In her retirement from competition, Danica Patrick has become a recurring guest pundit and analyst across a large swath of racing coverage on television. She has appeared on NBC’s coverage of the Indianapolis 500, in the NASCAR on FOX commentary booth, during the SRX short-track series on CBS, and on Sky Sports’ F1 coverage in Britain, simulcast in the U.S. on ABC and ESPN. Though, the only place to hear from Patrick on a weekly basis is her podcast “Pretty Intense.”
Danica Patrick retired from racing after a one-off appearance in the 2018 Indianapolis 500. She spent the last five years of her career as a driver in the NASCAR Cup Series but became a household name in IndyCar. Patrick became the only woman to win an IndyCar race in 2008 and finished third in the 2009 Indy 500, the best result by a woman in the marquee event.
“Pretty Intense” offers a view of Danica Patrick outside the world of racing, a version of the star never seen on television. Listeners will hear Patrick and her guests spout bizarre beliefs on relationships, self-help, wellness, and aliens. Yes, aliens. A few competitors from her racing career, such as Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, and Clint Bowyer, have appeared on the show, but fringe figures are the norm.
Based on YouTube’s figures, the most popular episode of Patrick’s show featured extremist right-wing figure Jordan Peterson as a guest. A clip from the episode garnered over four million views.
Last week, Patrick released an episode with Kashif Khan as a guest. Khan claims that aliens edited human DNA just before the start of recorded history to restrict lifespans to a maximum of 120 years. Khan stated that his unfounded belief stems from characters in historical myths living for centuries. Patrick doesn’t challenge it, hypothesizing that those mythical figures might have been aliens themselves or human-alien hybrids.
The discussion with Khan isn’t an outlier. Patrick has invited guests to talk about aliens secretly living among us, how the truth about UFOs being kept from the public, and weird ideas about the pyramids. You know, normal stuff from someone who should probably also stay off the racing commentary circuit.