Just as both The Pitt and The White Lotus creep toward their season finales, FX’s new miniseries Dying for Sex is here to save us from a total prestige-TV vacuum. Starring Michelle Williams as podcaster and author Molly Kochan, the show offers an in-depth look at death, wellness, and the healing power of sexual connection and passion in unbearably difficult times.
But how much of it is based in fact? Below, find everything you need to know about the real-life story that inspired Dying for Sex.
Who is the real Molly?
The real-life Molly Kochan actually did experience a sexual awakening in her early 40s, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
After undergoing surgeries and radiation treatment in 2013, Kochan explained in episode one (“Happy Endings”) of Dying for Sex, the podcast that inspired the FX series, that she “was on this hormone therapy, which is supposed to kind of squash your libido and make you dry and kinda weird, but it had the opposite reaction. Like, I literally wanted to hump everything and everyone that I saw.” At first, this led her to engage in flirtations with men over Facefeed and Snapchat—which Kochan’s husband, to her surprise, was fine with.
“I know what it’s like to act out sexually and kind of disconnect from your body, but this is doing the opposite for me,” Kochan explained on the podcast. “It’s plugging me into my body, into feeling alive and creative.”
Did Molly really leave her husband?
Molly’s husband, Steve (Jay Duplass), is portrayed as a somewhat clueless guy who doesn’t totally understand the journey that Molly is on after her diagnosis. In real life, Kochan and her husband really did part ways after she learned, in 2015, that her breast cancer was stage IV, having now spread to her brain, bones, and liver. (They were actually in couples’ therapy when Kochan received the news from her doctor.) They remained good friends, however.
“I was like, I love my husband, but we’re not really a romantic fit, and I don’t think that I can self-realize in the context of this marriage, for many reasons,” Kochan said on the podcast. It was then that she started to convert her virtual dalliances into real-life flings.
Did Molly have a real-life Nikki?
Yes. Molly’s best friend Nikki Boyer—who’s played to perfection by Jenny Slate in the FX series—really was by Nikki’s side throughout her ordeal. The two friends first met in an acting class in 1999. “We’ve been together through marriages, divorces, boyfriends, her stepkids, and now my cancer…twice,” Kochan wrote in her 2020 memoir, Screw Cancer: Becoming Whole. “She cries, sometimes as much, if not more, than I do about my diagnosis. But we laugh too. That’s always been the light of our relationship: laughter.” It was also Boyer who ultimately hosted the Dying for Sex podcast.
How did Molly’s actual story end?
Unfortunately, Molly’s real-life battle with cancer came to an end on March 8, 2019. In a blog post titled “I Have Died” that was published after her death, Molly wrote: “As I die, I still put pressure on myself. I get angry when I can’t sit up to type. There are projects I am hoping to finish before I go. But I have no control over any of that. The only thing I can work on is being without the guilt of not doing. Accepting that my days are what they were.”
