“Every stranger has a story.” This is what Hunter Prosper realized when he began posting man-on-the-street interviews with real-life strangers to his social media accounts.
Hunter’s genuine connection with strangers and emotional interview moments quickly captured viewers' hearts across multiple platforms and a New York Times Best Selling book. Now, Hunter is expanding his social media series into a new weekly video and audio podcast, Stories from a Stranger, featuring portraits of multiple strangers connected by themes of love, loss, regret, inspiration, illness, family connections, and more.
In each episode, Hunter brings his innate warmth, curiosity, and charm, interviewing people from all walks of life and sharing anonymously submitted confessions. Interviews start with a question and then grow in unexpected ways as strangers open up and share their most defining moments. From the deaths of loved ones to using their most painful moments as inspiration to finding their greatest loves, no subject is off-limits. Their stories are raw, intimate, and bursting with humanity.
Right now, it is easy to feel like the world is irrevocably divided. Stories from a Stranger is a warm reminder that we are all human and more connected than we realize. It’s an invitation to empathy. Every stranger has a story. Let’s start listening.
New episodes every Monday on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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S E24: You've Made It Through 100% of Your Darkest Days: Mental Health and Healing
Episode 24
Monday, October 19, 2026 • Duration 53:27
Hunter talks to three strangers about their mental health journey.
Justice describes the most beautiful thing she's been told: "that everything is temporary". She explains this perspective has helped her throughout lifelong struggles with mental health, including depressive episodes, suicidal ideation, anxiety, agoraphobia, and OCD. Despite appearing successful externally—running a business, having supportive relationships—she reached a crisis point where she "couldn't quiet [her] brain and it was consuming me to a point of being dangerous". She emphasizes the importance of her support system, admitting that in her darkest moment, she sought help not for herself but for her loved ones: "If I can't do this for myself, I need to do it for the people that love me". Justice also critiques mental health care accessibility, noting that resources like the GeneSight test for medication compatibility should be more widely available, and advocates for trying therapy before medication.
Michael shares his experience of finding love with his partner Levi after doing significant self-work through therapy. He describes how he unconsciously said "I love you" first because his "body felt it was ready". Michael reveals his history of seeking validation from others due to feeling "insufficient" and "not good enough", which led to an abusive relationship where he believed "you're not going to do any better because you're you". Through exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy, he learned to break obsessive-compulsive cycles and discovered that "I was prince charming"—the love he needed was self-love all along. This realization transformed his approach to relationships from "Am I going to be good enough for this person?" to "Is this person kind? Are they deserving of my love?".
Jeremy describes his most profound non-physical pain as intense self-loathing and suicidal ideation that began at age 11. Despite appearing confident and successful, he lived with "faux confidence" as a "high functioning, depressed person". His childhood included family addiction, verbal abuse, and finding a loved one overdosing at age 12. Jeremy found healing through inner child meditations, sobriety, and honestly examining "how much am I contributing to my own suffering?". He emphasizes that healing requires taking control rather than leaving it "in the hands of everyone else", and would tell his younger self: "I love you. And I'm so proud of just how much you endured".
Chapters:
00:00:00 Navigating mental health struggles and finding hope in dark days
00:04:48 Living with childhood anxiety, depression, and severe OCD
00:09:40 Breaking the social stigma surrounding mental illness and family expectations
00:14:14 Developing empathy for unhoused addicts and understanding trauma
00:18:03 Finding a healthy relationship and learning what it feels like to be loved
00:23:00 Coming out in college and breaking free from an abusive past
00:28:17 Diagnosed with OCD and starting ERP therapy
00:34:38 Realizing you are your own prince charming through self-love
00:38:00 Battling high-functioning depression and the dangers of alcohol use
00:43:00 Surviving an unsafe childhood and dealing with family addiction
00:47:00 Healing through inner child meditation and achieving sobriety
00:51:28 Taking back control of your life and fighting for your own healing
Topics:
Navigating high-functioning anxiety and long-term depression
Driving to a mental health crisis facility to get immediate support
Overcoming generational stigma and feeling like a burden to loved ones
Managing severe OCD and intrusive thoughts through ERP therapy
Reclaiming agency and finding self-worth after emotional abuse
Shifting from searching for external validation to practicing self-love
Processing childhood trauma, family addiction, and lost innocence
Rewiring brain patterns through consistent inner child meditation
Achieving 15 months of sobriety and learning to forgive past mistakes
S E23: Finding My Perfect Partner: Love, Loss, and Reinvention
Episode 23
Monday, October 12, 2026 • Duration 40:14
This week Hunter talks to three strangers about meeting their perfect partners.
