It’s been called the most enjoyable on-screen romance since When Harry Met Sally, topping Netflix streaming charts and putting a wistful smile on the faces of women around the world.
Nobody Wants This features a relationship between an outspoken sex podcast host without a religious bone in her body and a deeply sensitive rabbi, who might be the ultimate opposites-attract couple. Their chemistry crackles despite their differences and their families’ disapproval.
The fact that Rabbi Noah, played by The OC’s Adam Brody, is also super sexy, leading him to be nicknamed the “hot rabbi,” along the lines of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “hot priest” in her hit Fleabag series has certainly also helped seeing the numbers.
And there’s another layer of people’s fascination with the new hit series.
Nobody Wants This, starring Kristen Bell and Adam Brody, has become a hit on Netflix
If this improbable story has a surprising tone of authenticity, it is because it is based on the endearing real-life love story of one of the best-connected women in Hollywood.
For the creator of Nobody Wants, this is Erin Foster, the podcaster daughter of model Rebecca Dyer and music supremo David Foster, a man who has been described as a “surrogate father” to Prince Harry and is a resident of Montecito.
He helped the Duke of Sussex start his new life in North America, even helping him find the Vancouver Island mansion where the Sussexes first took refuge when they left the Royal Family in March 2020.
A legendary record producer and songwriter for everyone from Michael Jackson to Whitney Houston; his hit I Have Nothing is one of his own; There are few famous musicians. Foster, 74 years old he hasn’t done it worked with. Erin remembers meeting Madonna, whom she idolized as a schoolgirl, in her father’s studio.
However, his connections with celebrities go much deeper than merely professional ones. Her father has been married five times, and those weddings have given Erin, 42, a complex network of famous relatives.
For example, five years after divorcing Erin’s mother in 1986, Foster married his third wife, songwriter Linda Thompson.
Linda’s previous husband was athlete Bruce Jenner, who has since gone on to become Caitlyn Jenner, with whom she had two sons, Brandon and Brody Jenner.
And Brandon and Brody are not only Erin’s stepbrothers, but also the stepbrothers of Kim Kardashian and her sisters, thanks to Jenner’s subsequent marriage to Kris Kardashian. Brandon and Brody were regulars on Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
Foster next married his fourth wife, Dutch model Yolanda Hadid in 2011, and the Foster clan expanded to include supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid, who remain close to Erin despite her parents’ divorce after four years of marriage.
In fact, Erin once commented about their close relationship: “Kids don’t get divorced, just parents.”
Then, in 2019, Foster married singer and actress Katharine McPhee, who, although two years Erin’s junior, provides a connection to Prince Harry, as she went to the same Catholic high school as Meghan Markle and starred in musicals with her. over there. .
Erin’s friends are, unsurprisingly, appropriately from showbiz and include Friends actress Courteney Cox and Coldplay’s Chris Martin.
One would imagine that, with such a star-studded pedigree, Erin was destined for an A-list marriage but, as reflected in the plot of Nobody Wants This, it turned out to be very different.
Instead of a celebrity, she fell in love with a man whose background couldn’t have been more different from her own.
Simon Tikhman, on whom Rabbi Noah is based, was raised in a traditional Jewish home by his Russian immigrant parents, who had been forced to leave the Soviet Union in 1979 after suffering religious persecution.
Erin first saw Simon at the gym they both used in Los Angeles and recalled: “We saw each other every other day at 9am.” I started noticing him and thought, “Who is that cute guy doing push-ups and smiling at me?”
She then located Simon’s private Instagram account and the pair began exchanging messages.
After being impressed with the healthy photos of her parents he posted, she made a move on the businessman, who co-founded an artist management company and record label.
David Foster has been called Prince Harry’s “surrogate father” and has helped him start his new life in America since leaving the Royal Family.
But such was his devotion to his parents and his determination to continue the family lineage (children are only considered Jewish if their mother is also Jewish) that he told Erin on their first date in 2018: “Whoever I marry , she must be Jewish.”
He later explained: ‘I really respect my parents and I know the adversity they went through because they were Jewish. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint them.”
Erin’s reaction when he later directly asked her to convert so they could be together was as heartfelt as that shown by her on-screen character, Joanne, played by Kristen Bell: ‘Do you love me? Excellent. “It would be fun to be a part of something.”
And so, although the final episode of Nobody Wants This ends with a cliffhanger that strongly suggests a second series, in real life, love conquered all, as the rabbi who married Erin and Simon told the Mail.
