Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark Interview

Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark may advise their listeners to not talk to strangers, but in their case, doing so proved transformative. The duo bonded over a shared love of true crime at a mutual friend’s Halloween party and decided to make a podcast on a whim.

The first episode of My Favorite Murder, recorded in Hardstark’s rental apartment for an audience of one (her late cross-eyed Siamese, Elvis), dropped in January 2016. But their weekly exchanges — the format finds each sharing mostly macabre stories, with a comedic slant that’s rare in the genre — would soon surpass 30 million monthly downloads. It’s since spawned a network (Exactly Right Media, with 16 current original titles and counting), sold-out tours, a book and, on deck, an HBO miniseries. They inked a rich deal with Wondery, which they exited before later signing with iHeartMedia. And now that video is all but compulsory, their podcast will stream on Netflix.

A comedy writer and cult stand-up (Kilgariff) and a journeywoman TV personality once best known for creating the viral cocktail “The McNuggetini” (Hardstark), this is not the career either had envisioned. But a decade on, it’s clearly the one that worked. In December, the two sat down in Exactly Right’s Burbank headquarters — a setting that still amuses them both. “I do love making decisions and being in control,” says Hardstark, “but I got into podcasting so I wouldn’t have to come into an office anymore.”

You cultivated an intimacy with listeners well before you realized how many you had. It’s a rather passionate, opinionated fan base. Have you retroactively established boundaries?

Hardstark I still have none. I’ve been sharing every gross, weird, intimate part of my life since I was 20 — blogging and on social media. The podcast was just an extension of that. If you don’t like me because of that, well, we’re not for everyone. I probably should be a lot more private.

Kilgariff I am the opposite to Georgia. I’m a generation older. When MySpace came out, I was like “What are you all doing?” And In doing stand-up, someone — it might have been Patton Oswalt — said to me very early on, “If you’re going to listen to the compliments, you have to listen to the criticism.” Well, in that case, I just won’t deal with any of that. It’s none of my business. I love that people love our thing, but we’re not for everyone.

Hardstark We haven’t been doing this for 10 years because we love podcasting so much. We’ve been doing it for 10 years because people still want to hear what we have to say. We’re both very surprised by that.

Kilgariff I am very analytical, and sometimes I don’t understand what the fucking appeal is here. And I really am a fan of both of us. (Laughs.) But there was a girl that got on our Facebook, maybe month three, and just wrote, “Why them and not me?” There’s a picture of this my mind for the rest of my life. It made me laugh so hard… It’s also why I can’t be on social media.

The podcasting industry’s push into video has been aggressive. Your own show is going to start streaming on Netflix. What’s your take on the transition, and how are you adjusting to it?

Hardstark It took me a while to wrap my brain around having to present myself visually. I’d podcast on a couch in my pajamas with a cat on my lap. That was great. Learning how to contour my fucking cheekbones and sit up straight? I was so stiff in the beginning. Of course this happens now, when I’m in my 40s, instead of when I was in my fucking 30s.

Kilgariff I think it’s happening just because podcasts didn’t go away. There’s been a couple of big drops, but it’s probably not going anywhere. So, now they’re investing in them. And they know the younger market watches everything on YouTube. They don’t know podcasts as well, as far as I’ve been told, so it’s getting at that demographic that’s been harder to reach.

Hardstark I had a breakdown when I first saw the initial lighting of our studio. As a boss, I don’t get bossy very often, but I am 45. No one’s going to want to watch a haggard perimenopausal woman who’s badly lit.

Kilgariff Our first video out, we looked like the poor unfortunate souls from The Little Mermaid.

Hardstark I still just listen on a podcast app, personally, but I’m happy for anyone who wants to look at our fucking mugs.

There’s been talk of you two doing an HBO show for years. What’s going on there?

Hardstark We finally shot it. It’s a four-episode miniseries of the live shows with one-on-one interviews, doc-style, with our listeners — with Murderinos.

Kilgariff The question everyone asks us is always, “Why do women love true crime so much?” So we’re letting them tell you. We can’t ever answer that correctly. Other people have answers, but they’re all personal, so let’s get them.

How did you pick your interview subjects?

Kilgariff [When I worked on Ellen], we used to have to pre-produce the audience every day because we’d play a game or something. Like, “That woman over there has resting bitch face, but she’s actually hilarious, go to her,” or “Definitely don’t talk to that guy.” If we could do that with even 200 of the average 2000 people who come to our shows on film, it’d be amazing. So, that’s what we did. We got as many people as who wanted to talk.