Frank met his wife on Tinder following a painful emotionally abusive breakup that had caused him to give up on dating entirely. He initially suspected her profile was a bot due to her being out of his league in his own estimation. Their first planned meeting of 20 minutes stretched into six hours, described by Frank as feeling like time froze, similar to the movie "Big Fish". He knew she was "the one" approximately four hours into that first meeting. He told her he loved her roughly one week into dating, blurting it out during a phone call, and she said it back immediately. Frank described being loved by her as something that makes everything fall into place and allows him to be his true self.
Manuel's greatest love is, whom he credits as the first person to give him permission to not be strong. He described an intense childhood that began with working at age 12, managing his parents' emotional conflicts, and caring for younger siblings, which left him guarded and unable to ask for help. Jillian broke through those walls by explicitly telling him he did not need to be strong for her and that he was allowed to simply be sad. Their first date lasted nine hours, covering four bars and ending with pizza at 2:00 AM. He described Jillian as abnormally intelligent, witty, funny, sensitive, and successful -- qualities he noted are rarely found together in one person. Manuel described being loved by Jillian as feeling primarily safe, like having a parachute or safety net.
Billy is a Chicago-based man living with limb girdle muscular dystrophy, a rare progressive disease he was diagnosed with in March 2021, though he was born with it and showed no symptoms until his early 30s. A former athlete who played basketball throughout his life, he began losing his balance and falling approximately 13 years before the episode was recorded, gradually losing the ability to run, jump, and perform basic physical tasks. He described the aftermath as the darkest period of his life, during which therapy helped him begin to grieve and process his diagnosis. Billy channeled his experience into a creative reinvention, teaching himself to cook and bake and developing a passion for pizza-making, which he named "Tripping Billy" as a reference to his condition. Billy talks about meeting his wife Rachel, whom he feared would leave him after his diagnosis. Rachel proved to be a steadfast partner and caretaker, and Billy proposed to her by staging a fake charity celebration event to get her friends and his together in one place. He described her as his guardian angel and everything to him.
S E22: Invisible Battles: Living with Chronic Illness
Episode 22
Monday, October 5, 2026 • Duration 41:25
This week Hunter speaks with three strangers who are struggling with chronic illness.
Lulu is a young woman who battled Lyme disease beginning at age 11. Her background includes years of misdiagnosis, during which doctors attributed her symptoms to POTS, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome, none of which addressed the root cause. A key contribution of her story is the advocacy role her mother played, described as "the reason I'm alive," who argued with doctors and ultimately suspected Lyme disease after years of searching. Lulu underwent a hyperthermia treatment at Clinic St. George in Germany, where her body temperature was raised to 107.24 degrees to break down biofilms protecting Lyme disease cells, allowing antibiotics to penetrate and kill the bacteria. She now lives with deep gratitude, waking each day thankful for her independence and ability to show up for the people she loves.
Christi is a young woman who developed intense, chronic health problems during the fall semester of her junior year of college, eventually forcing her to drop out of school. Her primary debilitating symptom was severe nausea that could last hours on end, leaving her incapacitated and at times walking around her apartment complex from 2:00 AM to 10:00 AM just to cope. She pursued a wide range of treatments including homeopathic, acupuncture, nutrition, and Western medicine. A turning point came when a highly regarded doctor in Scottsdale identified parasitical infections, viruses, and bacteria and showed initial progress, only for the inflammation markers to completely regress approximately six months in. Christie connects much of her illness to growing up in a controlling, "borderline cultish" religious group that enforced constant self-abandonment, which she believes contributed to how her body reacted to stress and trauma. She credits her sister as her most supportive person throughout her journey and has come to view her body's physical responses as a compass for living in alignment with her true self.
