Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Snapshot · Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Olivia Wilde

Explore episode Jun 29, 2026
Society & Culture
Triple citizenship: British, Irish, American

Olivia Wilde · Jun 29, 2026

Olivia Wilde holds triple citizenship — British, Irish, and American — having grown up spending every school holiday in Ireland and feeling equally Irish and American as a child.

Where this was said

War Correspondents for Parents: Baghdad, Bulletproof Vests, and a Salon at Home

At 22:09 · chapter starts 18:00

This chapter is the biographical heart of the episode. Olivia describes her parents as war correspondents who would take separate planes to Baghdad and stay in different hotels, meeting in secret in the middle of the night before going out to work in bulletproof vests — a life she describes as 'sexy' and 'role-playing.' Her mother Leslie, she reveals, was the first Western journalist to interview Saddam Hussein's sons, gaining access partly because subjects underestimated a woman. Leslie also smuggled a hidden camera under a burqa into Taliban-controlled territory. Despite these consuming careers, Olivia says her parents bridged the gap by treating the home as a salon, inviting interesting people over and including the children in adult conversations — a practice Olivia actively tries to replicate with her own kids.

History
Leslie Cockburn: second class of women at Yale

Olivia Wilde · Jun 29, 2026

Leslie Cockburn was among the second class of women ever admitted to Yale University, studied anthropology, graduated early, and then lived in Kenya for a year before graduate school in London.

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