Shameless stars on the lure of celebrity: ‘If we want to do a Kardashian segment for 25 minutes, why not?’
Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald, the duo behind hit podcast and media brand Shameless, on why Hollywood gossip is more highbrow than it looks.
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Given the enormous success of their juggernaut media brand, which examines the major players of the glossy celebrity world, it would be easy to assume that the Shameless Media co-founders Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald would be right at home on the set of Stellar’s fashion shoot.
“We don’t quite know how to move our bodies,” Andrews says with a laugh as she reflects on the pair’s day on set with Stellar, which found the business partners, both 29, wearing striking prints, statement shoes and unexpected layers.
Adds McDonald: “We were like two wooden boards. It definitely doesn’t come as naturally as you’d think.”
While Shameless – which has ranked as the third and fourth most popular podcast in the country multiple times, and recently reached 2.4m downloads and more than one million listeners for a month’s worth of content – puts them in conversation with impressive studio guests and an undeniably large audience of dedicated listeners, McDonald admits, “There’s comfort in it feeling more private than it actually is. When you do [photo shoots], you’re reminded of the public nature of the job.”
Listen to Shameless on Stellar’s podcast, Something To Talk About:
The idea for Shameless – which cleverly positions itself as “the podcast for smart people who love dumb stuff” – was born in 2018, when the Melbourne-based duo were working together as writers and bonded over a love of popular culture.
They followed the launch of the podcast that year with the creation of their youth media business, Shameless Media, in early 2019.
Speaking about her role as co-founder of a successful and independently run media brand, Andrews illustrates the company’s speedy trajectory by way of a recent “a ha” moment: “Zara and I were in a meeting, and we paused to be like, ‘How did it become this?’ We look around at a team of 11. We don’t really know how we got here, exactly. Only a few years ago we were working out of Zara’s parents’ home.”
Known for its sharp commentary and humorous analysis of celebrity news and pop culture, their podcast examines the celebrity world with an incisiveness that’s usually reserved for in-depth news or sports reporting, from taking a deep dive into the recent Netflix Beckham documentary to investigating how Justin Bieber’s fashion choices became a TikTok fixation or raising questions about the lawsuit against Lizzo.
“Celebrity stories can be discounted as frivolous or silly,” McDonald points out. “We approach with, ‘Why do people care? What is it about the coverage of this story that gets our attention?’”
As Andrews adds: “There’s so much culturally that folds into celebrity stories. At the heart of it, we want to tease out all those elements – and have fun. Not everything has to be some earth-shattering analytical point. No-one questions when men want to analyse a football game with a million different TV shows. If we want to do a Kardashian segment for 25 minutes, why not?”
McDonald and Andrews have just published their second book, titled 4AM, a compilation of columns from their “Ask Shameless” newsletter. “The goal is for people to think about Shameless Media, and [know] it’s not just the home of a podcast,” McDonald explains. “We don’t want to be the fast fashion factory of podcasts – we want to make sure we’re putting out a show, and sticking to it.”
As for whether they have pondered – or perhaps nailed – the secret to their success, Andrews says, “We put our heads down and don’t look at what everyone else is doing.”
McDonald puts it another way: “I think making our own rules has worked well.”
4am, edited by Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald (Viking, $39.99), is out now. Listen to Michelle Andrews on Stellar’s podcast, Something To Talk About:
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Originally published as Shameless stars on the lure of celebrity: ‘If we want to do a Kardashian segment for 25 minutes, why not?’
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