Madelyn has lived with atopic dermatitis, a chronic and severe form of eczema, since she was a baby. At around age seven or eight, a prominent dermatologist told her mother, in front of Madelyn, that they had never seen a case as bad as hers in either an adult or a child, leaving her feeling hopeless. Growing up, she regularly wore knee-high socks to cover flares in joint areas including her elbows, behind her knees, and ankles, and faced questions from classmates asking if her skin was contagious. She was also told by adults in her religious school environment that her condition was a result of sin or punishment, which she describes as deeply damaging to her mental health. In 2019, at age 19, she began taking Dupixent, a biologic injection taken every other week, which she describes as completely changing her life.
S E21: Chosen: Stories of Adoption, Identity, and the Search for Belonging
Episode 21
Monday, September 28, 2026 • Duration 40:27
Hunter speaks to three strangers with one thing in common: they’re adopted.
Alyssa is a Black woman who grew up in a predominantly white community as an adopted child of an Italian-American family, making her adoption visually apparent from an early age. Her biological brother found her and reached out via Facebook after their biological father drunkenly revealed her existence to him. Upon reconnecting with her biological family, her biological mother denied her and called her a catfish, which Alyssa describes as one of the most painful things she ever experienced. Despite this, she does not regret the reunion, stating she would have wondered for the rest of her life otherwise.
Charley always knew she was adopted and initially viewed it positively, describing it as a gift. However, she experienced recurring feelings of loneliness throughout her life, particularly at night as a young girl. She had no desire to find her biological mother well into her 20s and even threw away research a college friend compiled about her possible birth mother. At age 46, she submitted a 23andMe test for medical background information, and at 47 received a message from a biological relative identifying a possible match to her birth mother. She met her birth mother, but found the relationship one-sided and stressful, as her birth mother never asked Charley anything about herself. After working with a therapist, Charley ended the relationship in a phone call from a parking lot, expressing both love and the need to set a boundary.
Sean was adopted from the south side of Chicago, with his adoptive mother spending two years visiting him and his birth mother before taking him home. Sean does not feel anger toward his biological parents but describes living with constant uncertainty and unanswered questions for 25 years. He describes the feeling as "free falling," with a core piece of information missing from his life. He learned that substances were found in his birth mother at the time of his birth, which he describes as one of the most painful pieces of information he received. Sean credits a very supportive family and open conversations for helping him stay afloat, but still feels like a piece of himself is missing.
S E20: Fill the Space: How Heartbreak Becomes a New Beginning
Episode 20
Monday, September 21, 2026 • Duration 41:55
-Jeremy is a Canadian actor and comedian who put his career on hold to move to New York for his second husband, Zach, whom he met on Tinder. He describes Zach as the greatest love of his life, noting they met briefly on the app before transitioning to a more old-fashioned phone call and then a first date over wine on a rooftop. They married shortly before the pandemic, and Jeremy attributes the end of their marriage largely to the extreme pressures of that period. This was Jeremy's second divorce, and he acknowledges the embarrassment of going through it again, even making it part of his standup comedy material. After the split, he found himself in a foreign country without a strong social network, having paused a flourishing acting career in Canada to be in the relationship. Key contributions from Jeremy include his advice on navigating grief and loss by actively filling the emotional and mental space left behind with positive activities and experiences, as well as his insight that only the individual can do the work of rebuilding themselves after heartbreak, symbolized by a tattoo he got of an anatomical heart half made of bricks.
-Anna Laura is an artist who speaks about the profound influence of her mother, Anne Marie, describing her as having the soul of a true artist who introduced her to new ways of seeing the world. She views heartbreak as essential to growth, comparing the darkness of grief to the richness of soil that enables new life. She explains that art is her playground and laboratory for testing her self-concept and connecting with the world on a deep, somatic level. She describes the feeling of making resonant art as akin to spiritual communion.
