Today’s episode features someone I am proud to call my friend – Riyadh Khalaf. We met a few years back when we worked at the same radio station in Dublin, I had been there for a few years at that stage, had a baby or two at that stage and he was the next generation on the way in, embracing the new online age, going most places with a video camera in tow, his own You Tube Channel and buckets of enthusiasm. I told him then that he had something special so watching his star ascend has come as no surprise to me, his You Tube Channel followers hit 378 thousand subscribers where he shares honest accounts of life, love, coming out and reading mean tweets. His video where his mum reads out his grindr messages has had over 5 millons views. Riyadh has a gift of interweaving important topics with laugh out loud humour.

He now lives in London where he has worked at BBC Radio, he’s a reporter for The One Show, he won Celebrity Masterchef and remains a huge social media star. He still has so many plans for documentary making and he’s living his best life, travelling, on dancefloors and he shares a cat called Claire with his partner Josh – I never did ask about that bit in the interview – but I'm not offended, I’m a cat person and boy is she a beauty.

Riyadh is a Changemaker because he has taken what shouldn’t have been taboo and hauled it into the mainstream, he has taken abuse for it but used that to power him on. The message of thanks he receives far outweigh any trolling and his book Yay You’re Gay Now What has sold around the world.

Empathy is said to be one of the key components of a changemaker and what Riyadh has to say about empathy in this conversation gave me goosebumps – Riyadh makes the world a better place – hope you enjoy x

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