Jason Sheeler and Andrea Lavinthal

 
Photo courtesy of Charlotte Rutherford.
 
 

PEOPLE's Deputy West Coast Editor Jason Sheeler and Style and Beauty Director Andrea Lavinthal are the co-hosts of PEOPLE in the ‘90s. Follow Jason on Instagram here. Follow Andrea on Twitter here. Follow PEOPLE on Twitter here.

Tell us about PEOPLE in the '90s.
Jason:  It’s a love letter to our favorite decade in podcast form. We consider the ’90s a golden age of pop culture and wanted to create a show where we could talk about all of the people and moments that defined it.

Andrea:  Also, we were looking for an excuse to dish some 30-year-old gossip because we are that obsessed.

What was your relationship to PEOPLE magazine in the '90s?
Jason:  Growing up in Arkansas, I grabbed it at the Piggly Wiggly every Friday. I’d tell my mom I was going to “catch up with some friends.”

Andrea: My mom has been a subscriber for as long as I can remember and I loved to read about celebrity divorces when I got home from my ballet lessons.

Your favorite years in the '90s is 1994 and 1997, respectively. Why?
Jason: 1994 was the year Friends and Cameron Diaz happened and when Bryant Gumbel asked Katie Couric, “What is the internet, anyway?” on the Today show. It was also the year I began watching Melrose Place in gay bars.

Andrea: It was the year I bought my first thong.

Tell us about your Fabio segment. How did it come about?
Andrea: Jason’s dream guest is Fabio. As he explains, “Fabio is the ’90s to me. Especially because back then, I assumed all men in Hollywood looked like that.” (And by the way, Fabio was on a PEOPLE cover in 1993!) We figured he would be an easy get. As it turns out, he’s, like, Angelina-level elusive. Then, our fabulous PR team heard about Jason’s quest, which by that point had become an obsession of the entire PEOPLE in the ‘90s team, and they encouraged us to turn it into a segment. Hence, “Chasing Fabio.”
Jason: By the way, you must listen to his 1993 album, Fabio After Dark.

I'm not sure if you can tell us this but...were you able to get a hold of Fabio?
Jason: The chase is still on.

Why is Fabio so elusive?
Andrea: Because he’s happy living his best Fabio life. Which we imagine involves a lot of unbuttoned linen shirts, candlelight dinners, and long walks on the beach.

If you were going to tell new listeners to dip into the show, which episode should they go to first?
Jason:  The one about ’90s summer blockbuster movies, with Jamie Lee Curtis. She was incredibly candid and she had the absolute best answer to our favorite guest question, “Why can’t we move on from the ’90s?”

Andrea:  Also, because she talked about “going commando north to south” at this year’s Golden Globes, so we just love her.

Thanks, Jason and Andrea!

 
Lauren Passell