-Cece recently came out as queer and describes falling in love for the first time with a woman she met in Hawaii through a friend app. Their relationship was intense and cinematic, involving last-minute flights, declarations of love, and talk of moving in together, characteristic of what she describes as the "U-Haul lesbian" phenomenon. The relationship ultimately ended, with both parties hurting each other, but Cece does not regret it, calling it a "canon event" in her life story. She now lives in New York with her best friend Annie, whom she describes as a "lavender marriage" partner, finding unexpected fulfillment and stability in that platonic domestic arrangement
S E19: Some Wounds Never Heal: Conversations on Love and Letting Go
Episode 19
Monday, September 14, 2026 • Duration 44:35
Hunters speaks with three strangers who are remembering family members they’ve lost, or are losing.
-Caty shares the story of watching her mother decline from primary progressive aphasia, a form of frontotemporal dementia. She describes first suspecting something was wrong during her senior year of college, noticing her mother misusing names and making uncharacteristic errors. Her mother was formally diagnosed in May 2022. Katie reflects on the pain of losing the close, almost mirror-image relationship she shared with her mother, the concept of anticipatory grief, and the one-sided nature of their current communication. She also describes finding comfort in signs she believes are sent by her mother, particularly through the song "Dancing in the Moonlight", and explains that she copes by living one day at a time, drawing on the perspective her mother's illness has given her.
-Chris speaks about his aunt who passed away around 2010. Though she had no children of her own, she treated Chris, his siblings, and his family as her own, planning baby showers and showering them with gifts and attention. Chris expresses deep sadness that she did not get to witness his growth into adulthood and worries she will not be there for future milestones such as marriage or having children. He keeps her photo as his phone background as a way of staying connected to her memory, though he laments that he has forgotten the sound of her voice. He says that if he could have one more conversation, he would ask her for honest life advice, and credits his father, sister, and close friends with helping him through his grief.
-Antony shares the deeply painful story of losing both parents at a young age. His father died from AIDS-related complications, and his last words were an apology to Antony's mother, who contracted the disease from him. Despite this, she continued to raise her four children with unwavering devotion, mourning her husband in black until her own death. Antony describes the heartbreak of his mother losing her voice before she died, leaving the family unable to say goodbye. He holds no anger toward his father, recognizing his suffering and the guilt he must have carried. Antony reflects that, despite immense loss, he feels the ongoing presence of his parents within him, particularly through sharing his mother's smile, and acknowledges that some wounds never fully heal.
S E18: Loving Yourself: Stories of Identity and Healing
Episode 18
Monday, September 7, 2026 • Duration 43:20
-J’Quay reflects on “heartache” rather than just heartbreak, describing how investing deeply in something that doesn’t work out leads to emotional crashes, but also to the realization that time helps us cope and reframe those experiences. J’Quay shares that they do let people get close and give everyone “equal parts” of themselves, but believe that heartbreak is survivable because there are billions of people in the world and one person’s rejection isn’t definitive. They talks about a childhood dream of being “palatable but different” to achieve goals, and how they consciously let go of that dream in favor of individuality, which has helped them make friends, get jobs, breathe easier, and feel stronger.
-Seve describes struggling with negative self-talk and not often focusing on beautiful things others say, but he cherishes a compliment from a not-very-close friend who called them caring and kind-hearted, which made them feel deeply seen and warmed. He shares that one of the most painful things he tells himself is that he’s undeserving of happiness, rooted in feeling left out when seeing others experience love and joy, especially in high school and college. When feeling undeserving, he looks in the mirror and thinks of his parents’ love and dreams for their children, seeing himself as the child their parents wanted and as a product of their parents’ love, which helps them affirm “I’m enough.”
