Podcast star Christine Schiefer is an open book, and she'd like to keep it that way.

Christine Schiefer’s day-to-day consists of hearing eerie ghost stories about haunted mansions or cursed forests, and telling grotesque true crime stories about infamous serial killers or unsolved mysteries.

In her Northern Kentucky home office, among her various award statues lined on shelves and bags of German candy littered on the floor, Schiefer, 29, will spend eight hours a day researching a horrifying crime case that she will share with millions of listeners to her comedy, true crime and supernatural podcast, “And That’s Why We Drink.”

“There’s something about podcasting that makes it really easy to be introverted. When we started, we were just sitting in my living room,” Schiefer said while pulling down the sleeves of her athleisure sweatshirt. “I could never do stand-up. But with podcasting, you can kind of forget that you’re talking to a million people.”

Schiefer began co-hosting “And That’s Why We Drink” in 2017 with Em Schulz, a friend Schiefer made in Los Angeles in 2016. The podcast has since bloomed from the pair’s close family and friends listening to their banter to reaching over 80 million total downloads from strangers across the world. In 2019, “And That’s Why We Drink” won the Webby Award for Best Comedy Podcast. Schiefer said it still doesn’t feel like the podcast is as popular as it truly is.

“I still can’t say we have ‘fans.’ I say ‘listeners,’” Schiefer said as her cheeks blushed. “It’s a weird thing Em and I both feel imposter syndrome about. Even people in Kentucky have recognized me, and that’s just something I didn’t expect when I moved here. The other day, I was getting my Remicade [treatment for Crohn’s Disease], and the nurse said, ‘I don’t know how to ask this, but do you host a podcast?’”

Schiefer’s life has become public information in just three years. She’s struggled through mental illnesses, family troubles and a terrible production assistant job with the Walt Disney Company, but she’s talked about it all on her podcasts. Podcasting is Schiefer’s dream job, and she’s only looking forward to what’s coming next.

“Growing up, I’ve gravitated to whatever was ‘different’ from the norm,” Schiefer said, using her fingers for air-quotes. She felt awkward and introverted throughout school. She was the foreign girl with a subtle German accent and poor English, so she stuck to the outskirts. Now, her job shares stories about the unusual, the different and the bizarre, and the world loves her for it.

Schiefer has always been telling stories. Though born in Germany, she grew up in Cincinnati with immigrant parents who are devoutly Christian and politically liberal. Schiefer categorized herself as a “bossy” and “goofy” child. From an early age, she used her mom’s video camera to film movies starring her brother and neighbors. She wrote scripts that depicted alien invasions or superheroes. She wanted to make every script funny.

She attended American University in D.C. and studied broadcast journalism. (Funnily, Schiefer took a podcasting class and hated it.) She realized throughout college, however, that D.C.’s political focus wasn’t the type of story she wanted to tell.

Schiefer then attended Boston University for a television writing graduate program, which sent her to Los Angeles where she fell in love with the city’s creative atmosphere, and where she struggled to make it in her industry.

Schiefer rolled her eyes while recalling her job with Disney: “I was working 13-hour days, driving two hours to work every day. I was losing money and could barely pay rent—just to get salads for child actors who were actually really, really mean to me!”

But Schiefer found her stride when would-be co-host Em Schulz asked Schiefer if she wanted to start a podcast. Schiefer said she had introduced Schulz to the true crime podcast, “My Favorite Murder,” and casually mentioned to Schulz that starting a similar podcast would be fun. But when Schulz wanted to make that idea a reality, what was Schiefer’s immediate reaction?

“I said, ‘No.’ A few weeks before I’d thrown around the idea of starting a podcast, but I didn’t really mean it,” Schiefer said. “I was dealing with really bad depression. Blaise [Schiefer’s husband] convinced me that I needed something to get me out of bed every morning, something to make me laugh, so that’s really why I started doing this.”

As of the beginning of March 2021, “And That’s Why We Drink” has released 214 episodes, each with a different story shared by Schulz about something paranormal and by Schiefer about something sinister. Some episodes are over three hours long as the hosts deep-dive into complex topics and sprinkle in comedic moments, quick quips and rambling asides.

“You have to maintain an upbeat attitude when you’re telling stories like this just so we all don’t fall into a deep, dark depression when we listen,” Schiefer earnestly said with wide eyes. “I don’t look at the research as funny, I’m not looking for jokes in the story. The research is about trying to get the details right, do everybody justice, do it in a respectful way. The jokes come when we record.”

