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It Happened In Hollywood
From The Hollywood Reporter
TV & Film
Gerbil
by The Hollywood Reporter
Today: #40 in TV & Film on our combined chart.
Today: #58 in TV & Film, United Kingdom on our combined chart.
Today: #59 in TV & Film, Canada on our combined chart.
Today: #68 in TV & Film, Australia on our combined chart.
Today: #49 in TV & Film, Mexico on our combined chart.
Today: #44 in TV & Film, New Zealand on our combined chart.
Today: #20 in TV & Film, Ireland on our combined chart.
Today: #27 in TV & Film, South Africa on our combined chart.
Chart positions today · Brazil
Not on the Germany charts we track today.
Not on the Brazil charts we track today.
Not on the India charts we track today.
Not on the Japan charts we track today.
Not on the Philippines charts we track today.
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Ranking history · Brazil
No ranking history for this show in Brazil over the last 7 days.
Latest episodes
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6 - Fear and Biting in Mesa
October 15, 2026 · 50 minGerbils 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…
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5 - Without a Base, Without a Trace
October 8, 2026 · 46 minIs "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.
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4 - Tail Between His Legs
October 1, 2026 · 47 minIn 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…
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3 - Sex Object
September 24, 2026 · 46 minPlaying 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…
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1 - The Word
September 17, 2026 · 41 minSay "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…
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2 - The Philadelphia Gerbil Panic of 1985
September 17, 2026 · 52 minCould 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?
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Gerbil: Inside Hollywood’s Most Unkillable Rumor - Trailer
September 15, 2026 · 2 minThe 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…
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.