Hulu’s ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ Is Based On A Now-Defunct (But Massively Popular) Advice Column
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You may know Tiny Beautiful Things as the new Kathryn Hahn series on Hulu (which BTW, premieres tomorrow). But the origins of the series go a lot further. The show, which was developed by Reese Witherspoon's production company Hello Sunshine, as well as executive produced by Laura Dern, actually somewhat details the life and work of writer Cheryl Strayed.
If you don't already know Cheryl Strayed by name, you probably recognize her writing. The author wrote the bestselling memoir Wild, which was later adapted into a Reese Witherspoon movie in 2014. She also wrote a massively popular advice column for The Rumpus titled "Dear Sugar" in the early 2010s—and that became the source material for the book Tiny Beautiful Things, which is a collection of Cheryl's choice columns, most of them bearing the more complex challenges she's had to help solve.
The plot of Hulu's Tiny Beautiful Things adaptation follows protagonist Clare, as she takes over an advice column just as her own life is falling apart. The show explores Clare's relationship with her husband (Quentin Plair) and daughter, Rae (Tanzyn Crawford). It also goes back in time to pivotal moments in her past.
The parallels between Cheryl Strayed's life and the Tiny Beautiful Things series are pretty evident. Women's Health has gathered everything to know about this nearly-true story.
'Dear Sugar' was a real advice column.
In Tiny Beautiful Things the series, Clare begins writing an advice column called "Dear Sugar" while her life is starting to fall apart. This part of the series is directly from the book (which is fully titled Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice From Dear Sugar) and Strayed's own life.
In 2010, Strayed took over the "Dear Sugar" advice column for The Rumpus literary magazine from writer Steve Almond. Instead of writing the advice column with practical feedback to problems, Strayed answered in thoughtful essays, making sure to include examples from own life—hitting on larger themes of what it meant to be human, per TIME.
The column was so successful that Strayed published a collection of posts into Tiny Beautiful Things in 2012, following the success of her memoir Wild (which was released earlier that same year). These days, Strayed hosts a podcast with Steve Almond called Dear Sugars for WBUR.
Strayed had money troubles, just like her Tiny Beautiful Things character.
In the series, Clare struggles to hold down a job and make ends meet throughout her career as a writer. Similarly, Strayed also had financial problems. In fact, prior to Wild's success, Strayed was $85,000 in debt and nearly lost her home, per Vulture.
"Our life didn’t change [after I sold Wild]. We only got out of credit card debt. But it changed in that way, trust me. As anyone who’s been in severe credit card debt knows, it was a nightmare," Strayed told Vulture.
Strayed also got married young.
Although she's currently in her second marriage to documentary filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, Strayed married her first husband, Marco Littig, when she was just 20 years old. This also closely reflects Hahn's character in Tiny Beautiful Things.
Strayed also documents her relationship with her first husband in Wild, using "Paul" as a pseudonym.
A heartbreaking scene from the series actually happened to Strayed.
In an episode of Tiny Beautiful Things, younger Clare, played by Sarah Pidgeon, is called home from college by her mother for seemingly no reason at all. In the scene, young Clare is reluctant and annoyed to be returning home from school. "I can't just come home because you miss me," she says, per TIME.
Her mother had prepared an unexpectedly formal meal for Clare and her brother, and informs her children that she has been diagnosed with an untreatable disease. This exact scenario is reportedly how Strayed found out her own mother had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
"I feel such a sense of gentleness for the younger version of myself… It’s the most specific and bizarre form of therapy," Strayed said to TIME, reflecting on the scene.
Tiny Beautiful Things is Strayed's life in an alternate reality.
Liz Tigelaar, a showrunner for Tiny Beautiful Things, considers Clare to be a version of Strayed who did not hike the Pacific Crest Trail (the experience that ended up being the basis for Strayed's memoir Wild).
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Tigelaar told Vanity Fair in December 2022 that Strayed underwent a “hero’s journey,” during her hike, and says that Hahn's character in Tiny Beautiful Things considers what Strayed would have become had not gone on that trip.
Strayed also said that Clare, and Tiny Beautiful Things, are not autobiographical. “[Clare] is somebody who I have a lot of things in common with, but her present day life is not my life. The things that are happening in her marriage are not the things that are happening in my marriage, her child is not mine,” Strayed told Vanity Fair.
Another key difference between Strayed and Clare: In Tiny Beautiful Things, Clare only has one daughter, and Strayed has two children.
However, Strayed did say that some pieces of Clare "had" to be entangled in her own past—such as the character's constant struggle with money, the loss of her mother, and her decision to "scandalously" get married at a young age.
You can see every detail about Strayed's almost-life in Tiny Beautiful Things, which drops on Hulu on April 7.
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