Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I have a celebrity blind item for us. I thought we cancelled those. Actually, it's not even a blind item. I just have some celebrity news for us. And we can use names? Wait and see. Shout out to Listener Briony. Okay. She wrote in. She said, ladies, I have to share something. Yeah.
I have just witnessed this morning Benedict Cumberbatch on his bike holding up traffic on a narrow road in Hampstead.
Bryony, that's perfect.
Yeah. So perhaps when we, if you aren't aware, we once did discuss Benedict Cumberbatch on his bike in London in an argument. Perhaps he was in the wrong.
So I'm just imagining this stream of traffic and just one small man on a bike holding it all up.
Yeah, I wonder what he was doing. Anyway, thank you, Bryony. Thank you, Bryony.
Hello and welcome to Shameless, the pop culture podcast for smart people who love dumb stuff. You're joined as always by Melbourne writers Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald.
Hello Zara McDonald and hello producer Eilish Gilligan. Hello.
Happy Monday. Happy Monday you guys. I am very looking forward to this episode. Michelle, this has taken over our text chat this week.
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Chapter 2: What is the rift in the D'Amelio family about?
Charli is a 22 year old influencer and dancer. She was the most followed person on TikTok between 2020 and 2022. She has more than 158 million followers on TikTok. So if you're not on TikTok and you're listening to this, just know that Charli D'Amelio was the first, in my mind, the first famous person on TikTok.
Yeah, I agree with you. I remember seeing a massive New York Times profile go up about her with the headline. I think it was like, Charlie D'Amelio is the most famous person or most followed person on TikTok and she has no idea why. I remember reading that being like, I quite like this very, very young girl who has ascended to fame. the total upper echelons of fame in the space of a few months?
It was stratospheric. She has an older sister called Dixie who is also an influencer. She also had a short-lived music career there. She's 24. She has around 54 million followers on TikTok. Charli jumped onto TikTok first.
Dixie has given many an interview over the years about how she thought it was kind of embarrassing that Charli was doing these dances and, you know, posting on TikTok before she realised that, you know, Charli was gaining quite a lot of followers. It became more mainstream. Dixie jumped on board too and is also quite famous.
Then we have the parents. So we've got 57-year-old Mark, who you mentioned earlier, Zara, and 54-year-old Heidi. They have their own accounts. Let me actually – you can keep talking. I'm going to tell you. How many followers do you think Mark D'Amelio has? A couple million. A couple million.
I don't know. Here's the thing. I would say Mark and Heidi D'Amelio, the parents, are familiar faces to anyone that's ever followed or come across Charlie and Dixie. It definitely felt like – They were interested in getting a piece of the pie. I mean, maybe, again, my bias is coming through. But they were definitely interested in fame.
That can't be bias. That is just accurate.
They wanted to be part of this very, very early. I mean, the fact that they all pitched a reality show together where they were also the stars of it, the parents were also the stars of it, says a lot.
Yeah. So Mark D'Amelio has 9.7 million followers. So, you know, they're quite big. Heidi has 9.6 million followers.
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Chapter 3: What financial disputes are affecting the D'Amelio family?
Way too much. Like triple the amount that she should have been doing in 2020.
Because we're not talking about fleeting Instagram deals here. We're talking about ambassadorships that you're signing on for a year or two and being the face of. It's a lot of exposure for a young kid. Like overexposure, if I'm honest. I also find it interesting that when we're talking about that process and infrastructure that was set up around the girl's followings,
The company was called D'Amelio Brands. That launched in 2022. And what Mark and Heidi wanted was companies now being built under the D'Amelio name.
So many companies. And like, okay, I'm about to, I'll read the companies and then we can talk about it. They launched a skincare line, a footwear brand, a merch company, and a fast-moving consumer goods snack brand. It's all so fast. None of this can be that thought out. Fast, dare I say stupid? Yeah. Sorry, like what are you? You're a skincare line but also a shoe business. You also have snacks.
Like what is your expertise? What is your influence? If I was advising anyone on business, I'd be like what is your take? Why would you launch four completely disparate companies doing completely different things? Well, just what's the gap?
Like you have to service a need. You can leverage your name. and kind of service a gap a little easier with that name. But there has to be something that people need that they want to buy. It's interesting because we're now in 2026. Hello. Hi. And it's probably worth looking into where these companies are. The Fortwear line appears to have closed.
The skincare brand had closed by the time we released our Scandal series on the The merch company also appears to be closed. In fact, the official D'Amelio brand's Instagram hasn't posted anything since April 2025. This timing is very interesting to me because I do wonder.
If there has been a rift for a while between, I mean, I think there has been between Charlie and her parents, maybe they're all equal shareholders in this company. One person isn't talking to the rest. The entire company can kind of collapse.
I don't know. I think so. The only thing to our knowledge that our research, Gil's research, could find that is still running is their Be Happy popcorn.
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Chapter 4: How did Charli D'Amelio rise to fame on TikTok?
It's so… cheap. There's a cheapness to this family.
Yeah. And I think in many ways we knew this at the time, but I didn't think it was, it's not criminal. Like, you know, someone can decide what to do with their fame when they get famous. And like, even if it may not be for me, or if I may look on to your point and say, maybe it's not the best business, it's not necessarily the end of the world.
