Chicken Shop Date ends after 10 years of viral moments and celebrity encounters

Amelia Dimoldenberg announced Thursday that Chicken Shop Date, the YouTube series that has defined her career for more than a decade, would end after one final season. The decision arrived like a breakup text—sudden enough to catch fans off guard, though some had sensed it coming. Over ten years and more than a hundred episodes, the show had become something unexpected: a place where celebrities came not to promote themselves but to sit across from a young woman with a gift for awkward silence and deadpan questions, eating chicken in south London while the internet watched.

The series began as something far smaller. Dimoldenberg was a teenager working on a youth club project when she started conducting interviews with grime artists from south London for The Cut. She has spoken about how difficult those early years were—how hard she had to work just to convince anyone to appear on her channel. For nearly five years, the show remained largely unknown outside hip-hop circles. Then in 2020, Daniel Kaluuya, the Oscar-nominated actor from Get Out, agreed to a date. That single episode pulled in five million views. It was proof that her persistence had been building toward something larger.

Once Kaluuya opened the door, others followed. Sir Paul McCartney came. So did Lando Norris, Shania Twain, and a parade of A-list names who seemed to understand that Chicken Shop Date offered something their other appearances did not—a space where the usual interview machinery broke down. Dimoldenberg's strength was her willingness to sit in silence, to ask simple questions, to let awkwardness breathe. She would overshare about her own life, creating an odd intimacy across a formica table.

The show's most memorable moments often came from small, human failures. In 2023, Jennifer Lawrence appeared to forget Dimoldenberg's name entirely during a conversation about marriage proposals. When Dimoldenberg asked if Lawrence had just called her Phoebe, Lawrence confirmed it with a laugh. "Amelia," Dimoldenberg corrected gently, and the two burst into laughter—the kind that only happens when two people have genuinely connected. Sabrina Carpenter, appearing in 2024, confused the show with Hot Ones, the spicy-wings format, though by that point Dimoldenberg had become famous enough to take on the chilli challenge herself.

Some guests seemed to arrive with genuine chemistry already in place. Andrew Garfield's appearance sparked internet speculation about a real romance after several red carpet encounters had generated visible tension between them. On the show, Garfield admitted things had been "vibey" between them for a while. Dimoldenberg later insisted they were only friends. Billie Eilish had been especially flirty, giggling after complimenting Dimoldenberg's appearance. Rapper Aitch's episode fueled rumors of a real-life relationship, though neither party ever confirmed it.

The most unexpected viral moment came in 2022 when Louis Theroux, the documentary filmmaker known for his own strategic pauses and silences, sat down with Dimoldenberg. The conversation turned to a rap Theroux had performed two decades earlier on his BBC series Weird Weekends—a song called "Jiggle Jiggle" about red wine and the problems of being very tall in a compact car. Despite the twenty-year gap, Theroux remembered the lyrics. Music producers Duke & Jones added autotune to a TikTok clip of the moment, and the video accumulated nearly 84 million views. Theroux eventually recorded a new version with the producers.

Dimoldenberg's romantic luck on the show had been poor. She had asked for second dates with Central Cee, Digga D, and Rosalía, all of whom declined. Her one success came when she convinced Ghetts, her very first guest, to return for a second outing in 2024 to mark the show's tenth anniversary. In her farewell statement, Dimoldenberg reflected on what the series had meant to her: "When I was 17, I thought that I might meet the love of my life on a date in a chicken shop. Since then, I've spent my entire twenties sat across from the most incredible people, people I'd always dreamt of meeting. All of them charmed me (some more than others), and I definitely charmed them." One final series remains before the fryers go cold.