The podcast started in Schiefer’s small Los Angeles apartment, and Schulz and Schiefer each spent most of the money in their bank accounts to purchase their first decent microphones. Even though the podcast now has millions of listeners and award recognition, Schiefer said every recording still feels like she’s telling a story to her best friend without the world listening in.

“It’s nice to be able to just step outside any wallowing and have fun and joke around. It doesn't feel phony because it’s my job, it’s what I do every day. There’s something comforting to it,” Schiefer said.

What sometimes reminds Schiefer that it’s not just her and Schulz privately bantering are negative comments from disgruntled ex-fans and pessimistic critics. Schiefer used to seek out these harsh criticisms.

“I’ve had to force myself to stay away from certain platforms like iTunes or Reddit,” Schiefer confessed. As if sensing her stress, Schiefer’s brown-black, five-year-old mutt, Gio, jumped onto the couch and laid across Schiefer’s thighs. “I’m really, really bad about mean comments. I take everything personally, my feelings get hurt so easily.”

Alex Schiefer, Christine’s younger brother by two years, called himself and his sister “people pleasers.” He said, “She’s someone who works so hard, not to please people, because she’s not being fake about it, but she does anything to keep people happy that she thinks deserve to be happy.”

Alex has watched Schiefer’s fame grow from up close. When Schiefer moved to Los Angeles in 2015, Alex moved in with her a year later.

“My big sister’s famous. It’s been weird, but it’s actually all been positive from my perspective. There’s been some anxieties, for sure, but she’s handled it really well,” Alex praised.

He has just moved back to Cincinnati, nearly a year after his sister moved closer to their childhood home, too. He’s sitting in Schiefer’s old bedroom in their mother’s house. The walls are painted a sky blue, and a white, iron-frame bed is situated in the corner with boxes piled on it. Alex resembles his older sister with similar brown hair and blond highlights and bubbly cheeks.

The siblings were very close as kids, but they fought more as they got older and as their parents divorced. Alex said that their parents were still very present in their lives and encouraged them to explore, especially when it came to going to college.

“She was the guinea pig for our family, with our parents being immigrants,” Alex said about his sister. “It was hard, I think, for me to see my sister leave home, so I followed her out to D.C., too.”

Alex feels no shame about “following” Schiefer. He went to George Washington University for two years and felt safer knowing she was in the same city. He then “followed” her to Los Angeles as she began pursuing her writing dreams.

“Once I was in L.A. and around her so much and seeing what she was doing, it was very much like, ‘Oh, I can do that too?’ She inspired me,” Alex said.

The siblings wrote a television pilot together, and though it’s gone unused they both said they want to keep writing together. In the meantime, they co-host a podcast, “Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet,” another comedic show where they read the worst reviews of different businesses, destinations, foods and more.

With two podcasts, Schiefer has become an open book. She has candidly talked about receiving treatment for anxiety and depression, and she shared her experiences after miscarrying three times in 2020. She’s been told by fans that she saved their lives.

“People feel like they know you when they listen to your podcast,” Schiefer paused for a moment of silence, eyebrows knit together as if a weight was settling on her. “It’s a lot of pressure. It’s a lot of power. … It’s just proof that talking openly is good for the world.”

It’s unique that a person gets to listen back to their life. If Schiefer ever wanted a reminder about what was happening to her from 2017 and onward, all she’d need to do is play an episode of “And That’s Why We Drink.” She would hear herself announcing her marriage proposal, reporting a story to a live, packed audience in New Orleans, cracking the jokes that became iconic between her and her best friend and co-host, and sharing the news that she’s moved from Los Angeles to Northern Kentucky.

Her home office has a single wall covered in a tropical wallpaper, with deep green palm leaves layered over a blue background. Schiefer has brought some of Los Angeles to Kentucky. She comfortably stroked Gio’s head as she sat with her legs folded underneath her.

“Do no harm, but take no shit,” Schiefer proudly said. She popped a German gummy bear into her mouth as she mulled over the phrase. “I’ve never been one to be super private or super secretive. It’s almost been a lesson in the other way because, whatever, I have nothing to hide. If someone thinks something I do or say is weird, that’s fine, it probably is weird.”