Breaking The Mold
With
Amelia Dimoldenberg
With her signature deadpan delivery and offbeat charm, AMELIA DIMOLDENBERG has transformed Chicken Shop Date from a low-budget YouTube idea into a global cultural touchstone. She speaks to LAURA JORDAN about building confidence on camera, redefining celebrity interviews, and how she won over the fashion world – and Hollywood’s finest – in the process
During Paris Couture Week in July, at the intimate Balenciaga show – creative director Demna’s swan song collection for the maison – Amelia Dimoldenberg sat front row. The comedian and presenter made the tight guest list alongside fashion’s elite and Hollywood royalty, one of whom, Nicole Kidman, made a beeline for Dimoldenberg. “She ran over to me, pushed everyone out of the way, and was just like, ‘I’m obsessed with you. I need to come on your show!’ It was wild.”
Now with over three million subscribers, Dimoldenberg’s mega-hit YouTube series, Chicken Shop Date, turned 10 last year, with past guests including Jennifer Lawrence, Billie Eilish, Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Cher. Dimoldenberg credits Jack Harlow (19 million views and counting) with helping her gain an American audience, while the episode with her “hero” Louis Theroux – and the resulting ‘Jiggle Jiggle’ craze (Google it) – remains a “pinch-me” moment. She says she’s nabbed most of her dream dates already but name-checks Nathan Fielder, Miss Piggy, Skepta and Giggs as those she’d still like to share nuggets with. A couple of days after we speak, she releases an episode with F1 star Damson Idris. “The dream date, really. So charming – deliciously so,” she says. “I love it when the guest flirts back and leans into the idea of it being a date. He definitely understood the assignment.”
The format of the show is simple: Dimoldenberg goes on a ‘date’ with a celebrity guest. But the tone is unlike anything else out there. Deadpan, offbeat, charmingly awkward, Dimoldenberg pivots between keen flirtation and aloofness, bizarre questions, and beat-too-long pauses. You can see why the celebrities like it. On a tightly choreographed press tour, it must be refreshing – with the added bonus of showing your audience that you’re a good time with the ability to laugh at yourself.
We meet the day after the Balenciaga show, and Dimoldenberg is back in her East London apartment. (“I look quite different now!” she laughs, having swapped yesterday’s full glam and all-black Balenciaga for a short stretch dress and damp hair.) Curled up on a squishy sofa, she tells me her aspirations for Chicken Shop Date were always big. She wanted it to be “as important a fixture on a press run as going on [the British chat show] Graham Norton… A comedy-first driven show where you are able to get a different side of a guest’s personality.” And that’s exactly what she’s achieved. “There are things that have surprised me, but the truth is I always wanted it to be the level it is now. I thought it could be.”
“A lot about what I do is being SMART enough to read the room and to understand what is GOING to work WELL and what’s going to be entertaining”
The renegade vibe is all part of the show’s allure – but Dimoldenberg is a self-confessed perfectionist with a solid work ethic (make no mistake: effortless takes a lot of work to pull off convincingly). How does she reconcile the instinctive magic of what she does with that exacting temperament? “It’s such a well-oiled machine now that I feel I have good instincts with what works and what doesn’t,” she says. “But also, it’s down to working with a great team. My biggest learning from the time I’ve worked in the industry is about surrounding yourself with people who are passionate. I’ve got a small, nimble, fantastic team that helps me be perfect.” Her sister, Zoe, is one of them. “I really do feel like the show and my success are very much down to the relationship that we have.”
If the concept has remained solid, Dimoldenberg – now 31 – has evolved. Sure, that irreverent spirit is still there by the bucketload, but “as the 10 years have gone on, obviously like with life, you grow, you become more confident. I feel like I’ve just become more confident in myself and in the show, and the dynamic is slightly different. I feel like I’m way more friendly now.” She has also learned to shift her tone according to the guest; it would feel “off,” she says, to be “really harsh with a really sweet young female musician,” whereas a Hollywood titan might be better equipped to roll with it. “A lot about what I do is being smart enough to read the room and to understand what is going to work well and what’s going to be entertaining – and that’s different with everyone.”
She has parlayed this into another content stream: red-carpet reporting, transferring her wit to the arrivals of the Oscars, Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary show, and a whole host of film premieres. “I loved watching red-carpet interviews growing up – the old days of MTV… before they were fully media trained. People were way more open and honest and real.” It’s unsurprising that there has been recent chatter of Dimoldenberg landing her own Apple TV show – although at the time of writing, that remains unconfirmed.
