterioration of her friendship with Cheryl Hines.
That gap left fans trying to fill in the missing chapter.
The clearest answer today is this: the Tig And Cheryl True Story Podcast hiatus became the end of Tig Notaro and Cheryl Hines’ hosting partnership. Cheryl later continued with Rachael Harris, while Notaro eventually explained that political and personal differences surrounding Hines’ husband had made continuing the collaboration difficult for her.
The sadder part of the story is not really that a podcast ended.
Podcasts end all the time.
It is that a show built around two friends laughing together eventually became a public reminder that even very close friendships can reach a point where affection is no longer enough to keep two lives moving in the same direction.
Jessica Savitch, with a deep passion for journalism, brings her expertise to istruestory.com as a dedicated author. MA in Arts & Journalism.