It’s a great week for those of us who desperately want Nobody Wants This season 2: the second season of the Netflix rom-com series drops on October 23. Get your popcorn (or challah/gefilte fish/rugelach) ready, folks.
The Los Angeles-set series stars Adam Brody and Kristen Bell, who play Rabbi Noah and agnostic sex podcaster Joanne, respectively. Naturally, these characters fall in love, but it’s super complicated because of the whole rabbi-dating-a-non-jewish-woman situation. At the end of season 1, Noah and Joanne’s future seems uncertain. I can’t wait to see what’s next for these chaotic lovebirds.
The show is a work of creative genius… or is it? Yeah, not quite. Nobody Wants This is actually based on a true story. Show creator Erin Foster was inspired to write the series based on her own love story with her Jewish husband, Simon Tikhman. Here’s everything to know about Erin and Simon’s story and how it inspired the popular show.
Is Nobody Wants This Based On A True Story?
Is Noah Roklov Inspired By A Real Rabbi?
While Nobody Wants This is inspired by Erin’s real life, it’s not a documentary. Many of the details have been slightly changed or embellished. For example, Erin’s husband is an entertainment executive — not a rabbi. However, he is a practicing Jew, and like Noah and Joanne in the show, the couple had to navigate their religious and cultural differences when they started dating.
Advert
Erin met her now-husband, Simon, at a Los Angeles gym in 2018, when she was in her late 30s. They got engaged the following year and married in 2019. She eventually converted to Judaism, which is something Joanne considers in the show. Erin told Today that “the emotional journey, I would say, is very accurate to my experience of meeting my husband.” She’s described the show as a “love letter” to her partner.
The show creator recalled being “set in her ways” when she first met Simon. At the time, she thought: “‘This is my worldview. No one’s going to be able to change it. These are my habits. They are what they are.’ And then you meet someone who totally turns that upside down, who makes you want to be a better version of yourself, and who makes you question all the things that you thought were true.”
Like Joanne, Erin has a podcast with her sister. She and her sister, Sara Foster, co-host The World’s First Podcast, where they chat about friendship, money, dating, aging, religion, grief, and more.
Advert
There are plenty of Easter eggs from Erin’s real life sprinkled throughout the show. Joanne and her sister discussing “the ick,” for example, nods to Erin and Sara talking about the same topic on their podcast. And Noah showing up with an oversized bouquet of sunflowers to meet Joanne’s parents was directly inspired by Simon doing the same when he met Erin’s family.
We’ll have to wait and see if Nobody Wants This season 2 includes more real-life references!