At the 16th GLAMOUR Women of the Year Awards, in partnership with Samsung, we’re honouring those women who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo and reshape the world. From activism to acting, our winners are working across a variety of industries to make the world a better, more equal place.
Taking home the award for Creator is Amelia Dimoldenberg, CEO of the wildly popular YouTube series Chicken Shop Date and all-round content-creating queen. Here, Amelia shares her life-changing dates – from the personal to the professional – and which has been her favourite Chicken Shop Date to date (no, it's not Aitch)…
The morning I am due to speak with comedian and broadcaster Amelia Dimoldenberg via Zoom is, quite frankly, a disaster. My WiFi is patchy, my ancient laptop is laggy, and just as I’m about to dial into our call at 9am, a man in a high-vis jacket fires up the loudest leaf-blower known to man just metres away from my window. I don’t normally get nervous interviewing celebrities, but right now, I’m a little apprehensive.
I needn’t have been. Amelia is instantly warm and friendly, confessing that her camera is off because ‘she’s still in her pyjamas’ and laughing loudly when I apologise for the noise from the leaf-blower outside. “That is so weird,” she says, “I was just about to say the exact same thing to you, there’s one right outside my window, too. Are we neighbours?!”
She’s noticeably more animated than her signature ‘awkward’ interview style on her cult YouTube series, Chicken Shop Date, which has raked up almost 200 million views since its inception in 2014 and has earned Amelia a loyal fanbase of 4 million people worldwide.
The format sees Amelia Dimoldenberg attend a first date with celebrities including Ed Sheeran, Daniel Kaluuya and Louis Theroux in various UK chicken shops, distinguished by Amelia’s deadpan execution, lengthy pauses and unpredictable questions (“Have you ever had an STI?”; “How many dates until you show a girl your hairline?”).
It’s this first-of-its-kind format and the countless laughs it’s brought us that sees Amelia awarded GLAMOUR’s Women Of The Year ‘Creator’ Award. In celebration, Amelia shares with GLAMOUR the most significant dates in her life so far…
2010-2012: Joining The Cut magazine and starting Chicken Shop Date
The Cut (not the New York Magazine’s style and culture section) was a pop culture publication run out of a youth club in north-west London, near where I’m from. I was 16, and everyone at my school knew that I wanted to work in magazines – specifically, it was my dream to be editor of Vogue.
So my IT teacher urged me to join, and I started going every Wednesday after school and it was a really creative, open space where you could write about anything you were interested in. I knew I wanted to interview musicians in a setting where you’d never usually go on a date, so finally, after about a year, I finally worked up the courage to pitch Chicken Shop Date. It ran as a column in that magazine for a year and a half. I don’t see how I would have created Chicken Shop Date today without that column.
March 2014: Filming the first Chicken Shop Date with Ghetts
I studied at Central St Martin’s between 2012 and 2017, and after my first year of Art Foundation (which is where I realised I shouldn’t be allowed to draw or paint anything, ever) I decided to make Chicken Shop Date a YouTube series.
I asked a camera operator I’d met at uni and he and his friend filmed it for me, and I produced it with my friend who also edited the show. It was friends helping out friends, and everyone mucking in together. It was amazing to have Ghetts as a first guest (luckily, someone I knew from The Cut had just started doing Ghetts’s PR and hooked us up).
He was just so friendly; the bit where he describes how obsessed he is with cats – ”A lot of people laugh when I say I’m obsessed with cats, but they just fascinate me” – is such a classic moment.
June 2018: Registering my production company Dimz Inc
At the beginning, I had to do everything on my own. Now in hindsight, when I think about it, being in charge of all the production myself – as well as doing the interview – really stressed me out. Obviously there were people helping me do different parts, but it was all on my shoulders.
So in my final year of uni, when I met my agents at YMU, after a friend of a friend who worked there saw my videos and set up a meeting. I was their first online-first talent, and I’ve been with them ever since. So that was the first time I had people helping me and supporting me in way I’d only ever done on my own – it was such a relief.
As a content creator, I feel like you're always operating as a production company, because you’re the person who’s organising all the filming and working with camera operators. So a few months later, I formalised it by launching my own production company Dimz Inc.
I make Chicken Shop Date and my own cooking show Amelia’s Cooking Show under my production company, and I did a series with Dave (the channel, not the rapper) called ‘Who Cares?’ under Dimz Inc. In the future, I’d love to start creating content for other people and doing more co-productions for my projects.
September 2021: Going on a date with US rapper Jack Harlow
Having Jack on Chicken Shop Date was a huge turning point for me, and really what helped the show cross over to the US. I’d watched interviews with him so I knew he had a good sense of humour, but I could never have predicted how well the date would go; it’s one of the best dates I’ve ever been on! It was also perfect timing – with episodes that do well, a lot of it is about timing as well as the content – because he hadn’t really shown himself fully to a UK audience yet.
People liked his music, but didn’t have a full sense of his personality. So the show was a great way to show his personality and how charming he is. It also came out at a time when he’d just catapulted into the mainstream so it was perfect timing, and he was the perfect guest because he played up to it and wasn’t afraid to flirt with me back. But no second date, sadly. I’m too busy.
December 2021: Winning the Streamy Award for ‘Best Inside Series’
The Streamys are an incredible organisation that celebrate online creators, and there’s really not that many awards shows that celebrate online content, which is kind of crazy, because that’s what everyone is consuming nowadays. People put so much work into creating online formats and content, and I strongly feel it should be celebrated more.
So to be nominated for that award – and to actually win – I was just so happy. It was during lockdown so I couldn’t go over to LA, so I stayed up all night and did a little acceptance speech from my bed just before I went to sleep. It was a real turning point in terms of industry recognition for the show.
March 2022: Being invited onto Pharrell’s podcast
I was so shocked to be asked to go on Pharrell’s podcast in the US, OTHERtone earlier this year – I couldn’t believe he even knew who I was! I’d love to say he slid into my DMs, but it was a very professional email from his people.
Meeting him, talking to him about his work and mine, and him being super interested in my journey – it was just really amazing because despite how clear I’ve always been on my career and where I want to take it, going stateside has really taken me by surprise.
Yeah, Pharrell literally even knowing my name was jaw-dropping news.
August 2022: Bringing back the Jiggle Jiggle!
First off, having Louis Theroux on the show back in February 2022 was a DREAM come true. He is my hero. When I’m feeling low, I tell myself: “You met your hero, on your own show, interviewing him.” Like, how much better can you get?’
So when we’re on our date, I asked him to do the Jiggle Jiggle rap because I remembered it from his Weird Weekends show in 2000. He did, word for word, and the rest is history! It went totally viral on TikTok with Duke & Jones remixing it, then Brooke [Blewitt] and Jess [Qualter] starting the dance trend, celebrities doing the dance trend!
Then the next time I met Louis was filming the music video for Jiggle Jiggle with Jason Derulo! It really is beyond my wildest imagination that my relationship with Louis Theroux would culminate in us being in a music video together.
I think it’s also testament to the work I’ve put in for all of these years. I’m trying to give myself credit for my hard work because I don’t think anyone else could’ve created that moment.
Even though it was viral and unexpected, it felt like a culmination of all the work I’ve been doing, that I’ve just been speaking about. It kind of made sense that finally, there would be mainstream recognition of my show and everything I’ve been working towards.