What was the most difficult lesson that you’ve learned in navigating the business side of growing the company?

Hardstark People love you until you’re not making them money anymore.

Kilgariff People are here to make money, and they’re going to do it however they can. Everyone is here to stay alive. And maybe this happens to women more, but there’s been a sense of, “You’re a visitor here,” and “We’re letting you be here.” So, you hang and be chill. Then, the second you assert yourself, they’re like “What the fuck?” It made me mad that I had to learn that lesson when I’d already been doing this for 20 fucking years. This sounds so cynical, but if you’re beholden to people praising you and thinking you’re great, you can get fucked over very quickly and very badly. Suddenly, some Scooter Braun owns your shit.

When you started working with Wondery in 2022, the narrative was that you sold your company to Amazon for $100 million. That inspired quite a backlash among some of your listeners for going corporate. Did you ever sell?

Kilgariff We’ve always owned the company. We never sold. The original Bloomberg headline was incorrect. We don’t know why it was never retracted or argued. We don’t know why it was never retracted or argued, but it went everywhere.

Still, it was a PR problem for you. When do you feel like you recovered from the backlash?

Kilgariff That deal coming through and us being canceled in a way, my lesson was that no one gets out alive when it comes to this kind of thing. Whether you want to call it exposure, fame or whatever, you eventually become fodder for the internet.

You’re now with iHeartMedia. Why can’t podcasts operate independently at this point?

Kilgariff You need a distributor like an iHeart for all of the tech — dynamic ad insertion, those kinds of things — and there aren’t many places to go for it. You lose so much money when you don’t have that stuff. We did go independent for a year [in between] to figure out what deal we were going to make next. But we had the cushion. One thing I will say about that [Wondery] deal is that the money enabled us to treat ourselves like we were Ridley Scott. Now our taste is the only one that matters. We develop and make whatever podcast we want. We pay the talent we want. iHeart was a real gamble, but those guys are a class act. They love podcasts.

When you first moved to iHeart, I was very mistakenly targeted with an ad to “meet single Christian women in my area.” But that stopped after a week or two.

Hardstark Ads are the tricky part of podcasting. Anyone will tell you that.

Kilgariff That used to be the real fight in the early years. We used to think that the worst problem we had was like, “You can’t put a Black Rifle Coffee on our podcast.” We fought that for years. Because that’s not our audience. We won’t be represented that way.

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When we last spoke in 2019 you mentioned that you saw a couples therapist for your business partnership. Do you still?

Hardstark We did do couples therapy. Then we just got a mediator for business decisions.

Kilgariff We’re very passionate in the same way. So when we’re both worried about something, or concerned the other isn’t going to listen, we bring her in.

Hardstark Let’s say we had a fight in the conference room, we still have to come in here and be best fucking friends. And be funny! It’s just better to have someone walk us through stuff and avoid those incidents. Because when we start recording, I love her and I can’t wait to tell her the story. Even if I’m mad at her, we have the most fun. I fucking love Karen, and I don’t ever want that to stop happening.

You both make a lot of jokes about how long you have been doing this. What does the future look like? You can’t do it forever.

Hardstark Well, we have contracts that say otherwise. (Laughs.)

Kilgariff We’re complainers. It’s part of our personality: Say the first thing you think of, regret it later and then wonder why you keep making the same mistake over and over. The past six months have been especially exhausting, but I love touring. I’m an energy vampire. I get that weird cokey high off of people crying or telling me stories. Then I just sit in a hotel room like I’m fucking Scarface.

Hardstark Someone told us during a meet-and-greet that her doctor gave her permission to miss her first week of chemo to come to that show. It’s so fulfilling and heartwarming. It’s also a lot of pressure. I’m a sensitive bitch. But I’ve got another year in me. We’re not going to do this forever. That’s crazy. Let’s not push …

Kilgariff Let’s not push money away? (Laughter.)

Hardstark Well, that too. But let’s not overstay our welcome.

Are you saving a story for your final episode?

Hardstark I think we should redo our first stories for our last episode.

Kilgariff And you know what? We’re going to redo all of them. Let’s just start over, and then it’ll be 40 more years of these old hags.

A version of this story appeared in the Jan. 15 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.