“This is kind of the first era in my life where I feel like I have peace,” says YouTuber, podcaster and internet personality Tana Mongeau. For much of her career, she’s been best known for her chaotic “story time” videos and online drama — from an alleged FBI investigation to the cancelled over-capacity fan convention “TanaCon.” Now, Mongeau has entered what she calls her “most authentic era of life.”
“I’ve always been pretty authentic, but this one just feels so much more peaceful and true, and it’s so nice,” she says. She and Cancelled co-host Brooke Schofield recently took their podcast internationally with a series of live shows across Europe, with shows in Australia and New Zealand yet to come. But even with her newfound calm, fans can still expect her usual chaos.
“We have to really make sure that it’s ten times crazier than our podcast online, which is truly a hard ask,” she says. “The entire theme of this tour is just how far Brooke and I have come as individuals and with our show. We look back at old episodes, and I was drinking, and so was she. We were talking about our sexcapades and different party stories, and now both of us are in happy, healthy relationships.”
Some of the chaos, of course, comes from the audience: “Our advice segment is so wild. I’ve never seen anything like it. I think we have not had one show where a girl doesn’t tell us she’s hooking up with her boyfriend’s dad,” she says.
Her recent tours have nevertheless been a bit different than those in years’ past. “I’ve always been so moved by the things that are said to get meet and greets, and this was one of the first times on tour where I had so many girls telling me that I influenced them to go sober,” she says. “I had a girl come up to me and just say, ‘My parents thank you, because now they have a daughter.'”
Tana cites her relationship with her boyfriend, Makoa, as a source of her stability on tour and off. “It’s so nice to finally be in a relationship and feel safe and feel like someone truly loves me for all of me, and I don’t have to dull myself down,” she says.
In addition to the tour, Mongeau is also working to launch a collab years in the making: a line of pickles with Los Angeles-based Kaylin and Kaylin. “I am unapologetically such a pickle girl,” she says. “I hate saying that, because I sound like such a pick-me. It’s like the horse girl archetype. But I really do. I love them more than anything in the world.”
With the collab released and a gap on her tour, Mongeau now hopes to focus her attention on her memoir detailing her path from a tumultuous upbringing to fame, sobriety and calm.
“I was born emotionally on a rollercoaster, and a lot of the early years of my life were learning how to get off of that and find comfort and peace and stability,” she says. “For so long, I was seeking chaos because that’s how I felt comfortable. I just want to let all my girls know that peace is not boring. Having someone who respects you and doesn’t spike your nervous system is not boring. Choosing peace is the new choosing chaos.”