It was Dimoldenberg’s role as a red-carpet reporter that launched an intriguing chapter of her fame. Crossing paths with Andrew Garfield – first at the 2022 GQ Men of the Year Awards, and then at the 2023 Golden Globes – the internet became obsessed with their flirty banter and natural chemistry. Will they? Won’t they? (They wouldn’t – but it was fun to speculate.) Garfield finally sat down in Sam’s Chicken, Harlesden, opposite Dimoldenberg last fall. “The hysteria [that came] from that I would not have predicted,” she says, likening the inundation of excitable messages she received (“Everyone’s like, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’”) to how she imagines it feels when you get engaged. “You’re getting all these messages and you just kind of want to put your phone away.”
That “funny moment” with Garfield coincided with a gear shift in Dimoldenberg’s fame level; she’s now a bona fide celebrity independent of her show. This summer, Charli XCX (another former guest) asked if she would be the “Apple Girl” – picked to lead the viral dance on the big screen at a live performance – for her show at London’s Lido festival. When Charli texted to ask if she’d do it, Dimoldenberg didn’t attempt to play it cool. “She said, ‘No worries if not!’ What do you mean ‘No worries if not’ – I’ve waited my whole life for this text,” she laughs.
Shortly after that, Dimoldenberg was photographed alongside Charli, Lily Allen and Dua Lipa after Lipa’s Wembley show – a girl squad to get the internet buzzing once more. Proximity to fame doesn’t drive her; she feels “icky” posting about celebrity pals, but she says evenings like that can give her a sense of community. “Going to these events is a way to have that water-cooler moment where you can talk about what it’s like to be in this industry.”
“I’m interested in FASHION in terms of the place it sits in culture and what it says about IDENTITY, politics, business, music – every ASPECT of life”
Dimoldenberg’s attitude toward fame is sensible, balanced. She is “super-grateful” for people coming up to her and saying they love what she does – “Some people work in their jobs for years and they never know if they’re doing a good job, so it’s a real privilege to have that” – but she also admits that it’s “just not a normal way to live your life. It adds a layer of anxiety to my daily life.” On weekends, she likes to do “normal things”: pub, park, cinema, barbecues.
Dimoldenberg wasn’t born into fame but was raised with her sister in a culturally rich home in central London. Her mother was a librarian, her father a Labour Party councillor, and the young Amelia was an “old soul” who “just wanted to be 30 so bad.” Growing up, her dream was to one day be editor of Vogue (“And, you know, still time. I see that Anna Wintour is stepping down,” she deadpans), and she attended Central Saint Martins art school, where she earned a BA in Fashion Communication, specializing in Fashion Journalism.
Her keen interest in and sharp knowledge of fashion continues. A few knockout moments: custom Versace for this year’s Oscars; vintage, va-va-voom Cavalli for the Vanity Fair party that same night; Grecian goddess-meets-Studio 54 gold LaQuan Smith at the 2023 Golden Globes. Her puckish, playful approach to interviewing also translates to her Chicken Shop looks, which are gorgeously at odds with the strip-lit, wipe-clean backdrop.
“I’m interested in fashion in terms of the place it sits in culture and what it says about identity, politics, business, music – every aspect of life. I think that's really fascinating.” She adds that clothes can have a very tangible effect on confidence. “I really think wardrobe changes everything – like the way that people approach you, the way that you feel about yourself.”
It was while at Saint Martins that Dimoldenberg started Chicken Shop Date as a YouTube series – but the idea came earlier, when she joined a local youth club and began contributing to its pop-culture magazine, first pitching Chicken Shop Date as a column. Now, aware of how hard the creative world can be to break into, she is determined to give back. This month, she’s launching Dimz Inc. Academy, aimed at providing young people tools and resources to kick-start their careers in the digital media industry. A free week-long program for 18-to-24-year-olds was the first step, in collaboration with youth charity Spiral Skills, giving hands-on experience with Dimoldenberg herself. “I’m so excited to be bringing it to life as a way to give the next generation of talent the support they need and also try and do my bit to level the playing field.”
“Do it your OWN way… The way that feels RIGHT to you. Lean into that… rather than trying to FIT a mold”
Another moment coming up is an exhibition this September to mark the decade of Chicken Shop Date. An immersive pop-up in central London, there will be interactive workshops and panels. “It will be presented as 10 years of an idea, 10 pieces of advice for young people who want to create their own idea no matter what that is.” So, what is the best advice she’d give? “Do it your own way,” she says. “The way that feels right to you. Lean into that… rather than trying to fit a mold.” And also, “surround yourself with people that believe in you.” On that note, she has a call with her sister; an edit needs to be done.
Thanking her for having me over, I say it’s refreshing to speak without all the puppetry you often get around interviews. “I feel like I’m more interested in just being myself,” she smiles. “And I think I’m finding that in my work, too. [With Chicken Shop Date] it’s always been like a heightened version of myself, and I feel more and more that I just want to be me.”