“The series is a window into a particular difference that two people in love share and that is religious tradition, but it’s also about the fact that we all come from different types of families,” said Rabbi Beau Shapiro, who officiated the ceremony in December 2019. .
She explained: “It’s a relatable story because most couples don’t talk about their differences right away and that can lead to problems down the line, but Noah and Joanne’s characters are forced to confront theirs early on. “.
On screen, Noah is the consummate gentleman, opening Joanne’s car doors and carrying her suitcases, and Erin has since confessed that part of her attraction to her husband is due to how “old-fashioned” he is.
Certainly, until she and Simon got together, her romantic life had been full of ups and downs.
For example, Erin revealed that she had dated a number of ‘shitty men’ and, early in her career, had worked on a script about her love life called How to Raise a Boyfriend.
He also dated women and began a nine-month romance with famous British DJ Samantha Ronson, sister of producer Mark, in 2011.
Nobody Wants This tells the story of Joanne and her Rabbi boyfriend Noah, and was inspired by Erin Foster’s own love life.
This inspired a script called Lezzie “about a girl who becomes a lesbian.”
Lasting love continued to elude her, even after she co-wrote the 2015 reality show parody Barely Famous with her older sister Sara, in which they mocked themselves as semi-celebrities in Hollywood.
After the show was cancelled, she and Sara launched the ironically titled ‘The World’s First Podcast’, where conversations ranged from friendship and sister dynamics to dating, anxiety, aging, motherhood and infertility.
It’s no surprise, then, that on Nobody Wants This, Joanne hosts her podcast alongside her sister Morgan.
Erin and Simon married on New Year’s Eve 2019, in Nashville, after she took an eight-week course on choosing Judaism with her husband and converted to the Jewish faith.
Rabbi Shapiro of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple said Erin studied with him for her conversion and that their wedding was “spectacular and meaningful.”
Simon later said of Erin’s adoption of Judaism: “Having someone do that for you… (is) the greatest thing you can ever do.” I will always be grateful for Erin.
Meanwhile, Erin says: ‘Simon and Judaism: they both represented a family to me. It wasn’t something I did because Simon (wanted) me to do it, it’s something I did because I really felt it was the right way to start a life together.’
And, also, because I loved him deeply. As she says: ‘I love Simon. And I can’t believe he loves me too.
Her devotion to her husband is reflected in the character of the kind and thoughtful Rabbi Noah.
‘My husband is someone who cannot make you feel bad; “It’s not possible,” he says. “He just brings out this sweetness and kindness and makes people feel seen and makes you laugh.”
The series, she says, is a “love letter” to her “muse” husband.
Despite this, she clearly did not warn him that she was writing a program based on her own experience.
When she told him she had sold the show to Netflix, she said, “He said, ‘I’m sorry, you sold a show about what?’ I immediately panicked. I hadn’t even considered it (being a problem). For me, I thought, “Oh my God, I’m going to take our story and turn it into something cool. You’re welcome.’ And he had a different point of view.’
Erin Foster (second from right) with her father David, stepmother Katharine McPhee and husband Simon Tikhman.
“I’m from a very private family,” Simon said. “My mother always told us stories that if you said the wrong thing in the Soviet Union as a Jew, you could be put in jail.”
Fortunately, Erin’s in-laws were very supportive of Nobody Wants This, even if Erin’s idea of trying to preserve her husband’s privacy was to make her protagonist a rabbi.
As Erin admits: ‘My husband is very private. Being married to someone like me is his personal hell.
Their marriage has not been a bed of roses: while they welcomed a daughter, Noa, five months ago, they conceived only after enduring 20 rounds of IVF.
‘At some point in the process, I just froze. I stopped feeling the ups (there weren’t any) or the downs (there were too many). I stopped reacting after bad news or letting anyone talk to me about it,” Erin said.
Of course, the other striking difference between Simon and Erin, which she herself has acknowledged, is that his own upbringing was much more traditional than hers, with his parents staying loyally together for decades, while hers separated after four years.
“Simon’s parents…had been married for forty-something years,” she said. ‘And I come from a very entertainment-focused Los Angeles family, with a lot of marriages and divorces.
“We couldn’t have been from more different worlds, and those different worldviews really put us in a unique position to have…not conflicts, but challenges to move forward and start a life together.”
Whatever their differences, everyone can agree that it’s the recipe for a successful romantic comedy.