Ashley Weatherspoon and Ashley North didn’t think about their laid-back friendship would bloom right into a six-figure model, however what began as an unlikely bond on a “soccer wives” journey has grown into Ask Ashley, their broadly beloved podcast exploring womanhood, friendship, motherhood, and id with equal components heat and wit.
With that in thoughts, we’re spotlighting their success story and shut connection for Black Ladies’s Historical past Month.
Each ladies have been navigating the world of courting skilled athletes once they first met in a world usually portrayed with glitz, glam, and shiny Instagram facades.
“We used to really feel dangerous sharing the story,” Ashley Weatherspoon instructed BOSSIP with amusing. “However now, particularly with all of the WAGs reveals, it truly is smart.”
On a visit crammed with curated poolside photograph ops and materialistic posturing, the 2 Ashleys discovered themselves craving authenticity.
“At one level, I turned to her and stated, ‘God, I want I had a joint,’” Ashley Weatherspoon recalled. “And she or he was like, ‘Rattling, me too.’” What adopted was a candid, sincere dialog — the primary of many — that exposed an actual connection past shared existence or social circles.
That single second sparked a deep and lasting friendship, one that may stretch throughout coasts and many years.
As we speak, Ashley Weatherspoon and Ashley North, who refer to one another as chosen sisters, reside on reverse ends of the nation however keep intently tethered via fixed FaceTime calls and mutual help.
“We’re these mates you see memes about,” stated Ashley North. “We’ll simply sit on FaceTime folding laundry or selecting up the youngsters. It retains us a part of one another’s day by day lives.”
Their podcast Ask Ashley, now in its fourth season, has turn into a sleeper hit and testomony to the ability of pure chemistry, not manufactured partnerships. Not like many podcast duos assembled by producers hoping to power magic on the mic, the Ashleys’ bond was constructed off-mic first.
“We’d exit, and other people by no means needed us to depart,” Ashley Weatherspoon recalled. “One among our mates’ robust, no-nonsense companions truly requested dinner with us once more. That’s after we knew we had one thing. If we cracked him, we may crack a inhabitants.”
The podcast, which touches on every thing from popular culture to parenting to private progress, blossomed from that realization, in addition to North’s lingering frustration from her time on actuality tv.
“I used to be on a present about WAGs that promised I may present my profession and my life as a mother,” she defined. “However as a substitute, they painted me as a weak woman chasing marriage. That wasn’t my story.”
In actuality, Ashley North types among the largest names in sports activities and leisure, from Kevin Hart to Dodgers star Mookie Betts. Her profession, hustle, and motherhood deserve heart stage, and she or he knew she wanted a platform that mirrored that fact.
“Ashley had already created an area with Pricey Younger Queen,” she stated about Weatherspoon. “So we joined forces.”
The outcome was Ask Ashley, a mix of authenticity and light-hearted perception that instantly resonated.
“We’re a extremely good time,” stated Ashley Weatherspoon. “And we’re not out right here simply speaking intercourse or participating in gender wars. We’re creating actual content material that displays who we’re.”
Their early $30,000 funding within the podcast was a leap of religion, however it paid off. Submit-pandemic shifts in media consumption, coupled with heightened funding in Black feminine voices following the 2020 racial reckoning, created a singular window for Ask Ashley to shine.
“All of the sudden, manufacturers have been searching for our actual voice,” Ashley stated. “Not too raunchy, not combative — simply relatable, genuine ladies talking their fact.”
Their voice proved magnetic. Main manufacturers took discover, and the podcast turned a uncommon monetary success in an oversaturated subject.
“It’s surreal,” Ashley Weatherspoon stated “However we constructed this. We confirmed up each week. We didn’t let up.”
A lot of the podcast’s enchantment lies in its heat and its segments that allow listeners really feel like a part of the friendship. “Query Time” stays a fan favourite, an unfiltered trade that checks how properly the Ashleys actually know one another after 15 years. And for North, “TV Time” is an opportunity to indulge her inside critic.
“I’m principally Roger Ebert,” she joked.
But maybe what resonates most deeply is the duo’s shared reverence for his or her moms, each raised primarily by robust, hardworking ladies.
“Their affect comes via in every thing,” Ashley Weatherspoon instructed BOSSIP. “How we mother or father, how we transfer via the world, how we love.”
It’s these slices of actual life, sincere, unvarnished, and profoundly human, that make Ask Ashley greater than only a podcast and extra of a window into sisterhood and a celebration of what occurs when two Ashleys present up as their full selves.
Ask Ashley, which is a part of the Pricey Younger Queen podcast community, is out there to stream HERE.
