The True Story of Dying for Sex: All About Molly Kochan’s Real-Life Cancer Diagnosis and Sexual Self-Discovery

In FX’s new limited series Dying for Sex, Michelle Williams stars as Molly Kochan — a young woman who, facing a terminal breast cancer diagnosis, decides to leave her husband of 13 years and spend her remaining years exploring her sexual desires.

What follows in the eight-part series is equal parts humor and heartbreak, as Molly pursues comical dating adventures while grappling with her declining health. By Molly’s side as her sexual encounters escalate — and her disease progresses — is her best friend, Nikki Boyer (played by Jenny Slate). By its devastating conclusion, Dying for Sex (which also stars Jay Duplass, Sissy Spacek and Kelvin Yu) becomes a story of both sexual self-discovery and unwavering female friendship.

Adding to the emotion of the FX limited series, which has been several years in the making, is the fact that it is rooted in real-life events. The television adaptation of Dying for Sex is based on the hit Wondery podcast by the same title, which was created by best friends Kochlan and Boyer in the final months of Kochlan’s life. The podcast not only earned the attention of New Girl and The Dropout creator Liz Meriweather, but it is also what initially drew Williams to the project — which marks her first television role since starring in the 2019 FX mini-series Fosse/Verdon.

“It bowled me over, I was blubbering,” Williams told Vanity Fair about Kochan and Boyer’s podcast. “I couldn’t explain why it had moved me so much.”

The limited series began streaming on Hulu and Disney+ on April 4, but how much of Dying for Sex is a true story? Here is everything to know about Molly Kochan and the real-life events that inspired the FX series.

Who is Molly Kochan?

Kochan — and her story — are the basis for FX’s new series Dying for Sex. A born and raised New Yorker, Kochan initially moved to Los Angeles with hopes of being an actress — and ultimately settled there after becoming engaged to her husband (whose character is played by Jay Duplass in the FX series). In 2005, shortly after her engagement, Kochan, a writer by trade, visited her gynecologist with concerns about pain during sex and a small lump in her breast. According to Kochan’s account in both her blog and her book, her doctor dismissed them both.

“It was nothing, you said, after kneading around it for a minute,” Kochan wrote about the breast exam in her blog Everything Leads to This. “Plus, you said, I was way too young to worry about something like breast cancer. I was 33.”

But, in 2011, the lump that Kochan had discovered turned out to be breast cancer — and it had spread to her lymph nodes. At 38 years old, she underwent chemotherapy, a bilateral mastectomy, radiation and reconstruction surgery, according to her memoir Screw Cancer: Becoming Whole. Kochan then began a five-year regimen of hormone therapy to prevent the cancer from returning; however, in 2015, she learned during a couples counseling session that her cancer was back. It had spread to her bones, liver and brain, making it Stage IV, and her diagnosis was terminal.

Initially, Kochan kept the news about her cancer’s recurrence a secret, only telling her family and closest friends. Her outlet was writing on her blog and her Twitter account — both of which she posted anonymously, according to Fred Hutch News Service.

“Hiding is not the agenda,” Kochan told Fred Hutch News Service in 2016. “The agenda is just making it safe to go through this and not have cancer be at the forefront of all of my days.”

Kochan continued, “It’s just something I’m going through, not who I am. I realize it’s something I will probably be dealing with forever. But I don’t want cancer to be my life.”

Who is Nikki Boyer?

Boyer was Kochan’s best friend of more than 20 years — though the two might have never formed a friendship had it not been for a chance pairing in an acting class. Boyer recounted to The Times how Kochan initially found her “annoying” and attention-seeking when they first met in 2000 at an acting class in L.A.

“I hated you. I did not like Nikki,” Kochan said on the podcast version of Dying for Sex. “She was like so bubbly and cute … I was jealous of you.”

But after their drama teacher paired them up, the two became fast friends. Had that not happened, “I don’t know if Molly and I would have found each other’s friendship,” Boyer told the outlet.

Over the next two decades, Boyer and Kochan were inseparable — even as Kochan’s cancer progressed and her health deteriorated.

“We’ve been together through marriages, divorces, boyfriends, her step kids, and now my cancer … twice,” Kochan wrote in her memoir. “She cries, sometimes as much, if not more, than I do about my diagnosis. But we laugh, too. That’s always been the light of our relationship: laughter.”

What did Molly Kochan do after receiving her Stage IV breast cancer diagnosis?

