TV & Film

Gerbil

by The Hollywood Reporter

TV & FilmTrue Crime

Today: #21 in TV & Film, New Zealand on our combined chart.

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Chart positions today · New Zealand

TV & Film

#21

#21#12#14 Pulse 46

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Ranking history · New Zealand

TV & Film

Latest daily rankings: Oct 22. New rankings will appear after the next update.

Position on the TV & Film, New Zealand combined chart over the last 7 days. Toggle platforms to compare their positions. Lower rank numbers are better.

View as table

Date	Combined Rank	Apple Podcasts	Pocket Casts	Castbox
Oct 22	#21	#21	#14	#12
Oct 21	#44	#44	#34	#41
Oct 20	#24	#24	#15	#16
Oct 19	#11	#11	#8	#11
Oct 18	#5	#6	#4	#8
Oct 17	#4	#4	#3	#5
Oct 16	#3	#3	#6	#3

Latest episodes

7 - A Guide to Dating Gerbils

October 22, 2026 · 1 hr 6 min

The Toronto Film Festival, a Hollywood sitcom writers room, and a Manhattan humor magazine provide clues through the murkiest origins of the rumor. Testimony from writers and reporters, and a key archival discovery, give unsettling clarity…
6 - Fear and Biting in Mesa

October 15, 2026 · 50 min

Gerbils have been illegal in California since 1924. So how does the rumor even work? Allen road-trips to Arizona to meet real gerbils, becomes a casualty of a nasty hamster, consults Sigmund Freud, and calls up New York's "Rat Czar" to…
5 - Without a Base, Without a Trace

October 8, 2026 · 46 min

Is "gerbiling” actually a real thing? Between a bestiality investigator's case file, a 2024 FBI report, and doctors who've seen things, we go looking for the line between urban legend and actual medical phenomenon.
4 - Tail Between His Legs

October 1, 2026 · 47 min

In the 1980’s after Rock Hudson's death, Hollywood's homophobia is in full panic mode, and American culture is whispering about – and mocking – the sexuality of leading men. Plus: another newsman, another gerbil rumor, real damage, and the…
3 - Sex Object

September 24, 2026 · 46 min

Playing pimps and hustlers, attacking the press, projecting an unreadable sexuality — welcome to early Richard Gere. Bret Easton Ellis, Karina Longworth, and journalist Michael Gross help explain how the star became the perfect vessel for…

Show 3 more episodesShow fewer episodes

1 - The Word

September 17, 2026 · 41 min

Say "gerbil" to someone and watch their face. Everyone's heard the rumor. Nobody knows where it came from. Reporter Allen Salkin isn't sure he should be the one to dig into it, but a tip from the daughter of an '80s ER doctor changes his…
2 - The Philadelphia Gerbil Panic of 1985

September 17, 2026 · 52 min

Could Jerry Penacoli — Philly's golden-boy newsman, be the Gerbil rumor's actual patient zero? Eyewitnesses and archival tape tell a wilder, sadder story than anyone remembers. Did the rumor jump cities before it infected Gere?
Gerbil: Inside Hollywood’s Most Unkillable Rumor - Trailer

September 15, 2026 · 2 min

The Richard Gere gerbil rumor won’t die. Why? Did a movie star really show up at a hospital in the 1980s with a rodent in his rectum he’d inserted for sexual pleasure? Investigative reporter Allen Salkin spent six-years examining documents…

Full episode archive on Apple Podcasts →

About the show

Everyone knows the story about Richard Gere. Few know how it started. For four decades, a salacious and unproven rumor has shadowed one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Investigative reporter Allen Salkin spent six years chasing its origins — and uncovered a story about gossip, power, politics, the internet and the peculiar wiring of our own brains. New episodes every Thursday.