FOR SOMEONE SO NEW TO CELEBRITY, Bobbi Althoff sure is good at it. Gliding into a cramped, bohemian studio space tucked into the 14th floor of an office tower in Los Angeles' Arts District, Althoff is well dressed, well coiffed, and appropriately entouraged-she arrives flanked by a makeup artist, a PR rep, and a woman shooting "BTS" (behindthe-scenes) footage of this interview for Althoff's social media accounts.
Althoff, who's 27 years old, just has it, that indescribable presence, that gravitational pull. A person who makes sense as somebody that everybody knows. And a lot more people know Althoff now than they did a few years ago: In 2021, her relentless attempts at taking off on TikTok finally stuck, and she established herself as a viral, albeit subversive, member of Mommy TikTok. That's also where Althoff honed the awkwardly funny, deadpan persona that became her calling card and led to The Really Good Podcast, which is now in its third season.
When it launched in April 2023, the show, which sees Althoff interviewing a grab bag of mostly non-A-list celebrities everyone from Saweetie and Meghan Trainor to Bobby Flay and Mark Cuban-quickly took off and turned Althoff into an online lightning rod even before she spent an hour in bed with Drake. That July 2023 interview drew over 10 million views on Althoff's YouTube channel. And then things got a little weird: What we know is that Althoff pulled the interview offline and both unfollowed each other on social; everything else is conjecture and online conspiracy, mushed together and then shoved through the internet meat grinder. The Drake interview and its ensuing chaos also nudged Althoff over some mythical line, one that separates "famous person, on the internet" from "famous person, period," someone whose personal and professional exploits are tracked by TMZ and written up by People.
This story is from the November - December 2024 edition of WIRED.
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This story is from the November - December 2024 edition of WIRED.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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