Immediately after learning her cancer had metastasized to her liver in August 2015, Kochan made the decision to leave her husband. The couple of 13 years had had “difficulties” prior to Kochan’s initial cancer diagnosis, she shared on the podcast version of Dying for Sex, and her illness only seemed to amplify their problems.

“The cancer seemed to bring out more hurt and anger,” Boyer recalled on the podcast.

After months of last-ditch efforts to repair their relationship, Kochan came to the realization that she and her husband were “not really a romantic fit,” she said on the podcast.  She moved out in March 2016 and wrote about the decision on her blog, which was still anonymous at this point.

“The truth is, without this diagnosis I probably would have stayed, continued to try to make things work,” Kochan wrote. “Because there is a lot of love there. But there is also a lot of stress. And a stressful environment is not a good one when battling cancer.”

The demise of Kochan’s marriage also coincided with her treatment regimen, which had an unexpected side effect: It drastically increased her libido. Newly single and with a terminal diagnosis, Kochan embarked on what Boyer described as a “full-on sexual awakening.” She threw herself into the dating scene, experiencing everything from racy text message exchanges to experimenting with fetishes with dozens of different men.

“Being sexual is the antithesis to death,” Kochan said on Dying for Sex. “Sex also makes me feel alive and it’s a great distraction for being sick.”

Kochan’s sexual escapades were not just a way for her to reclaim her body from cancer; they also helped her to confront her past traumas — including being sexually assaulted at the age of 7 by her mother’s boyfriend at the time.

“A lot of people think, ‘She’s just having sex, f—— around to make herself feel good,’” Boyer told The Times of Kochan’s sexual encounters. “But it wasn’t just about that. There was healing of old wounds. Her whole life she felt fragmented and during sex she was allowed to make her own choices and put the pieces together for herself.”

How did Molly Kochan and Nikki Boyer tell her story?

As Kochan shared stories of her sexual adventures with Boyer, the best friends knew that the experiences would make for great entertainment. Their initial idea was for a television show they titled Dying for Sex — but after pitching it and receiving multiple rejections, they decided to record Kochan’s stories as a podcast. Kochan and Boyer recorded 10 episodes in three studio sessions, and then Boyer began the hunt for a podcast company to pick it up.

Their podcast grabbed the attention of Wondery, Amazon’s podcast studio, in February 2019 and six episodes were released a year later in 2020.

In addition to recording her stories for the podcast, Kochan also wrote a memoir, Screw Cancer: Becoming Whole, which was released in August 2020. The majority of her book was written as her health declined and she entered hospice, Boyer shared.

“Most of the book she wrote from her hospital bed, pouring her heart onto every page,” Boyer wrote in the foreword for Screw Cancer. “This book is what kept her alive, especially in her final weeks of life.”

What happened to Molly Kochan?

After more than three years of battling Stage IV cancer, Kochan died just before midnight on March 8, 2019. In a blog post written by Kochan titled “I Have Died,” she shared that her final days were “great” and spent with “the people who were meant to be there” — including her best friend Boyer, who was there when she took her final breaths.

“I put my hand on her head and my other hand on her heart. I said, ‘I’m here, I’ve got you,’ ” Boyer recalled to The Times. “I was in awe of her in that moment. It was one of the most magical things I’ve ever experienced. It was so intense and beautiful.”

And while the sexual adventures Kochan embarked on in between her terminal diagnosis and before her passing in 2019 did not yield the romantic happy ending she originally envisioned, the end result was much more personally gratifying.

“I really started this journey desperate to fall in love. Wanted to find my soulmate,” Kochan wrote in her memoir. “It was a romantic human idea I wanted to belong to.”

Kochan continued, “I obviously wasn’t dating the people who fit that mold … but they wound up being perfect catalysts in many ways. And between those interactions, along with the ones with friends and family, I realize I did get to fall in love. I am in love. With me.”

How accurate is Dying for Sex, the television series?

According to Boyer, the television adaptation of her and Kochan’s podcast is primarily faithful to Kochan’s real-life story. The FX series, however, did take certain “liberties” when it came to timelines and characters, Boyer revealed to The Times. For instance, the show is set in New York as opposed to L.A. The producers also combined several men Kochan had encountered who were into kinks and fetishes into one particular character known as “neighbor guy” (played by Rob Delaney).

However, one aspect of Kochan’s story that the series portrayed with pristine accuracy was her relationship with her best friend, Boyer.

“It very much feels like me and Molly, the core of us,” Boyer said of the television show to The Times. “There’s a scene where the friends are in bed and Molly’s got her hand on Nikki’s boob and says, ‘It feels like a hot cup of tea.’ That’s true. They took funny, specific things and kept them.”