Andy Lalwani: The Journalist Who Shows Up For The Stories That Matter

Kirstie Nicole
4 days ago
4 min read

Andy Lalwani celebrity interviewer LGBTQ journalist entertainment media and host of Culture Shock Podcast | She Comes With Baggage Media — Photo by Cam Thrower

Editor's Notes: Some people enter a room and immediately make you feel like you belong there. Andy Lalwani is one of those people. As a queer, Indian journalist who has covered everything from the GLAAD Media Awards to Coachella, Andy has spent his career doing something quietly revolutionary...making sure the stories that don't always get the spotlight, get it anyway. In a media landscape that can feel fast-paced and overstimulating, Andy is a reminder that the most powerful thing a storyteller can do is make someone feel less alone. This one is for every kid who ever googled something in the dark, hoping the internet would tell them they were going to be okay.

Long before Andy Lalwani was standing on red carpets interviewing some of the most recognizable names in entertainment, he was a kid sitting alone with a search bar and a question he was too afraid to say out loud. "I literally google searched 'is being gay a disease,'" he recalls. What came back wasn't a diagnosis, it was people. Real people, telling their stories on YouTube, pulling back the curtain on their own lives so that a kid somewhere could understand his. That moment planted a seed that would quietly grow into everything Andy does today.

It wasn't until he covered The Trevor Project Gala, one of his very first red carpets, that the seed broke open. Standing in that space, surrounded by stories of survival, vulnerability, and resilience, something shifted in him permanently. "I started to realize how many stories are out there. Stories that are powerful, vulnerable, and deeply important. but don't always get the spotlight they deserve," he says. From that night forward, Andy knew he wasn't just there to cover events. He was there to amplify voices. To tell stories that make someone watching feel seen, understood, or, as he puts it, "a little less alone in what they're going through."

That sense of purpose carried him through a career that took him from building brands for other people's companies and visions to eventually betting on the most important one: himself. Independence, he'll tell you, is not for the faint of heart. "When it's just you, there's no one else to hide behind, and that can be intimidating. You can become your own toughest critic." But it was in that vulnerability that Andy found his clearest truth: the people around him were never just buying into the brand. They were buying into him. His vision. His execution. His ability to make things happen. "Independence taught me that I was always the asset."

And yet, getting to that realization wasn't a straight line. There were years of self-doubt, of shrinking, of being told, both directly and indirectly, that he wasn't ready, wasn't big enough, should wait his turn, should stay in his lane. There was even a stretch where he stopped making YouTube videos entirely, convinced he wasn't good enough because the numbers didn't reflect what he believed he had to offer. "Growth isn't always loud," he reflects now, "and success doesn't always look the way you expect it to in the beginning." The doubt didn't break him. It clarified something far more important: no one was going to hand him permission to grow. He had to decide he was ready before the room did.

What makes Andy's work resonate so deeply isn't just his range, it's his refusal to let interviews be anything other than human. He brings humor deliberately, because he knows the world can be heavy and sometimes people just need permission to breathe. "I love the real, human moments like the unexpected laughs, the little slip-ups, the unscripted reactions. That's where the magic is." In a media landscape drowning in polish and media training, Andy is looking for something rawer and more lasting, as in the moment someone lets their guard down and just becomes a person again.

That instinct, he'll tell you, comes from lived experience. Coming out as a gay Indian man wasn't easy. His parents' divorce forced him to grow up quickly. The conversations he needed growing up simply weren't happening around him. But instead of closing himself off, those experiences cracked him open giving him the empathy and perspective to hold space for stories that are messy, complicated, and profoundly real.

"My experiences, both the struggles and the growth, have given me the perspective and empathy to hold meaningful conversations and relate to so many different stories throughout my life."

Andy recently launched Culture Shock Podcast, a comedy interview podcast where public figures trade their polished personas for something far more interesting - honesty. With a debut guest roster that includes VINCINT, Tan France, Laverne Cox, and Matt Rogers, the show is quietly doing something radical just by existing: centering queer voices, stories, and humor in a space built and hosted by a queer man who knows firsthand what it means to search for yourself in media and come up empty. "We're not interested in the rehearsed answer," Andy says. "We're interested in what happens when someone admits the awkward, the messy, and the unexpectedly funny parts of building a public identity." For every kid still googling questions they're too afraid to ask out loud, Culture Shock is proof that the people who look and feel like you are not only out there, they're the ones holding the mic.

He also carries something rarer than talent in this industry: awareness. "I recognize there isn't another Indian, gay journalist out there," he says plainly. "I stand out. And I want to stand out for all the right reasons." In a cultural moment where audiences are craving authenticity over highlight reels and depth over headlines, Andy Lalwani is exactly the kind of storyteller we need more of. Not because he fits a mold, but because he never did — and decided that was the point.

Andy Lalwani: The Journalist Who Shows Up For The Stories That Matter

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