-Nyle reflects on growing up in a very white neighborhood as a brown Pakistani person, praying to God and asking why he was made different, and feeling displaced and ashamed of their racial identity despite not facing overt racism. He tried changing key aspects of himself to conform—listening to the same music, changing his tastes—to avoid being an outcast. He convinced himself that a white girl wouldn’t like him because of the color of his skin, and begged his mother for skin-whitening cream. Later he learned to accept himself and take pride in his complexion.
Topics:
High school love, early insecurity, and shame
Struggles with racial identity in a white neighborhood
S E17: Fathers: The Wounds, The Love, The Legacy
Episode 17
Monday, August 31, 2026 • Duration 36:39
Hunter speaks with three people about their unique relationships with their fathers.
Meet this week’s strangers:
- William recently lost his father. William’s father, also named William, was a Marine Corps sergeant, a decorated combat Marine whose unit’s motto was “Retreat hell,” and later an attorney handling high‑profile, difficult cases, including immigration work. He grew up during Jim Crow in St. Louis, experiencing segregation and witnessing his own father, a World War II and Korean War veteran, being humiliated by police in the South; these experiences fueled an intense drive to be excellent at his work and “the best at whatever he did.” William considers his father to be his hero. William recounts the hospice experience, missing his father’s final moments, and then moving quickly into “problem solving mode” to arrange a military funeral, memorials, and a carefully crafted eulogy that honored his father’s career, impact, and the “weight of his attention” as a parent.
- Gil had a complicated relationship with his recently deceased father. Gil’s father left the family when Gil was 10, pursuing a midlife crisis lifestyle of motorcycles, a Corvette, and a succession of much younger girlfriends, including one who was 10 years older than Gil when he was 12. Gil describes himself as “more of an accomplice than a son,” explaining that his father wanted a partner for scams and grifts rather than a child, which shaped Gil’s later difficulties with older male authority figures. After his father’s death, Gil cried at the bedside and during meditation, but says the sadness now centers on the finality and the knowledge that they would never have a real conversation about who he is and what their relationship truly meant.
- Gerardo reflects philosophically on love, noting its many forms (nature, family, romantic) and the difficulty of truly “doing” love, which requires forgetting about oneself and loving the other. His greatest love is his father, also named Gerardo, whom he loves for being unconditionally present and doing anything for him, especially in hard moments. His father died when Gerardo was about 15, and Gerardo describes how Mexican culture shaped his view of death as less taboo and more integrated, helping him embrace fear of death and see it as leading to some of his best life experiences. His favorite memory with his father is learning to fish at a lake in Chihuahua, Mexico, where he connected with nature and released the fish, valuing the bond between himself, his father, and the living world.
S E16: Learning to Belong: Immigrant Childhoods, Family Sacrifice, and Self-Discovery
Episode 16
Monday, August 24, 2026 • Duration 33:25
- Peter immigrated from Korea as a child. As the only person of color in his school, he felt alienated and othered. He dealt with bullying because of the food he brought to school, called “Kim Jong-un” and told to go back to his own country. These experiences caused emotional pain, a desire to return to Korea, and resentment toward his parents, which he later reframed as gratitude for the opportunities they sought for him and his brother. Peter’s story takes an unexpected turn when he describes doctor’s finding a tennis ball-sized tumor in his head. His family—father, mother, and brother—dropped everything to spend a month with him in the U.S. during and after surgery, which he describes as the most beautiful thing they’ve done for him and a profound expression of support.
- Jade moved to the US from Ecuador with her family seeking better opportunities as conditions worsened back home; she was 17 and left behind the life and community her mother had built. She felt rejected and isolated at school in her U.S. senior year, struggling to make friends because classmates already had established groups, facing bullying and mockery over her English, leading her to isolate herself. Coping with loneliness and a desire to be seen and heard, she gravitated toward friends who felt like “home” but whose lifestyle centered on frequent drinking and going out, which led her into heavy alcohol use and emotional turmoil. Eventually decided on her own that “it’s been enough,” taking accountability and choosing to change, crediting herself for doing the hard work of applying advice and finding “a home” within herself over time.
