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” (behind-the-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.
And they had quite a bit to write about: persistent rumblings that Althoff’s fame was preordained by industry connections, that she sleeps with her show’s guests (see above), and most notably, in February of this year, that she was divorcing tech writer and executive Cory Althoff, with whom Bobbi shares two daughters. Somewhere in that frenzied ascent, there’s also been a shift: In more recent episodes of The Really Good Podcast, the disinterested, deadpan Bobbi has faded away, and a new Bobbi—who, as I would find out over our two hours together, is both consistently interested and convincingly sincere—has taken her place. “The character was a way of me leaning into how uncomfortable I was,” Althoff tells me. “As I’ve become more confident in what I’m doing, it’s easier for me to be comfortable.”
Indeed, little of Althoff’s signature brand was on display during WIRED’s photo shoot (even when we forced her to stand behind a wall of dangling plants or pose thoughtfully next to a filthy bathroom) or the subsequent on-camera interview we did right after that. Even though it was 95 degrees in Los Angeles and the studio where we hosted Althoff didn’t have air-conditioning. And the men running WIRED's video shoot smelled like it. And then they ordered takeout. Even as we filmed the first part of the conversation you’re about to read—the moment you’d expect Althoff to become the “Aubrey Plaza knock-off with no charisma” that Redditors gripe about—while the sweat cascaded down my back and the aroma of a production member’s lobster grilled cheese panini wafted onto set, Althoff stayed decidedly out of the character that launched her career.
After all, she doesn’t have much use for it anymore. In addition to her podcast, Althoff recently inked a development deal to produce, write, and star in a TV comedy, which she describes as “a cross between Dave and The Office,” based loosely on her own rise to fame. She has stopped reading nasty comments from Reddit trolls and says she has found a supportive community among LA industry types who can relate to life in the online spotlight. Not to mention that Althoff has finally realized the singular goal she’s been chasing since childhood, one that’s given her the freedom to chart a course on her own terms: Make money. A lot of money.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity, combining on-camera and off-camera portions. Check out WIRED’s YouTube channel for the video.
Katie Drummond: Who are your fans?
Bobbi Althoff: Everyone.
Everyone?
When I started, it was just moms.
Because you were a Mommy TikTokker.
I was.
Tell us a little bit about the start of your rise.
I believe it was right after I had my first daughter. I posted my first video in November of 2020 if I’m not wrong.
And correct me if I’m wrong, but there was a banana. You were dancing with a banana.
This is not the first time I’ve been told this in an interview, and every time I’m always blown away, because that didn’t go viral. That was just a video I put up that had barely any views. It got a million views, but it was a slow million.
A million is a lot of eyeballs on someone dancing with a banana.
But the videos it was surrounded by had at least 5 million. So that was not …
It was not your claim to fame.
I don’t claim it.
OK. So as a Mommy TikTokker, what is Bobbi’s claim to fame? What was your big break?
I started doing this thing where I was calling my daughter Richard. People were making fun of her real name [Luca] being a boy’s name. Her real name is unisex, is that the word? So then I was like, I’m going to take this a step further.
And that was the start of me just making … I wasn’t making mommy content per se. I think I even called it “a parody of a really bad mom” on my bio at the time. And I would just parody the craziest things that I could think of, like, “Oh, my daughter’s teeth are growing in and they’re crooked, so I’m taking her to get braces,” and just things that were obviously not true.
She’s a baby?
Yes, she’s a tiny little baby. She didn’t even have full teeth, they were just barely grown in.
You can never start too early.
Exactly. Moms got it. Because a lot of people hate on that kind of mom. There are some moms that are very—no hate to them from me—but are very into dressing their kids, and their aesthetic. So I was just like, let me take this a step further. But I did, to answer your first question, go on TikTok with the intention of growing my page, because I was like, there’s just no way that I don’t make money in my life. I need to figure out something.
How did brand deals on TikTok work for you, and how much money were you making?
Last July I was making around $250,000 to $300,000 a year. From brand deals on TikTok and from the Creator Fund. I was doing pretty well for myself. I thought I had really made it. I didn’t know there was a level above that. I was like, “I did this, guys.”
You also became the subject of internet conspiracies. And one of them—there are many, many Bobbi Althoff internet conspiracies—one is that you were an industry plant.
