For many, Amelia Dimoldenberg is a household name, synonymous with Morley’s, Chicken Cottage, Sam’s Chicken and Q’s Kitchen — do you see a theme appearing?
But for the uninitiated — if there are any of you even left — today will likely be the first day they learn of the beloved 29-year-old Chicken Shop Date presenter, who’s going viral as we speak. Because Amelia Dimoldenberg isn’t in Kansas Chicken in Hornsey anymore, Toto. She’s broken America, having nabbed herself the prestigious presenting job at the Vanity Fair Oscars after party, where clips of the host valuable receiving dating advice from singer Halsey, debating the etiquette of dancing on tables with Paul Mescal and joking around with the internet’s “slutty” daddy Pedro Pascal are currently doing the rounds on social media.
However, there was one celebrity who fans were devastated that the British star didn’t reunite with.
Two months ago Dimoldenberg made her USA debut at the Golden Globes, where she interviewed Anya Taylor-Joy, TikTok danced with Henry Winkler and got a little flirty with the one and only Andrew Garfield.
Dimoldenberg, known for her hit YouTube chat show, has been the breakout star of the awards ceremony thanks to her unique, awkward British charm, which caught actor Andrew Garfield off guard on the red carpet for a second time.
A now-infamous clip shows Dimoldenberg beckoning Garfield over, telling him to “Be normal,” to which he says she is acting like “A capybara in the wild.” The two go back and forth for a while — “We must stop meeting like this,” she says, “I only want to see you,” he jokes back — talking but not really saying anything at all.
At one point, Garfield grabs the microphone, holding her hand as she holds the mic. Dimoldenberg attempts to ask him why he always gravitates towards playing religious characters, but the two mainly end up discussing how his moon sign and her sun star signs align to make them romantically compatible. You get the picture. It was fit. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed.
One Twitter user aptly described the interaction as “an accurate representation of English flirting which is hardly ever captured in film,” while another tweeted, “I feel like I’m interrupting something. Why is their chemistry so intense?”
Amelia Dimoldenberg and Andrew Garfield reunite at the #GoldenGlobes pic.twitter.com/kG14zwbVrk
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) January 12, 2023
It wasn’t the first time Dimoldenberg and Garfield have gotten chatty on the red carpet. At the GQ Men of the Year awards last December, the two met for the first time and hit it off during an interview where Garfield revealed that he’s a fan of Chicken Shop Date. The video, which was captioned “It’s hard to see other people living your dream,” on Twitter, has hundreds of thousands of views.
Dimoldenberg hasn’t always been first pick for hosting a red carpet, though. She started uploading her Chicken Shop Dates in 2014, when she was a relatively unknown 20-year-old budding journalist, having first started the format as a column in her local newspaper.
The series wasn’t necessarily an instant hit: the first ever filmed Chicken Shop Date, with UK grime artist Ghetts, amassed just 1,000 views over the first two weeks it was live (for what it’s worth, the interview now has a million views). But by episode five, featuring Kurupt FM star Asim Chaudry in character as Chabuddy G, LADbible had cottoned on to the format and gave Dimoldenberg a helpful boost on their socials.
From then on out, each Chicken Shop Date was met with hundreds of thousands of hits and an invaluable fondness from viewers — a fondness which Dimoldenberg has, crucially, never lost. She went on to front multiple brand campaigns (JD Sports, Olay, Smirnoff) and eventually started appearing on red carpets as a guest (BAFTAs, NTAs) and then a host (BRITs, GQ MOTY awards).
You could almost chart her rising success from the outlandishness of her Chicken Shop Dates outfits, which started with a plain red top (one would wager a guess at 2014 Topshop or New Look) and ended with looks from the likes of Miu Miu and JW Anderson.
Then, this year, Dimoldenberg’s British likeability has been tested amongst an American audience as she interviewed stars on the Golden Globes red carpet — wearing grecian gold LaQuan Smith and a black one-shouldered gown, no less. And if the response to her Andrew Garfield or Pedro Pascal moment is anything to go by, she might have cracked it across the pond. Always worth keeping an eye on, this Chicken Shop Dater has it in her to go big (and look good while doing it!).
