Today’s episode is a little different.
There’s no guest, no interview, just a personal reflection on someone I had the opportunity to know.
In this episode, I share memories of Nicholas Brendon—the conversations, the humor, the moments that don’t make headlines, but stay with you long after they happen.
This is not a discussion of public narratives or controversy. It’s simply a remembrance. A quieter look at the person behind the public image.
Included in this episode are a few clips from one of my earliest recordings with him, shared not for entertainment, but to let you hear him as I experienced him.
This is a farewell.
And a thank you.
—Erin
#Personal Reflection #Tribute #In Memoriam #Storytelling#Life & Legacy #NicholasBrendan
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Today's episode is going to be a little different.
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I didn't plan this one. I don't have notes in a way I
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usually do. There's no guest, no structured
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interview, just a story I feel I need to share.
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Sometimes life gives you moments that don't fit into a format,
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and this is one of those moments.
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This one is personal. I wanted to take time to reflect
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on someone I had the opportunity to know and to honor their
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memory, to talk about the impact he had, and to say goodbye.
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I met Nicholas Brendan back in 2020 when I first started
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haunting Surround America. Like many connections during
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that time, it began digitally. Zoom calls, conversations about
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ghost stories, and eventually a little bit about his time on
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I think that's something
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worth pausing on just for a second, because 2020 was such a
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strange time. The world felt disconnected,
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isolated, and yet somehow we were all finding new ways to
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connect. And for me, one of those
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connections was Nikki. Growing up, Buffy was one of my
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favorite shows. It was one of those series that
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just sticks with you. The characters, the writing, the
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emotion. And I remember him asking me
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about it once and my mind went completely blank, not because I
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hadn't seen it, I had seen every episode, but because I suddenly
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realized I was talking to Xander Harris.
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I remember him going, Aaron, have you even seen the show?
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And I laughed because yeah, I had definitely seen it.
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It was my favorite growing up. You know, every.
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I don't remember what day it came on, but I'd have to get
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home, turn on the WB and see what kind of antics the Scooby
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gang was up to that day. But like I said, I didn't freeze
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because I didn't know the show. I froze because I was talking to
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one of the stars of the show, and I didn't quite know how to
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process that at the time. At that point in my life, I
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hadn't really figured out how to talk to people.
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I watched on screen. There's this weird disconnect.
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You feel like you know them, but of course they don't know you,
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and suddenly you're in a conversation and your brain just
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kind of short circuits that awkwardness.
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It didn't last long because Nikki had this rare ability,
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this really rare ability to make you feel comfortable almost
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instantly. He didn't talk at you.
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He talked with you like you were equals, like you were just two
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people having a conversation, not a fan and a celebrity.
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And I think that's something really special.
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We talked about life, the entertainment industry, and even
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our favorite episodes of Buffy. Mine was the Thanksgiving
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episode in Season 4 where I think it opens with Xander
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falling into some kind of underground area and he gets
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possessed by some Native American demon or something.
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Any ends of like syphilis. It was really it was a goofy
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episode. I loved it His I remember that
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Nikki told me that his favorite episode was the iconic musical
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episode. I think it's called One More
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Time with Feeling. That was his favorite and at one
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point he just started singing his part, the one that he sang
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with Anya in the episode. And I remember sitting there
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thinking, is this actually happening right now?
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I felt like a time capsule, like I've been dropped back in the
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moment. I first watched that episode all
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those years ago. We talked about how you really
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felt about others in Hollywood, including his Co stars from
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Buffy. And no, I'm not talking about
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that. Not telling those secrets.
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Those are the moments you want to hold on to over the years.
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We check in from time to time that constantly.
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Definitely not every day, not even every, gosh, not even every
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year, I don't believe but enough that there was a thread there.
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We talked about ghosts. Of course, I'm I'm the ghost
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hunter. Waverly Hills came up more than
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once. We talked about his art, his
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love of building things and creating things with his hands.
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And that always stood out to me because for someone who had
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spent so much time in front of a camera, there was this other
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side of him that just wanted to build, to create something
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tangible, something real. At one point, we even joked
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about creating a ghost hunting show together.
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This was just like the most ridiculous show, but it was
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something like a home renovation series.
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But every house came with a spirit attached.
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Looking back, I still think it would have been, you know,
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amazing, if not weird, and cancelled after the first
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episode. But it was probably too risky to
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pitch. But it was it was fun to dream
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about. And that was Nikki.
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He was a dreamer. Now, I think it's important to
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say this too. While there were pieces of
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Xander in him, that humor, the curiosity, he wasn't the
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character people thought they knew, and he was very aware of
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that. In fact, he once told me in an
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interview that Xander wasn't really him at all, that a lot of
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that character came from Joss Whedon, who who was the director
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and creator of Buffy. And I think that's something we
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forget sometimes. We see someone on screen and we
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think we know them, we attach identities to them.
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But actors, they're playing a role.
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That's their job. Nicky was his own person.
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He was complicated, A human, and he was evolving.
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When I woke up to the news that he passed, obviously I was
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devastated. My heart broke.
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And I don't think it all hit at once.
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I think it came in waves because losing someone is always
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painful, but when that person is well known, it becomes something
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else entirely. There's no quiet space to
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process it, no moment to just sit with your thoughts.
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Within minutes, my phone was flooded.
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TMZ, people, CNN, social media post, headlines, reactions.
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It was everywhere. And grief isn't meant to be
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processed like that. It's meant to be quiet,
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personal, messy. But instead it becomes public.
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And with that came something else.
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If you knew of Nikki, he knew he had faced his fair share of
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controversy. There were difficult chapters in
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his life, struggles that were very public, very scrutinized.
