KarenLee Poter

KarenLee Poter turned one of the most unspeakable tragedies imaginable into an unlikely launchpad for personal transformation. In 2006, her childhood sweetheart, husband of nearly 24 years, best friend, and father of her three children was murdered by one of his employees in a cold-blooded attack. Utterly devastated, Poter nevertheless managed to vow that she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life as “the widow whose husband got murdered”. Today, she is a successful entrepreneur, freelance writer, and podcaster. She built an appreciative audience through her realistic and humourous tales of learning to date again in her 40s. Over the years, she has come to call herself a “cougar” (an older woman that dates younger men) and talks and writes openly about sex and relationships — so openly, in fact, that she co-hosts a popular podcast with her son, Sex Talk with My Mom, which has become one of Esquire magazine’s top ten sex podcasts. She has published two well-received books: A Cougar’s Guide to Getting Your Ass Back Out There and F*ck Games, Date Cougars.

Poter is a popular presence on social media. She has close to 63,000 subscribers and her videos have been viewed an incredible 32.8 million times. She also has 51,000 Instagram followers and several thousand more across Facebook and Twitter.

To lose someone so close in the way that KarenLee Poter doesn’t bear thinking about. To have fought back and rebuilt in the way that she has over the following years is a testament to her incredible personal strength. To have connected with people in the way she has is a testament to her pure comic talent.