Halloween Horrors: The Scariest Podcasting Stories We’ve Ever Heard
We were so lucky to find this many willing participants (and scary stories) to feature on this week’s post. Thanks to all who wrote in, and if you don’t find your story here, you might find it on a future post instead!
The Suicide Cult
I found someone with a book coming out on loneliness who had success with her previous books as well as millions of followers online. As I was approaching the interview, a friend posts on Facebook how intrigued she was by the story of Teal Swan… there’s apparently an entire podcast called The Gateway dedicated to uncovering info about her “suicide cult” – saying she hypnotically gains followers through her monotonous tone on YouTube and dangerous perspectives on death.
That name sounded familiar… my upcoming guest was Teal Swan.
In the end, after researching, I thought it sounded like a crazy witch hunt and this woman had so much wisdom to share. I was scared for a moment but ended up deciding I felt right about giving her a platform for her message.
Melissa Monte, Mind Love Podcast
The One-Shot
I had a professor who I’d interviewed before (and with whom I am now “friendly colleagues”) come to my house to do an interview because she was in town visiting family. I knew she was busy so I wanted to make sure not to waste her time, but it seemed like she wanted to ‘shoot the shit’ for half an hour, so we did. Then, I couldn’t get my lav lapel mics working – I downloaded three different recording apps and they were all fuzzy. Then she said “hey, I’m really busy – can we do the interview in 30 minutes instead of the normal hour?”
Cue panic…
She ended up sitting in the dark (blinds down to block out a leaf blower) on my daughter’s bed while we talked on Skype.
Jen Lumanlan, Your Parenting Mojo
The Missed Opportunity
I interviewed a UK Government Minister. Took ages to coordinate and set up and the timing had to be very precise. There were two guests – the other guest was late -and it was being recorded live. I forgot to press record. The Government department rang me a couple of days later, “Could we have a copy of the recording to go on the government website?” I wasn’t able to give it to them, which meant I missed out on an opportunity to get noticed by 1000s of women and employers when the (UK) government introduced parental leave.
Sherry Bevan, The Confident Mother
The Lock Out
In the days of Blab (R.I.P.), I was interviewing Nicole Walters and in the middle of the interview with a live audience, I got kicked out of the platform. I had to completely reboot my computer to get back on.
In the meantime, she kept answering the questions I sent her in advance and my biz besties in the chat kept the convo going. Weird part is, it was the only time I had ever sent an interviewee all my questions in advance.
Nicole is a pro and just rolled with it all!
When I later published the audio to my podcast, I kept it all in because it was hilarious.
Natalie Eckdahl, Biz Chix Podcast
The Balance Act
This just happened today! I was going to do an audio-only remote interview when I remembered that we wanted the Spanish podcasts I’m doing to be video, too. I was in my workout gear, with no makeup and didn’t have good lighting, or a decent place to sit, so I ended up tossing a sweater on, touching my face up a tad, and then squatting near the window (for nice natural light). I was SO uncomfortable and could hardly adjust my position. Iwas super awkward and I’m sure I looked uncomfortable if not a full-out mess.
We just might publish it anyway. Word of advice: make sure, if nothing else, that you’re standing or sitting in a comfortable place if you’re doing video!
Hilda Labrada Gore, Wise Traditions Podcast
The Episode Snatcher and The Stranger In The Yard
I have two!
The first time I left town and allowed someone else to edit and upload my podcast to Libsyn she uploaded the wrong podcast to my feed. She uploaded a different food podcast she was also editing. Not only did she not pick up the phone the entire day but it was downloaded 2,000 times before I got it taken down. Then she ghosted me! Do you know how long it took me to outsource a single thing after that?! Still terrifies me.
One night I was podcasting alone and I saw a figure in the yard. I often podcast at night in my studio which is a guest house behind my property. My husband wasn’t supposed to be home yet, and the dogs were inside the main house so I started thinking someone was breaking in. So I’m shaking, searching for my cell phone which of course I don’t have and then I’m like, “well this is it, I’m def going to die tonight.” The figure stops moving so I decide to make a run for it to get my phone and dogs in the main house. I start running and a figure steps out of the shadows and says, “Hello lady!” I start screaming, terrified and he steps into the light and it’s my f**king husband just laughing at me. I start yelling at him, “Why would you do that to me?!” And he’s just, “I texted you that I’d be home early to take you to dinner.” I have never podcasted without my phone and my dogs since.
Allison Melody, Food Heals
The Full Stop
Once I was interviewing a guest on public speaking in the Public Speaking Institute in London. Some jobsworth interrupted and said we weren’t allowed to interview on the premises! So weird I left it in the episode
Steven Lazarus, Your London Legacy
The Lady with Two Faces
I was in the depths of depression and anxiety when I started my first podcast. I had a baby that didn’t sleep more than 45 mins. I was broken, but somehow managed to pull together a logo, pay a few $$$$ to have a rad website built and launched my podcast ‘Own Your Awesome’.
A woman reached out via Instagram and told me she had also just started using the name. We had a couple of lovely interactions about it… I felt like there was some nice crossover and we might be able to support each other.
I got about doing my thing, set up all the things and launched. Things were going awesomely well, until… I get a message from her letting my know her trademark had come through and I was infringing on it.
I felt sooooooo shit. Had she said upfront she was unhappy, I wouldn’t have forked out all that money and invested in getting the brand off the ground.
Every time I said the podcast name I felt all the gross energy return. Oh the anxiety.
