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Kieran Press-Reynolds and Andrew Lloyd
- Bobbi Althoff has taken over TikTok — and social media at-large — with her alluringly awkward podcast clips.
- She has only produced a handful of episodes, but they include big names like Drake and Lil Yachty.
- Before making her comedic podcast, "The Really Good Podcast," she found fame as a mom influencer.
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25-year-old Bobbi Althoff is quickly becoming one of the biggest and most polarizing podcasters of the year.
Althoff first became known as a mom influencer on TikTok (or a MomToker) before privatizing her account and reemerging with comedic content. Clips from her podcast "The Really Good Podcast" have amassed tens of millions of views on the app. Since launching the podcast in 2021, she's managed to score A-list interviews with Drake and Lil Yachty, among others, in a shockingly short amount of time.
The quick rise in success has also led some to accuse the influencer and host of being an industry plant.
Along with her star-studded guests, Althoff herself has become famous (or infamous, rather) for a deliberately deadpan persona. Her interviews aren't in the traditional Q&A format; they're dry and intentionally awkward, like episodes of Nathan Fielder's surreal comedy "Nathan For You." The influencer talks slowly and quietly, almost as if performing ASMR, and often instigates or leaves deliberate pauses to create discomfort. The humor of her videos is less about punch lines and more about seeing the baffled and unexpected reactions from the celebrities she interviews. Her podcast clips are often in video format, so the facial expressions of her and her guests play a crucial role.
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As people are feverishly asking and googling who Bobbi Althoff is, here is what you need to know about the woman who some people feel "popped up out of thin air."
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Althoff first found some success as a MomTok influencer.
Althoff first found internet fame as a mom influencer, according to TODAY. Her original account, @bobbialthon, has over 1.2 million followers but has been set to private. In the comments of a video published to her new channel, @bobbialthoff, in early 2022, she said she was turning the first account into a spam account and will be focusing full-time on comedy.
In videos that are still available to view from her old channel because of other people stitching them, she appeared to once offer sarcastic parenting advice: In one clip, she said she doesn't believe in allowing babies to crawl; in another, she proudly said she named her daughter "Richard."
@griffinlouise61 #stitch with @bobbialthoff #crawlingisanaturalpartofdevelopement #babiesdevelopement #walkingisprobalymoredangerousthancrawling #personalopinion ♬ original sound - louise
Her new channel, which has almost 5 million followers, also features videos about being a mom, with many of them documenting her pregnancy in 2021 and 2022. Similar to how she jokingly called her daughter "Richard," she said she named her second child "Concrete."
Althoff stopped posting personal life content on TikTok around April of this year, which is also when she began uploading her podcast clips.
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Althoff launched her podcast in early 2023.
"The Really Good Podcast" has only had a handful of guests to date.
In an ironic twist of fate, her first guest was YouTuber Colleen Ballinger, who has faced seriousbacklash this year after multiple former fans accused her of having an inappropriate relationship with them when they were underage. While Ballinger's fanbase continues to dwindle, Althoff's has grown immensely.
In one clip of the episode uploaded to her Instagram in April, Althoff and Ballinger jokingly argued about whether Althoff invited her on the podcast or if she requested to be on it. The description of the post says that the full podcast is available on Althoff's YouTube channel, but the episode appears to have since been taken down.
Her next guest was Rick Glassman, a comedian and actor known for his role in the NBC sitcom "Undateable." She's posted excerpts from the podcast to her TikTok and Instagram with deliberately combative captions like, "This d-list actor tried to get me canceled on my own podcast… "
Viewers said they actually enjoyed how stressful it is to watch her interviews, with some saying they like the idea of a host and guest fighting to make each other uncomfortable.
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Althoff began to gain traction with other influencer comedians. Then Drake's appearance shocked everyone.
After Glassman, Althoff interviewed the comedian Deric Cahill and the TikToker Morgan Presley, but the podcasts appear to have been taken down except for a few stray clips.
