It is Bobbi Althoff you’re seeing on your For You Page, interviewing Drake in bed, but not really. It’s a carefully curated online persona.
The twenty-five-year-old's instant and huge rise to fame has left many wondering who she actually is. Now, three weeks after her 'Really Good' podcast episode with Drake, she's become the interviewee, revealing a bit more about the real Bobbi.
She built a following by parodying mum influencers and used it to kick-start her podcast, offering $300 to anyone who could get her a celebrity guest.
Her fans found her Rick Glassman, a comedian, and then Funny Marco, an online content creator. After Drake liked a clip from her Funny Marco episode and followed her, Bobbi “shot her shot” and asked him to come on the show. He agreed and sent her his tour schedule.
This sudden access to one of the most famous celebrities in the world led many to believe Bobbi is an industry plant. Those claims are laughable to Bobbi, considering her actual poverty-ridden upbringing.
In the Drake interview, she says her father worked with Snoop Dogg and capitalised on that connection. The reality, she revealed in her recent interview with Cosmopolitan, is much sadder.
Her dad was a contractor working on Snoop Dogg’s neighbour’s house. Snoop was throwing away a set of doors, so her dad kept them.
“When we got really poor,” she recalled. “My dad would sell everything. There was a time when I’d come home and my bed frame would be gone because he needed money. Those doors, we never got rid of.”
Ensuring her children don’t have to live like she did is why she’s so driven in her content creation goals. And why she really did miss one of her children’s first birthday to interview Drake. Instead, choosing to celebrate the week before.
“She’s one, she doesn’t know anything,” Bobbi said. “I know I’m a good mom”.
The only time she could fit in the interview was on her daughter's first birthday. They discuss this on the podcast but because of her whole vibe, it’s hard to tell if she’s being real or not.
That vibe is at the core of her success. It’s deadpan and uncaring while being in the middle of a unique, envious, and immensely powerful moment - not many people interview Drake, let alone under the covers.
Gen Z is characterised by this not-caringness: evidenced by the endless memes that arise during and after every tragedy. Thus, the perfect persona to blow up on the Gen-Z-dominated TikTok was born.
It existed long before the podcast started, in the aforementioned mum-influencer parodies, but Bobbi believes it means she is now the perfect interviewer in the eyes of celebrities.
"It’s not a real interview," she explained. "I’m not trying to get hard-hitting information about you—I’m not trying to uncover anything. It’s just a conversation.”
“There’s no prep, and that’s the fun of it. I think that’s why celebrities are down to do it. They know it’s a character, and we just wing it."
“It really gives people an outlet to just be creative. And it’s really interesting to see how every celebrity encounters this character and everybody gets a unique take on it. No interview is the same because no person I interview is the same.”
This cool, calm and kind of a bitch persona exudes from Bobbi perfectly because she does not want to be that in the real world.
“I’ve always been so embarrassed about being socially awkward. Now, I’ve exaggerated that and made it even worse for this character. It’s a fun way to take control of this thing that’s been horrible for me my whole life.”
It also acts as a barrier against the barrage of hate that comes to anyone even slightly famous these days.
“They’re really judging a character, not me," she said of negative comments on her videos. "I know I’m a good person. I know that I’m a good mom. There are these truths to myself that I know, and no one can take them away from me."
Having signed with a management label after her Drake interview, and now racking in millions of views on every post, Bobbi Althoff has secured a life for her kids.
Which is everything she cares about, despite her podcast self caring for absolutely nothing but clout.