I decided to truly own my awesome and call the podcast Karlosophies – after an old blog I used to write. And the rest is herstory. I rebranded, relaunched and went on to have amazing success.
Was a shit experience, for sure. I can’t even imagine my podcast being called Own Your Awesome now.
Karly Nimmo, Karlosophies
The Angry Attack
I had a woman recommend a guest for my podcast. I was on the fence about the guest but emailed them anyway. They didn’t reply and I thought, “Whew! Out of the woods!” The woman who recommended said guest reached out again and asked if we connected. I explained and she proceeded to attack my character. She told me she questions everything she thought she knew about me, including my work ethic. It was awful!
Monica Rivera, You Wanna Do What?!
The Freefall
Our downloads for Our Data Crunch podcast uncharacteristically plummeted, and we couldn’t figure it out. It was upsetting at the time to have worked that hard to grow our audience and then have this happen. It turns out that a plugin we used changed our RSS feed somehow! Once we fixed it, we were back in the game, but it was scary for several days while we couldn’t figure it out.
Ginette Methot Seare, Our Data Crunch
The Near Escape
I was in Seattle and had scheduled an interview at my guest’s home in the morning before I flew back to my home in Austin that afternoon. Drove 30 minutes to his house, went to grab my bag of gear, and realized I’d left my laptop (which I record into) where I was staying. I didn’t have time to do an hour round-trip to go get it. I considered driving away and pretending it was all a dream, but I had to get out of the car, knock on the door and tell him I didn’t have my laptop with me and therefore had no way to record the interview. SO EMBARRASSINGGGGG. Luckily, he had a Mac laptop with Garageband and 2 free gbs of storage on it, so I plugged in my mics to his laptop and recorded the episode.
Krissy Tee, Beyond and Back Podcast
The Birds
Sam and I podcast in the car, and in the middle of one episode we were swarmed by a group of black crows…there were probably 10 of them…so creepy! They were walking on the hood, hanging out on the roof but the worst was the ones who started dive bombing and pecking at the side windows…try staying focused and not freaking out in the middle of recording that episode!
Lisa McIntyre Gibson, I Shake My Head with Lisa and Sam
Death by Interview
A member of our community passed away recently. We had interviewed her just weeks before. We’re all still reeling from it in our little circle.
So recording yesterday, I want to encourage other members to come on to be interviewed and I say, “No one has ever died being interviewed…..”. I couldn’t finish the sentence hearing what i just said! We both were first shocked, then the laugh/cry came on. We actually both needed that. But needless to say, that part will be edited out ASAP!
Andrea Gage, The Pez Collection
The Darkness
Well, it’s more funny than spooky, but definitely dark. Power went out mid-recording. My studio is in my basement, so the only light was from the laptop.
Matthew Morgan, Bread over Stones
The Whoopsie
I was recording with Rob Walch, my co-host and I wanted to say that Rob and I got in a tiff because we got into a little I got into a little bit of a fight, you know, in a playful way we were arguing over marketing versus good content.
But I didn’t say tiff. I said TRYST.
Immediately people are like, “tryst? Is that what she said? Tryst?”
So then I had to go back and I remove it, and this is how quickly I did it. I got our file, and I recorded me saying the word TIFF and then I just snipped out the word tryst and I added the word tiff and I uploaded the file and nobody was ever the wiser. Phew.
Elsie Escobar, She Podcasts and The Feed
The Plot Twist
I was in the middle of a Facebook Live interview for my podcast…one of my first video to audio scenarios. I was interviewing a British author and coach about his new book called “Plot Twist” all about what you do when the unexpected happens in life.
He was right in the middle of explaining this when “POOF!!” everything went dark on my end. I pulled up the FB Live in my phone and he was still talking but couldn’t see me.
I ran outside and discovered workmen had cut my power because an adjacent townhouse had a small electrical fire(!). 🔥😱 PLOT TWIST!!!
I told them what happened and they restored power. I then jumped back onto my Facebook Live and my interviewee was such a pro that he continued to interview himself!! Seriously. This was at least 4-6 minutes!
We joked and shared the irony of this Plot Twist moment playing out in real life and he remained calm and demonstrated all the things his book was about. Honestly it was so perfect it im sure some people thought we choreographed it. CraZY!!!!
Stephani Roberts, The Audacious Life
The Narcissist
This was only frightening because of the total lack of understanding of how things work: he said he wouldn’t promote his episode because it was supposed to be all about him, and I talked too much. He seemed shocked when I reminded him it was my show! 🤨 Scary! Lol Rhoberta Shaler, For Relationship Help
The Frighteningly Unaware
The guest who only answered my questions in one word responses. “Fine,” “Good,” “Scared,” “Why?”. It was the longest podcast I ever did that never saw the light of day. Then the guest said “That was really good wasn’t it? I had so much fun!” NOT! Rick Clemons, Life Uncloseted
Do YOU have fear around being heard, being seen, or just podcasting in general? This week in the Podcast Success Academy, we are featuring a 15-minute audio by none other than Elsie Escobar, where she talks us through some ENORMOUSLY helpful exercises on how to get past that fear.
Ready to monetize your audience & become an audio influencer?
Podcasters all across the world are transforming from simply producing audio to becoming a monetised, influential brand with Podcast Websites. When you're ready to become an audio influencer in your niche, we're here for you.
Ready to monetize your audience & become an audio influencer?
Podcasters all across the world are transforming from simply producing audio to becoming a monetised, influential brand with Podcast Websites. When you're ready to become an audio influencer in your niche, we're here for you.
