Amelia Dimoldenberg says Chicken Shop Date has moved from the margins to the top of celebrity publicity lists. She told the Edinburgh TV festival that a film or album campaign can now start with her YouTube show, a reversal from the years when publicists would not let talent on it.
2014 and the first rejections
When she launched Chicken Shop Date in 2014, Dimoldenberg said publicists ignored the format and managers would not let their talent appear on a YouTube show. She said, “When I started the show in 2014, no publicist and no manager would let their talent come on a YouTube show – that was just insane.”
She added, “I would be banging down the doors, it was just so challenging.” That early resistance shaped the show’s first phase, when she focused on figures from the UK rap and grime scene and had to build proof of concept guest by guest.
Graham Norton and Greg James
Dimoldenberg said her aim was always to make the show as important as going on Graham Norton or Greg James on Radio 1. “That has always been the ambition – my ambition – to make it as important as going on Graham Norton or going on Greg James, Radio 1, for example. So I’ve achieved that goal.”
That is the real business shift here: Chicken Shop Date is no longer being treated as a novelty YouTube slot. For celebrity teams planning a film or album rollout, it now sits alongside established broadcast stops rather than underneath them.
Ed Sheeran, Charli xcx, Jennifer Lawrence
Dimoldenberg said Ed Sheeran, Charli xcx and Jennifer Lawrence have all appeared on the show. Her interview with Jennifer Lawrence also produced one of the stranger details in the run, after Lawrence got Dimoldenberg’s name wrong.
Other moments have carried the show beyond standard publicity fare. Louis Theroux rapping and the chemistry between Dimoldenberg and Andrew Garfield both went viral, which helps explain why the format can travel further than a routine press junket conversation.
Paul McCartney in 2024
Paul McCartney appeared on the show in a vegan chicken shop this year, and Dimoldenberg said he declined her suggestion that he adopt a pet otter. Those are the kinds of specifics that turn a booking into a clip people pass around, rather than a piece of routine promotion.
Dimoldenberg also said she is getting pickier. She rejects anyone who wants to be on the show only as part of a press run publicising their latest project, which means the show now has enough leverage to turn guests away as well as attract them. The next open question is how far that gatekeeping goes once more film and album campaigns decide Chicken Shop Date is a box they have to tick.
