Bobbi Althoff Gets Honest About What Fame Actually Feels Like: ‘I Do Not Belong Here’

Bobbi Althoff grew up in the Inland Empire, begged her dad not to drop her off at school in his rusted work trailer, and spent most of her life feeling like she didn’t belong anywhere she was. Now she’s one of the most recognizable podcasters on the internet with over a billion views, a Netflix standup debut on the way, and a guest list that includes Drake, Scarlett Johansson, and Mark Cuban. On Good Guys, she sits down with hosts Josh Peck and Ben Soffer and goes all the way back to the beginning.

Here are the highlights, adapted from the episode.

Growing up—what was that like?

“I used to be really ashamed of where I grew up…a lot of people will say I grew up with money and I’m like, I’m glad you got that vibe from me. Thanks. Like, I could not have done more of the opposite…I grew up in Perris, California, but like not even the nicer parts…my mom didn’t want us going to the schools that I was zoned for because they weren’t the greatest schools. So instead she put me with like middle-class people when I was like lower class…my dad would drop me off in front of my school with his trailer that was from 1996. It was rusted. It was his work trailer. His doors to his cars—you had to like roll down the window and I’d have to reach out. And I would beg him, like, please just drop me off a mile away. I will walk the rest…he wouldn’t. He refused. I had to be dropped off right in the front. I was always so embarrassed. I feel like I’ve spent my whole life just being embarrassed and out of place.”

The podcast was supposed to be a joke. What happened?

“My whole podcast started as a parody of podcasts. I was like, everybody has a podcast. I don’t want to be everybody else, so let me just make fun of podcasts. It was never supposed to be a podcast. It was always supposed to be making fun of it. Which is why I only lived on YouTube. It wasn’t supposed to go on Spotify or anything. Like it was never supposed to be even audio. You were supposed to watch me parody a sh*tty podcast. Then I interviewed Drake and I got a whole team out of nowhere and it was like, it’s now a podcast…it just quickly changed into an actual podcast and got very far away from what it started as, which was a fake podcast.”

How did the Drake interview happen?

“My clips were going really crazy around that time. I did one with Funny Marco and [Drake] saw it…Me and Funny Marco, our clips got over a hundred million views. Like, they were going crazy. It was an hour interview—every single minute of it had been broken up into a different clip and would get at least 10 million views…I was so not focused on having it be a podcast. It was just going to be the clips that I was really posting. And I get a call from Marco one day and he’s like, ‘Check who just followed you.’ And I go look and I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ So I was like, ‘Let me ask him to be on the show.’ So, I DM’d him…To this day, that’s all I do. I just DM people. That’s how I’ve gotten the majority of my guests.” 

Even at the peak, did you feel like you belonged?

“So, I don’t know if at any point, even at the peak of when my podcast was on top, I still felt like if I’m in a room interviewing someone like Drake, I do not belong here. I do not deserve this. I do not belong here. I’m so grateful in any room I’m in, but I always feel like they’re doing me a favor. Like this is like a handout for me…

…Even if I’m shooting for a magazine and they’re putting money into me being there, I feel guilty the whole time. Like I have so much guilt being there because I’m like you’re wasting resources on me…I have that feeling in any room I’m in…I don’t know if that’ll ever go away. I think that’s from my childhood.”

You’re stripping the podcast all the way back down. Why?

“I’m taking steps way back and turning it into a sh*tty podcast again. I’m getting rid of the whole team I had recording it on. I used to travel to podcasts, and now I’m like, we’re doing it in my kitchen at my house and it’s going to be a sh*tty podcast again.”

Listen to the full episode on Good Guys with Josh Peck and Ben Soffer, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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