- Sylvanna moved from Italy to England, and then to the United States. She emphasizes that immigrants are often looked down upon regardless of their efforts, noting that many in the U.S. forget their own immigrant roots. She argues that adapting to a new country involves more than language; it requires changing mentality, how you approach people, and how you work.
Chapters:
00:00:00 The isolation of moving to a new culture
S E15: Falling in Love is Beyond My Control
Episode 15
Monday, August 17, 2026 • Duration 42:08
Hunter speaks with three strangers about meeting partners who changed the course of their lives.
Meet this week's strangers:
- Niko is a school teacher from New York City who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. During treatment he grew closer to his long-time friend Lauren who gave him gift packages, which became a catalyst for rekindling their relationship and eventually dating. He describes Lauren’s support as essential, saying he would not have gotten through cancer or remained mentally okay without her; she showed up early, handled everything with grace, gave him hope, and made him feel handsome and normal even when he had lost his eyebrows and eyelashes. He explains that falling in love with Lauren during treatment meant everything; she became the person he wanted around when he felt worst, and he now sees her as his life partner, having already bought a diamond with plans to propose.
- Selene's greatest love is Ethan, whom she first met in 2010 through her cousin on the day of the World Cup final; he is half Spaniard, and they initially connected over rooting for Spain. Their relationship unfolded over years of near-misses: she moved to California and he dated someone else; later they reconnected while she was in another relationship; then again as friends in a group when both had other partners, with him repeatedly “popping out of nowhere.” Eventually, after both had ended other relationships, Ethan directly expressed that he still had feelings and wanted marriage, and despite her hesitance, his clarity led her to give the relationship a serious try, including moving in together earlier than planned. She recalls the relationship feeling easy and largely conflict-free, later wondering if they didn’t argue enough; the turning point came when a disagreement over her wanting to attend a concert prompted him to admit he hadn’t felt the same for some time, which shocked her. They still went on a planned trip to Spain, where she had once imagined getting engaged, but despite trying, he couldn’t rekindle his feelings, leading her to conclude that two good people aren’t always a good long-term fit and that some loves aren’t meant to last forever.
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-Chelsea went through a breakup approximately six months prior to the conversation, ending a relationship with someone who had been a close friend for three years before they began dating. She describes the particular difficulty of leaving a relationship where the other person had not done anything overtly wrong, noting that he was kind and patient but fundamentally failed to ask about her life, her feelings, or her accomplishments. She recounts how she began suppressing her own achievements because he would minimize them, causing her to quell her own excitement. She identifies the turning point as meeting a friend who naturally showed her the curiosity and engagement she had been missing in her relationship. Since the breakup, she reports that positive changes have come quickly, including meeting someone new who asks her about her day and genuinely wants to know her.
- Kyle’s greatest love is his wife, Bethany, whom he met in Long Beach, New York, during a grassroots effort to petition the city to reinstate the music portion of a surf contest that had been canceled after Hurricane Irene. They first met at City Hall while working with mutual friends to gather signatures; later that night he visited her house, met her family, and, too nervous to ask for her number, wrote his number on her hand at her request. They first said “I love you” about a month into dating while sitting on a couch with friends, describing it as something that felt natural to say. Now married nearly 13 years, Kyle reflects that love has evolved: he feels most loved when he feels truly seen, especially through life’s challenges, and emphasizes that marriage is not easy but that growing up together and sharing those struggles is something special.
Chapters:
00:00:00 Unexpected love stories from strangers
00:03:28 Niko faces a cancer diagnosis at twenty nine
00:06:05 Reconnecting with childhood crush during chemo
00:08:56 Celebrating remission and ringing the bell
00:12:08 How unconditional love provided strength
00:15:37 Realizing she is the person I want to marry
00:21:11 Selene shares her story of an old flame
00:24:38 Trying to make a relationship work through timing
00:28:39 When two good people still grow apart
00:32:06 What lost love teaches us about self focus
00:35:30 Kyle on meeting his wife while petitioning
00:39:27 How love evolves through thirteen years of marriage