Yes.
I barely know enough about the industry to know what that means. I think it means something like: You were so well connected in LA that you were able to get celebrity guests on the podcast, and that’s how you were able to become so successful so quickly.
Early on I was like, is that a joke? What is an industry plant? And I would just play into it. I was like, there’s no way people actually think that. But then I realized people actually think that.
I’ve been a hard worker for my whole life. In high school, I would go with my parents to the houses my dad was working on, and clean them with my mom. When I was 16, I got my first job. I became friends with managers and convinced them to give me extra hours so that I could have extra money. Even during Covid, I was selling face masks on Etsy.
That’s a hustle.
Oh, I was eight months pregnant and I had a sewing machine my mom bought me. So when the CDC said, “You have to wear all-cotton face masks,” I was like, “This is my time to shine.”
Did you shine?
I made $3,000.
Total?
Yeah. That was like 300, at least, face masks. I would stay up all night and just sew.
So, you had a Mommy TikTok era, and then you launched a really good podcast called The Really Good Podcast?
Side note, I feel like you should host one of my episodes, because you’re giving it to me …
If you pay me $10,000 to $15,000.
I won’t be doing that.
It’s like a brand deal.
No.
I’m helping with your brand.
OK.
So you moved into the podcast world. You paid people $300 to help you get your first guests.
Well, so the way that my podcast started was, I felt like $250,000 is great and all, but it’s hard to come up with content with just me every day. Every day I’m having to go viral. No matter how long you’ve been doing it, going viral and keeping viral is not easy. So every day I was still posting 10 videos; even when I had 3 million followers, some of those videos would completely flop and get 50,000 views. And then I saw this video of a girl talking about how much she made from her podcast, and I think I mentally decided that she made at least $300,000 a year on her podcast alone. And I was like, that’s what I need to do next. I need a podcast. So I started it. It was first called So You’re Rich.
Was it?
Yeah. And I was interviewing rich people.
Money is a theme that comes up on your podcast a lot. When you sat down with Mark Cuban, you relentlessly asked him for money.
Begged him for it.
Begged that man for money.
I did do that.
I believe you asked to cohost a birthday party together. It was very funny. But it feels like money is this constant subject for you. And I was wondering where that comes from and whether that is deliberate.
I don’t think it’s deliberate in the sense that I set out to talk to everybody about it. I mean, as someone who grew up without money and with my parents always struggling … it’s always been a big deal in my life.
Can you define that struggle a bit more? What kind of financial struggle are we talking about?
When I was 7, we moved from LA to a place called Perris, California, and my mom didn’t want me to go to the schools where we were, so she put me in the schools in the middle-class neighborhood. It was great and all, but the difference was that everybody was middle-class there. And I kind of wish she kept me with the people who were in my class. Because I was always worried about money. In my house, it was always a gamble whether our phone worked, whether the bill was paid, whether any bill was paid. And the number of times I would go grocery shopping and the card would get declined. Anytime a card was swiped, I knew that there was a 50-50 chance this card was going to go through.
My parents were constantly fighting every single night, really fighting about money. And it was just such a struggle. I wanted it so bad. And I remember turning 16 and being so happy I could get a job. At times, my dad would just come into my room and be like, “Hey, can I borrow $20?” And it’s like, for a man to have to ask his 16-year-old daughter to borrow $20? Money’s always been on my mind.
So the podcast, when did it turn into The Really Good Podcast?
After the first episode.
Oh, OK. It didn’t last long.
No. So the team that I was with at the time, not going to call them out or anything. They’re great people.
But you fired them.
No. I sent them my pilot of it and I got an email, a thread that was sent between the company, not meant for me to see. And they were like, “This is so bad. This is horrible. This is not funny. I see what she’s trying to do, but it’s just not funny.” So that’s when the idea was born. This is not going to just be a podcast. It’s going to be The Really Good Podcast and you guys are going to … this is going to be good.
So I was DM-ing every person I knew that had a following, and then I ran out of people. So then I started a thing where I’d be like, “If you comment [on a celebrity’s account] and that leads to them being on my show, I’ll give you $300.” Funny Marco was the first one, I think, who somebody tagged. And I was like, OK, if this comment leads to me getting him, then I’ll give you $300.
