It’s been ten long, hard years since becoming the first woman to win the most votes for President of the United States but still lose the election, and Hillary R. Clinton is sick of telling people that she’s gotten over it. She has. Seriously. She wrote a book about it, remember? Perhaps you read it or heard about it on that podcast? Okay, well even so, she’s done so much with her life since 2016: she became a grandmother, won an Emmy, produced a Tony award-winning musical, got friendly with Megan Thee Stallion, went off to Paris and enrolled in clown school; the list goes on. She’s doing just fine, thanks. America on the other hand? Well... that’s not her problem anymore.

But here in the present-day (and for reasons entirely unclear to her), the former Secretary of State is undergoing a medical procedure. As her body lies unconscious and her mind wanders in the twilight space between life and death, she finds herself locked in a strange room, surrounded by everyday Americans. Trapped in this literal fever dream, HRC deduces that her only way out is to get loose with these “Everydays” and dish about what really happened in 2016. Armed with only her unfiltered recollection, a small but committed live band, and a martini bar that’s loaded for bear, Hillary must revisit the full arc of her extraordinary and embattled life as she attempts to shatter that last and most stubborn of glass panels: the emergency exit window.  

Part memoir, part farce – What Had Happened Was is the story of one deranged (yet, quite robust) woman’s attempt at catharsis in a land she hardly recognizes – and perhaps never did.