Lemonada Media Announces New Original Podcast “Believe Her,” the Network’s First True Crime Series, Following Nikki Addimando’s Riveting Story of Survival
Author and journalist Justine van der Leun hosts the six-part series, which aims to shine a light on domestic violence victims in the criminal justice system. Listen to the full series wherever you get your podcasts.
LOS ANGELES, CA (October 7, 2021) — Lemonada Media, the podcast network that presents humanity unfiltered, and Spiegel & Grau, an independent multi-platform publishing house that publishes stories that matter, today announce their newest original podcast, “Believe Her.” The show is Lemonada’s first true crime series. In this six-part series, journalist and author Justine van der Leun investigates the case of Nikki Addimando, a case that shines a light on the devastating effects of domestic and sexual violence, trauma, and the American criminal justice system. This is a true crime story flipped upside down — a story about survival, punishment, and a push for change.
In September 2017, Nikki Addimando, a young mom, shot and killed her partner, Chris Grover. After an exhaustive trial, Nikki was convicted of murder and sentenced to nineteen years to life in prison. Through rare access to police audio, official documents, conversations with Nikki, and three years of original reporting, host Justine van der Leun lays out the killing, the evidence, and the aftermath. “Believe Her” is a riveting story that examines the assumptions we make about domestic and sexual violence, the long reach of trauma, and the ways in which survival is criminalized, leaving us astonished by how far people will go to avoid seeing what’s right in front of them.
“Nearly half of all female murder victims in the US are killed by intimate partners,” says van der Leun. “But what’s just as shocking is what can happen when a woman doesn’t die — when she fights back. With ‘Believe Her,’ we’re unraveling one complex, layered case of criminalized survival, and we’re asking: How can we stop cycles of trauma and violence? What does true justice look like?”
“As a network, we never thought we’d delve into true crime, but when Spiegel & Grau and Justine approached us about this project, it fit so well with our mission to amplify unheard voices and tell the human story buried beneath the headline,” says Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Lemonada’s co-founder and CCO.
“We believe that Nikki Addimando’s story allows us to grapple with important, difficult issues, upending our assumptions and making us question our beliefs. We are honored to partner with Lemonada to shine a light on the important issue of domestic and sexual violence,” says Cindy Spiegel.
The first two episodes of “Believe Her” from Lemonada Media and Spiegel & Grau will be available on all major podcast platforms on Thursday, October 21st. Subscribe to listen HERE.
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ABOUT LEMONADA MEDIA
Lemonada is a podcast network founded in 2019 by Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs. The company’s podcasts share an unfiltered version of the human experience in a time of increasing polarization, in an effort to make life suck less. Lemonada provides a robust advertising platform, one that is nonpartisan and deeply engaging, with uniquely amiable host-read ads. For sponsorship opportunities, contact: dawn@lemonadamedia.com. For press inquiries, contact: lemonada@metropublicrelations.com.
ABOUT JUSTINE VAN DER LEUN | HEADSHOT
Justine van der Leun is an award-winning journalist, an Emerson fellow at the New America Foundation, and a reporting fellow at Type Media Center. She is currently writing Unreasonable Women: Survival, Punishment, and Mass Incarceration in America, which will blend narrative stories with original nationwide data to explore the links between trauma, systemic failures, and the criminalization of women’s acts of survival from physical and sexual abuse. The book will be published by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins. Follow her @justinevdl.
ABOUT SPIEGEL & GRAU
Spiegel & Grau is an independent publishing company founded by Cindy Spiegel and Julie Grau in 2021. With books at the center of their business, their goal is to amplify writers’ and creators’ voices across a range of platforms that best suit a story’s message, enlarging the very definition and scope of publishing. Visit spiegelandgrau.com and follow them @SpiegelandGrau.