And he did it. That one went crazy online. And from there, I believe that Drake saw the clips of that one.
I was going to ask you, that Drake interview was a year ago now. Did you feel at any moment you had built something that you couldn’t control anymore? Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
You lose control of how you are able to show up as a person, right?
There was a moment in my life where I could walk in places and no one was coming up to me. Or if they were, because of TikTok, moms would come up to me. I would still be able to live my life as normal. And then there was definitely a moment where everything was different. Where I’m like, oh, paparazzi want to take photos of me now. Or if I do stuff, it’s making news. And that was definitely a huge, crazy thing. I don’t think it happened suddenly, because I don’t really remember a moment. It just slowly happened after I interviewed Drake. Obviously that was so huge.
But I have no complaints because I’ve dreamed of this life. I remember as a kid doing interviews in the mirror by myself, dreaming of this moment right here where I’m getting interviewed by you.
You dreamed of being interviewed by WIRED magazine?
Exactly.
Yeah. Do you read WIRED?
No.
OK. And how much money do you make now?
I don’t know. You’d have to ask my business manager.
One thing about celebrity, and I would say online celebrity in particular, is that it is fickle, right? It is finite and unpredictable and unstable. I have a sister who’s a lawyer. She’s worked at the same place for 15 years. It’s this very stable career. You have chosen a very unstable pathway. How do you stay relevant when you’re thinking about TikTok or YouTube or platforms where, with the switch of an algorithm, all of a sudden you’re not relevant anymore?
So I will say that I wasn’t a lawyer before, so it wasn’t like I was …
Well, fair. You weren’t choosing between the two.
It wasn’t like, be a lawyer and have a stable career or … It’s not like I had another stable option. I graduated from community college. My family has no money. There was no stable fallback plan. It was just work hard and keep working hard. And I know that this career is not like a lawyer or not like a doctor. But there is skill to it, and I think a lot of people don’t recognize that there is a skill to what I do, and there’s a lot of work that goes into it.
And even in the last year, there have been times where I’m down and up and down and up, and I know how to climb back up, and I know how not to let things get to me. But at the end of the day, if I had to go back and work at Jersey Mike’s again to support myself, I’ll make your sandwich for you.
And let’s say in 10 years we do a follow-up story on you. And it’s not at Jersey Mike’s.
OK.
Let’s say it’s a different future where this continues to work, and you’ve translated the online fame into x thing. Where do we find Bobbi Althoff in 10 years?
Having a late-night show, or I would love to get into acting, not like dramatic acting. I don’t think I’m ever going to be … I can’t even think of an actress right now.
Like a Meryl Streep.
Yeah. No, that’s not going to be me.
You’re no Meryl Streep.
No.
I came here today expecting Bobbi Althoff “in character”—and you’ve said it before, that you are playing a character, right? You are in character on the podcast, and then you go out of character and have your real life. Actually, though, you are way more kind and articulate than I thought that the “in-character version” of you would be. You’ve basically dropped the persona. Can you tell me about that transformation?
Especially when I created season 3, maybe even when I started season 2, I let myself be a little bit more of myself. My later episodes are more me being just myself and being more conversational. As I’ve gone on, it’s been broken down a little bit more, and now it’s just kind of a blend.
That’s why I want to get into something bigger, like acting, because then it’ll be obviously scripted and in character all the time. When I started off, I was incredibly uncomfortable because I didn’t know what I was doing. So the character is just super awkward. Now as I’ve become more confident in what I’m doing, it’s easier for me to be comfortable. I think the character was a way of me leaning into how uncomfortable I was.
Because you are a shy person.
I’m very shy. But especially when I feel, I don’t know if insecure is the right word, but not confident about what I’m doing. And when I started the podcast, I was like, I don’t know what I’m doing at all, I can’t believe you’re even sitting with me. The people that would sit with me, I’m like, “Oh my god, you’re sitting with me.”
I’m also very shy. And I work in this job where I need to be on, a lot. And so I turn on. And then I turn off. And I find the “on” part really exhausting. And I was wondering when I was getting ready to meet you, whether you are that way too. Are you an introverted person who finds it really difficult to turn it on and then you have to recharge?