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And I want to be really clear here.
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I'm not here to debate that. I'm not here to analyze it
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because I can only speak about the person I knew.
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And that person I knew was kind. He was never arrogant with me,
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never dismissive, never made me feel small or unimportant.
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He was honest about his struggles, open about the fact
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that he wasn't perfect and he wanted to do better.
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Not for headlines, not for the industry, just for himself.
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And that matters. That really matters.
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The last time I spoke to him was it was over a year ago.
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I was about to walk into a meeting with some major
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Hollywood executives and despite everything I do, podcasting,
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writing, interviewing, I am at my core, an introvert.
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Quiet, shy to a fault. Public speaking terrifies me
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still. And that night I was alone in a
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hotel room 700 miles from home, and my anxiety was overwhelming.
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It was one of those moments where your thoughts just spiral,
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and spiral they did, Where every possible outcome plays out in
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your head and none of them are good.
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And somehow I ended up in in a liquor store trying to find the
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biggest bottle of wine they had because that felt easier than
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facing the next day. And right before I checked out,
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my phone rang. It was Nikki.
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I still don't know what made him call in that moment, but I'm
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really glad he did. He told me first, put the bottle
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down. You don't want to show up on
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over. Then he shifted.
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He told me to walk into that meeting like I owned the place,
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stand tall, be confident. And then he said something I
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will never forget. If they say no, who cares?
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Fuck them. That's the beauty of this world.
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Even if it doesn't work out, there's something to learn.
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So fuck them. And I remember laughing because
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it was such a Nicky thing to say.
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But it stuck. It grounded me.
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And the next day I walked into that meeting and I faced it, and
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I was OK. And if you're listening to this
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right now, and as a fan of Plot Twist Radio, you have Nikki to
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thank for that. Because without that moment,
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without that push, I don't know if I would have kept going in
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the same way. Actually, he was my very first
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interview, my very first guest before Plot Twist even had a
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name. And that episode will never be
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released. It was, to say the least, chaos.
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I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know what to ask.
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I was nervous, awkward, completely out of my debt.
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And Nikki. He had a lot to say, most of it
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wildly inappropriate, some of it completely unhinged, all of it
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very, very real. And honestly, it was hilarious.
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But more than that, it was human.
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And I think that's the part I want people to hear.
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So I'm going to share a few sound bites from the
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conversation, Not for entertainment, but so you can
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hear him the way I knew him, the way the people closest to him
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knew. Not the headlines, not the
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commentary, not the narrative people have built.
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Just him, because at his core, he reminded me of a kid.
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Curious, wondrous, always asking questions, sometimes a little
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lost. But aren't we all?
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His first clip was when I told you about earlier when he was
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talking about Xander and the inspiration behind him.
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Joss was my mentor. I was playing Joss, Xander was
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Joss and I was trained by Joss. And and and and at training is
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this. It's got to be word perfect, and
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you're good at what you do. He'll love you, you know?
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But word perfect is, is #1 like, for instance, when he was
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directing his stuff, I would do the same.
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He's like Brendell's perfect emotion when I put that thought
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there for a reason. Yes, Sir.
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Copy. Copy that.
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This next guy corrects me up because we were talking about
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cats. I'm a huge animal person,
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especially cats. So he went on one of his spiel's
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about cats. It was so goofy, so incredibly
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him, and it still makes me laugh to this day.
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I'm not a cat person, right? No, I just my cat adopted being
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Jeff. He's a good guy.
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I love, but I'm not a cat for some adults and some people
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would say I said I'm not a cat person and I sure as fuck don't
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want to look at pictures of your fucking cat.
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You know, no one happened ever again.
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And so I so I was thinking I'm like, I'd say no, no, you would
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like my cat because my cat has to stop and boom, right there.
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That person isn't sucked into this world of the cats and it's
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in a it's it's a it's a it's an alley, right?
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It's a dirt Rd. with a huge kind of wooden gate, you know, kind
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of like like Renaissance. And there's a cat who looks a
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lot like the cat from Bojack Horseman, if you ever watched
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that. I haven't watched it, no.
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OK. It's just the cat.
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It's like. Hello.
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Hello. Your name is Ryan?
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Yeah. You know where you are?
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No. You're in the land of Cat.
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This last clip I want to play it.
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It was the the motivation I needed to get this show going.
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And as I said before, this was kind of like a practice episode
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of sorts. And as you can hear from the
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clip, it had a lot to do with Boomstein.
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My confidence for the show I. Found out that it's a lot easier
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just to remember the truth and to and to act, yes, act.
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Well, you know what? I mean.
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So that's you got to make mistakes in order to to be
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perfect, but I make mistakes are to be hey, having me on your
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show would help you out. Then I'll do it.
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So you think about that, get back to me.
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We'll circle back out and we'll put a pen in it.
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Here's the thing about life. It's unpredictable, it's messy,
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it's beautiful and chaotic and sometimes unbearably heavy.
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We all go through things, we all make mistakes, we all try to
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find our way, and at the end of the day, we're all just chasing
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something. A dream, a purpose, a sense of
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peace, and I hope he found his. My thoughts and prayers are with
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his family, his friends, and especially Teresa, his assistant
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and manager. I had the chance to get to know
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her over the years and I know how much he cared about her.
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With that, I say farewell my friend, I hope you found your
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paradise in the sky. Before I go today, I want you
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all to just take a second and remember someone in your own
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life, Someone who made an impact on you, even if it was only for
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a moment, even if it seemed insignificant at the time.
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Because now memory lives on through you.