Netflix’s latest drama series Nobody Wants This dropped its third season this week, and it’s got us deep in our feels. The unlikely romance story between sex podcaster Joanne (Kristen Bell), who is notoriously unlucky in love, and rabbi Noah (Adam Brody), who has is funny, heartwarming, and crucially the first rom-com in a while to not cringe us out.
It turns out the series is, in part, inspired by the real-life love story between its creator Erin Foster and her husband Simon Tikhman. Erin, music producer David Foster’s daughter, has described the show as a “love letter” to her marriage to Simon and began working on it in May 2023—aka when the project was originally green-lit by Netflix.
Read on and discover the IRL fairytale that inspired our latest binge-watch.
Who is Erin Foster?
Erin Foster, 42, is the daughter of music producer David Foster and former model Rebecca Dyer.
Along with her sister Sara Foster, Erin has worked in TV for a number of years. She began her career in acting with roles in Gilmore Girls, CSI, and The O.C., which *also* starred Nobody Wants This cast member Adam Brody.
She was also a writer on Ryan Murphy’s The New Normal series and co-created the show Barely Famous with Sara.
Erin and Sara also have a clothing line together called Favorite Daughter and a podcast titled The World’s First Podcast.
What is the true story that inspired Nobody Wants This?
Nobody Wants This is, in part, based on the love story between Erin and her current husband Simon.
Simon is a record label owner (not a rabbi) and the pair began dating in 2018 after meeting at the gym, with Simon asking Erin to be his girlfriend in June of that year.
One year later, the couple announced their engagement via Erin’s sister Sara thanks to a picture she posted on Instagram with *that* ring alongside the caption, “Ladies, I guess the moral of the story is stay crazy because apparently it gets you a ring.”
Just a few months later, the couple tied the knot on New Year’s Eve in a traditional Jewish ceremony in Nashville. Oh, and they recently welcomed their first child together named Noa.
Erin ended up converting to Judaism ahead of her wedding to Simon, which partially inspired the idea for Nobody Wants This. The series echoes similar issues the couple ran into when they first started dating as they tried to navigate building a relationship with their differing lifestyles.
“We didn’t come from similar backgrounds,” Erin explained about dating Simon on her podcast. “He came from a much more traditional place. I came from a more unconventional place. When we got together we were like, ‘How’s this gonna work?’”
Erin based Noah’s character off Simon, explaining on The World’s First Podcast that she wanted to create someone who was, “emotionally available, chivalrous, old-fashioned...but also really funny and confident.”
Additionally, there are other moments from the couple’s real-life love story that also made it into the series—namely, the sunflower moment.
In season 1, episode six of Nobody Wants This, Noah rushes to meet Joanne’s parents and turns up in gym gear with a bunch of sunflowers in hand, which causes Joanne to get the ick. In real life, Simon brought sunflowers when meeting Erin’s mother, which caused her to question the relationship, as she thought it was a “weakness” for someone to care that much about it.
However, the key difference between the series and the true story is that, while in real life, Erin wanted to convert to Judaism, Joanne is much more on the fence, which is the primary conflict of the show.
‘Nobody Wants This’ is available on Netflix now.