I don’t think I ever turned it on. You know what I mean? I embrace my “introverted, I don’t know what to do right now” persona. I embrace how uncomfortable I am and embrace how awkward I am. Because anyone who knows me in real life and is friends with me in real life knows my social anxiety is through the roof. Even when I walk in here, I’m like, I want everyone to not think I was rude or I want to be nice to everyone. I’m like, “Oh my god, did I shake his hand? I shook his hand. Did I shake his?”
For someone with social anxiety, who cares a lot about making people happy, I can imagine it would be very hard to do the work that you do on the internet if you read the comments.
Mainly I don’t read comments outside of my pages. For the most part, my comment section is full of so many positive people that it actually just motivates me to keep going. And the people that I encounter in real life that come up to me are so positive. It’s obviously very hard. Reddit is …
I checked out some Reddit on you.
Yeah, I haven’t looked at that in a year.
You don’t need to start now.
Oh, and I will not. My sister used to think it was funny; she wanted me to know what was on there. And I was like, “For my mental health, you cannot tell me what’s on there,” because it’s very hard to see things about yourself and not want to defend yourself. And people are miserable. Misery loves company. I would love to get my Reddit taken down though. If you know anybody.
Well actually WIRED has shared a parent company with Reddit.
Good. Get rid of it.
What’s the part of all of it that feels the weirdest to you still? Is it weird to have something happen in your life and have to issue a statement about it on Instagram?
It’s weird that if I say anything, it’s going to get press. And sometimes I don’t think about that. So when I decided to post an Instagram Story two weeks ago and be like, “I have never slept with someone I interviewed,” I did not expect to wake up to an email from my PR team being like, “Here’s all the news, the press you got from this.” Or when I got a divorce, having paparazzi show up at my house, I was like: “A. How did they figure out where I live? B. Why do they need to take photos of me walking without a wedding ring on?”
It is kind of crazy. Are you in a good place in all of that personal stuff?
A lot of people still really give me a hard time because I’m no longer with my children’s father. I was 22 when I got married.
I didn’t know if we were going to talk about this. But I got married when I was 21.
Did you?
And I got divorced. I was going to offer to tell you about my divorce if it would help you talk about yours. Because I married an abolitionist vegan in college. Special. And I was also vegan and then was seeing a doctor. I was vegan because I was starving myself.
Oh my god.
I went to see a doctor and the doctor was like, “You have to start eating dairy. Katie, you have to start eating some sort of animal product. You have to gain weight.” So I started eating yogurt, and I called my husband, because we were living in different cities at the time, and I said, “There are two things I need to tell you. One is that I started smoking.” And he was like, “That’s hilarious. I never would’ve pictured you as a smoker.” And I said, “And the other thing is that I started eating yogurt.” And he was like, “I’m done.”
No way. Your husband.
My husband. And we got divorced because I ate—
Yogurt.
A Fage 0 percent plain.
It’s so easy to look at the future and be like, you get married and you stay married forever. We had kids immediately. I got pregnant 10 months after knowing him, maybe 11 months. And then at a year marker we’re getting married. We got married in the courthouse.
As a kid, I saw my parents being horrible together. Horrible. Truly, truly, truly. The worst possible couple that could be together.
Are they still married?
No. And I remember the day that my mom told us they were getting divorced was the best day of my life.
I read online that the best time to get a divorce and for it to have the least impact on your kids is before they turn 3. When my daughter was 3 I remember it was just, if we are going to do this, it needs to be now, because our kids won’t know. It wasn’t like my parents, but we weren’t in love.
And by then you must’ve had some financial independence.
The timing lined up perfectly with me getting a lot of money. Once I knew my career was going to take off, I was OK. And we had the conversation and it was a joint conversation of, “this isn’t good anyway.”
Do you want to get married again?
I would love to get married and have all of the things that I never got. I want to meet someone, date them for a while, have them surprise me with an engagement ring, and then get married and have a big wedding and lots of family and friends there. I want to be disgustingly in love one day.
Well, I’m sure all your fans on Reddit will read this interview and take notes.
Oh, they will.
Correction: 10/3/2024, 11 AM EDT: WIRED has clarified that Advance is not Reddit's majority shareholder.
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