What I would say, a lot of the tone that's coming out in our conversation is probably with the knowledge of what's been thrown around in the last week or two. Speaking of that, Charlie has not featured on Mark's Instagram since 2024. She doesn't follow any of her family members. There's definitely something going on. Let's take a little break and come back and kind of tease that out.
Mish, we all have our signature coffee orders, but sometimes you're just in the mood to go rogue.
100%, I'm loyal to my soy latte, unless the weather says it's an iced latte day, or I feel like a fun flavored coffee to get me through the afternoon.
I do feel like coffee is such a mood thing, and our friends at Nespresso are really, really leaning into their new Virtuo World campaign, which stars... Our girl, my girl.
Zara's best friend. Dua Lipa. I'm obsessed with this campaign. It's all about mixing up your coffee, depending on your mood and seeing where it takes you. Nespresso has over 30 Virtuo coffee blends to try from double espressos to iced flavoured options to single origins. How good is that? 30 options.
The white chocolate strawberry flavour mish. Sounds very, very good. Yum. Obviously Nespresso is known for being the best of the best. They roast, grind and seal their coffee in aluminium capsules for freshness. So you know the quality is going to be elite. And importantly, I love this, you can recycle them via Nespresso's dedicated program.
You also don't have to be a professional barista, which I very much am not. We've been playing with the new Virtuo Up machine. It's incredibly easy. The tech is very smart and dummy-proof. It reads every capsule to give you the perfect cup every time.
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Chapter 5: How have the D'Amelio parents influenced their daughters' careers?
This is a teenager who was taken advantage of for money by her already rich parents, leaving her aggressively sexualized and massively hated online. for having the maturity of a teenager. I mean, as for what triggered the current tension between Charlie and her parents, here's what the anonymous source told the Daily Mail.
Finally, Charlie seems so happy doing what she's doing now, living in New York City. If disconnecting from her family in LA is what she felt she needed to do, then good for her. Her parents and her management team used her in so many ways. I'm sure she's now beginning to understand.
Then the Demois post comes out last week and the comment section on the Demois post where they say that there's this big financial rift looked like this. This was the top comment that had 6,000 likes. It sucks when you realize the people you're supposed to trust the most are the most dangerous. Then we also had this with 4,000 likes.
I think it's very sus that her dad is already in the comments saying she is being manipulated.
She's 22, by the way. I don't know if we've mentioned that now, but I think this is no longer a kid that was 15 or 16 when she got famous. She's 22. A lot happens in that time when you mature and you understand more about the world and your world.
And you have more hindsight. I think hindsight is beautiful at times like this. And she's looking back now with... Six, seven years.
I'm sure lots of people are listening to this thinking it was probably between the ages of 18 and 21 where I started to see my parents as people, not just my parents. Yes, correct. And then you see them and that can be a really beautiful thing because you're like, wow, these are the people that raised me.
But it also can be a very illuminating thing for a lot of people where it's like, oh, this is what I've been fed my entire life and maybe there's a world out there I need to be aware of.
For sure. My parents split when I was 21. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, right around the age that Charli D'Amelio is now. And I remember it felt like the whole world crashing down around me to be like, oh, hang on. My parents are people. Yes. My parents are people. My parents are flawed like anyone is flawed. It can be a completely revelatory, world-shattering time for a young adult.
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Chapter 6: What controversies have surrounded the D'Amelio family?
Here is one of the first clips we want to play you from Mark D'Amelio's TikTok Live. If I price yourself.
I'm going to protect my name and protect when people talk shit about me. And it's not happening. And everybody knows who they are. And I have the receipts. She hasn't reached out to me in some time. She's mad at me for something. I gave my daughters everything I thought they wanted and needed. And now you've got a bunch of team around... around them that think they know what's best for Charlie.
And I, dude, I have all the receipts. The problem is, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? If I, if I, if I, if I sue someone, what's that going to do? Drag my, drag my family into a lawsuit. It's emails I sent. I sent one to her business manager. He didn't respond back. Maybe I'll post that one later.
We should look into everybody associated with Charlie said we took money and put it offshore. I wouldn't even know how to do that. I wouldn't even know, like, come on, dude. We got our own money. Going through this process was never about money. It was always just about having this crazy, awesome experience with my family. And as far as stealing money, if anything, I'm owed money.
I can't. If anything, I am owed money.
Also, we're being accused of, you know, putting money offshore. I don't know how to do that. How do you do it? Shut up. Like, shut up. That is not – I'm so confident. The average person could figure out how to do that.
Well, the average person knows how to call a person that knows how to do that. Do you know what I mean? Well, that's the thing, right? Two degrees of separation between putting your money off, sure. Okay, so Mark's take on all of this is that Charlie is being manipulated by bad faith actors. He has receipts. Receipts. Don't forget, he's got the receipts. Oh, he's got receipts.
And he's like, what am I going to do? Sue someone. Are we talking about suing your daughter or somebody else or the people in her team? I don't know. I think he might be evil. Sorry. He's talking about... Anyway, let's play another clip. Come on. It gets worse.
When it came to our family, everyone had to go through me. And what I didn't see is they started to do little things. Charlie's 18. We should have a financial meeting without your dad. And I was like, yeah, you know what? That's probably right. They pretend that they're here to help. But everyone that tries to help you... is trying to control you.
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