- Emma Chamberlain is an internet sensation who gained fame in 2018 on YouTube
- Emma now has her own podcast, a coffee company, and can be seen at the hottest runway shows
- She has also parlayed into the interviewing space, and has been a Met Gala red carpet correspondent for three years in a row
The 2023 Met Gala is nearly here, which means designers are finishing their final touches on their extravagant designs that will be worn by Hollywood’s A-listers as they walk up the stairs of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vogue‘s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and her co-chairs Penelope Cruz, Michaela Coel, Roger Federer, and Dua Lipa are busy ensuring a smooth event, and the red carpet correspondents are prepping their questions. This year, content creator and businesswoman Emma Chamberlain has been invited back once again as a special correspondent to interview the guests at the fashion event of the year.
In 2022, she went viral for her heartwarming reaction to “First Class” rapper Jack Harlow telling her that he loves her after their chat on the pre-Met Gala red carpet. After he sweetly said, “Love ya,” to her, Emma didn’t skip a beat and said it right back. He then walked away and she made a hilarious face after she realized what had just happened, as seen below.
@theeguacqueen I’m hollering at the both of them 😂 @Jack Harlow & my girl #emmachamberlain (who SLAYED the interviews btw) 👏🏼🎉 #metgala2022
Although Emma has been in the social media game for years, she has elevated her fame to become a celebrity in her own right, having worked with some of the top fashion brands over the years and monetized her fanbase by debuting a coffee brand. Read on to learn five things about 2023’s Met Gala special correspondent, Emma Chamberlain.
Emma Chamberlain Became A YouTube Sensation In 2018
Emma Chamberlain, born on May 22, 2001, rose to fame after she began vlogging her life and sharing it with the world on YouTube. Emma grew up in San Bruno, Calif. as an only child, and she said she often watched YouTube videos “to connect with other people and see what they were up to” during a 2019 chat with The New York Times. “And weirdly enough, it felt like I had friends that were cool, and it was people that I maybe admired,” she added.
At the end of her sophomore year of high school, she started a YouTube channel after she and her father, Michael John Chamberlain, had a talk about how she felt like she did not connect with her peers. In just two years, she racked up 8 million followers. She became known for her fun style of editing, which involves super fast zooms, pauses, and entertaining text on the screen.
“I remember when I first started making YouTube videos, I was kind of emulating the style of the time, which for girls my age was make-up and clothing-focussed, and very pristinely produced,” she recalled to Vogue in Aug. 2022. “I loved consuming that content. But I had this epiphany where I was like, why am I doing this? There’s no need to be emulating what’s already there. So what do I need on YouTube? What do I need to watch?”
As of April 28, 2023, she has nearly 12 million subscribers.
Emma Thinks The Internet Is ‘Dangerous’
Despite dropping out of school at the age of 16 to pursue content creation and being able to purchase her first home at the age of 18 due to the money earned from her YouTube videos, Emma doesn’t see the internet as a river of positives. “You’re so incredibly accessible to anyone at any given moment. It’s dangerous,” she told Rolling Stone in April 2023 of her social media fame. “And everything is on a global scale, in a way.”
Emma also said that although YouTube once helped her depression fade away, it eventually began to trigger it. “You start to feel like, ‘Oh, f***, this is getting boring. ‘I’m bored of this. Everyone else is getting bored of this,’” she admitted.
In 2021, she even took a weeks-long hiatus from YouTube to reflect on where she sees her career growing. “taking a few more weeks off to think ….” she wrote on social media in Aug. 2021. “i need to take my own advice on taking a break when it’s needed. this isn’t a negative thing though, i’m thinking a lot about how i can evolve and make things that truly excite me.” She added, “i haven’t taken a step back in a long time to ask myself what that means. i love and appreciate you and i will see you soon.”
Emma Is A Fully-Fledged Business Woman
During her earlier days of being a social media influencer, Emma paired up with brands like Hollister, but she has since gone on to work with some of the most elite brands: Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Lancôme, and more. In 2019, Time magazine included her in its “25 Most Influential People on the Internet” list and she made the cut for Forbes’ “30 Under 30″ list in 2021. Emma used her reach to amplify her influence, and in 2020, she launched her coffee company, Chamberlain Coffee.
During an EXCLUSIVE interview with HollywoodLife at the time, Emma called her coffee company a “passion project” and “dream.”She added, “Ever since I started drinking coffee and started going to cafes as kind of an escape for me, this was a dream of mine. I’ve always wanted to do something with coffee, whether that was be a barista or this, which is 10 times cooler for me.”
“It’s moments like this that make everything make sense… there’s so many different elements in my career and being able to make this dream come true for me, because of the other things that I’ve done — it’s really just so cool that I can make them all work together,” she continued.
Emma inked an exclusive multiyear podcast deal with Spotify in 2022. Her podcast, called “Anything Goes With Emma Chamberlain”, launched in 2020, but started playing only on the audio streaming service in early 2023.
“It’s so all over the place, but I would say I’m an Internet person, in general, a coffee company owner, I’m a podcaster, a YouTuber, and I kind of just share everything about my life on the Internet. That’s basically me,” Emma told V Magazine in 2021 when asked to describe herself. Fair enough!
Emma Didn’t Have ‘Indivdial Style’ Until She Was Grown Up
Considering Emma can be found watching the hottest runways and donning some of the most high-end brands’ clothing, Emma admitted that she did not grow into her own personal sense of style until she was in her late teens and early 20s. “I always loved clothes! [Growing up], I loved shopping with my mom and it was my favorite thing to do and when I was probably 15 or 16, I got into thrift shopping and [getting that] sense of treasure hunting where it’s more of a creative thing,” she told V.
“As much as I loved fashion growing up, it wasn’t something that was fully developed for me in my head. I didn’t necessarily have my own individual style when I was younger,” she continued. “I’ve definitely had some bad phases in my fashion life. I [wasn’t] looking at clothes in the way that I do now, but there’s always been an underlying appreciation for it. Even though I’ve evolved so much as I’ve been exposed to so many things within my career, I’ve also just become older and gotten a lot more sophisticated. Working with Louis Vuitton has made me have a deeper understanding and appreciation for fashion houses and designers in general.”
Emma Is Constantly Learning
As she noted in her V interview, Emma embraces new ideas and information. In fact, she told Mashable in April 2023 that she is constantly soaking up as much new knowledge as she can. “I think the number one thing I’ve learned [over the last year] is that nobody knows everything. There’s no such thing as being perfectly qualified when it comes to being an entrepreneur,” she stated. “There’s always more to learn, and the second that you think that you’ve learned it all is when things go downhill.”
The Vogue cover girl also said she’s reminded herself that taking risk and leading with her heart is the best way to go when it comes to new business ventures. “My concern is always been doing what feels right to me, even if it’s going against the grain a little bit like, ‘Releasing this product might not do well because the data says this,'” she explained. ” I might say, ‘Well, I don’t care because I want to do this, I enjoy this product.’ I don’t care if five people buy it. If they love it and it makes them feel good and it’s a part of their routine and it’s special to them, then that’s all that matters to me.”