Althoff and her podcast started going viral after featuring clips with Funny Marco, an internet-famous comedian with millions of followers on TikTok and Instagram. She uploaded nine excerpts from her video podcast with Funny Marco, which have been viewed a cumulative 70 million times. Her biggest Marco clip featured him ambiguously asking her if she "was easy," and she intentionally misinterpreted the question (as in easy to get along with).
@bobbialthoff I will be posting the rest of my interview with Drake to YouTube soon…
♬ original sound - Bobbi
She then skyrocketed in searches and popularity after releasing a long interview with Drake earlier this month. In the clips that have individually gone viral, she and the rapper are sitting under blankets in a bed, but she appears stern and indifferent towards him the entire time. In the most viewed clip of the episode, the two jokingly spar after Althoff calls Drake out for referencing his own song at one point.
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Althoff's next guest will be Lil Yachty.
This week, Althoff posted a video teasing that rapper Lil Yachty would be her next guest. The teaser clip, which already has over 7 million views, features the two squabbling after Yachty imagines a future scenario where he meets her at a Pizza Hut.
"I would love to see you at a Pizza Hut takeout one day in like five years, as you're getting in your f*cking Bentley, with your Chanel shades on," the rapper joked.
The podcast episode is set to premiere on Thursday.
@bobbialthoff My interview with @lilyachty ♬ original sound - Bobbi
Comments under Althoff's videos have begun to fill up with fans requesting interviews with other stars, like Tyler, the Creator, Post Malone, and Kevin Gates. Replying to a comment requesting she interview the comedian Theo Von, Althoff said, "Soon."
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Amid her success, Althoff has been accused of being an "industry plant."
Althoff's sudden rise to ubiquity on social media has startled some internet users, who are now accusing her of being an industry plant, a term for people who quickly rise to fame because it's suspected they have the secret backing of industry professionals.
People are demanding to know how she quickly locked collaborations with massive celebrities like Drake and Yachty on her show. And how a white woman grew a platform to interview Black celebrities: "Does her father own Drake's masters? I'm trying to figure out how this industry plant is interviewing Drake when respected Black journalists can't even get a nod from him," one person tweeted.
Others have accused her of stealing Funny Marco's style of comedy since he has a similarly surrealist and deadpan approach.
Insider has reached out to Althoff for comment.
While she has not addressed these criticisms or allegations publicly, before her recent surge in virality, she had a sizable fanbase on TikTok for years.
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After the Drake video mysteriously disappeared from Althoff's YouTube channel, rumors sparked about their friendship.
@bobbialthoff Really in my element here @ this guys concert
♬ original sound - Bobbi
On August 13, Althoff posted a video to her TikTok account which showed her standing, arms crossed, looking unimpressed at a concert while Drake could be heard performing in the background.
"Really in my element here @ this guys concert," the caption of the video read, which received over 25.7 million views.
As of a day later, the interview featuring Drake had been removed from both YouTube and Spotify, and clips featuring the same interview were deleted from Althoff's TikTok account, and fans noticed the two had also unfollowed each other on Instagram, prompting speculation they'd had a rift, Insider previously reported.
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Althoff shut down rumors that she 'hooked up' with Drake, according to Instagram DMs she leaked to set the record straight.
Althoff appeared on Dave Portnoy's podcast "BFFS" on August 11 where she discussed the Drake interview.
It appears a short video was uploaded to tease the episode, which was edited to make it look as though Portnoy was about to reveal Althoff told him there had been a sexual relationship between her and Drake.
In Response, Althoff publicly revealed screenshots of what appeared to be Instagram DMs between her and Portnoy in which he had written, "My girlfriend says you hooked up with Drake and got divorced. I am saying that is not true."
Althoff responded, "I am not commenting publicly but off the record, you're right that is not true."
In a video posted to TikTok on August 17, which received 2.6 million views, Portnoy apologized for a section of his podcast where he had spoken about the private messages and wrote the clip had been edited by his social media team "to make it seem juicy which is bullsh*t."
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