Don’t miss Michelle Williams’ upcoming TV series Dying For Sex, based on a true story of a woman who pursued her sexual freedom in the face of life-threatening illness.
The star will play Molly Kochan, who documented her efforts through a podcast that she co-hosted with her best friend Nikki (played by Jenny Slate), as well as writing a memoir in the last few months of her life.
Here’s everything we know so far about the much-anticipated TV show.
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What is Dying For Sex about?
According to IMDB, Dying For Sex is set to be a “story of a woman diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, who abandons her husband of 15 years and begins to fully explore her sexuality.”
But it looks like the story is as much about a close female friendship as it is about our protagonist’s health and sexual journey. While Michelle Williams will play main character Molly, Jenny Slate will play her best friend Nikki, who is integral to how Molly navigates this life-defining chapter.
Is Dying For Sex based on a true story?
Yes, it very much is. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011, undergoing chemotherapy, a bilateral mastectomy, radiation and breast reconstruction, Molly Kochan was then rediagnosed with stage 4 cancer. She then decided to leave her husband to “sexually explore herself”, as a way to “reclaim her body and sexuality” as a way of fighting back against her cancer. Her best friend Nikki says Molly described this sexual outlook as “the antithesis to death”.
The duo then created a six-part podcast, narrated by Nikki and featuring conversations and stories around Molly’s hookups, her illness and lifting the lid on why she used her sexuality to understand her life. Molly died in 2019, but the podcast was released in February 2020, and has been downloaded over 5 million times. Molly also wrote a memoir before she passed away, named Screw Cancer: Becoming Whole, which was published in August 2020.