Add The New York Post on Google “Crime Junkie” podcast star Ashley Flowers’ $250 million true-crime empire has been rocked by an exodus of about 30% of its workforce — as burned-out employees chafed under the founder’s punishing demands and one worker recalled vomiting from nerves before presenting ideas to her, according to a bombshell report.
About 30 of Audiochuck’s 100 employees have bolted over the past year, including its chief executive, chief legal officer and chief growth officer, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the company.
Meanwhile, internal surveys reviewed by the news outlet showed employee satisfaction plunging from a score of 27 in April 2025 to negative 34 by the second quarter of this year.
Some staffers complained of working early mornings, weekends and late into the night to keep up with Flowers’ “uncompromising expectations,” according to Bloomberg.
One employee told the outlet that the prospect of pitching ideas to Flowers was so stressful that the worker blew chunks beforehand.
Audiochuck acknowledged growing pains at the company, which Flowers founded in 2017 and transformed into a roughly 100-person operation.
“As the company has grown quickly, its systems and processes haven’t always kept pace, and Audiochuck has worked directly to address that,” Audiochuck told Bloomberg.
The behind-the-scenes turmoil stands in stark contrast to the runaway success of “Crime Junkie,” which is currently the No. 2 podcast in Edison Research’s latest public national ranking and is attracting its biggest audience since its launch.
Average weekly unique listeners are up 71% year over year, YouTube views have soared 400% and downloads per episode are at an all-time high, an Audiochuck representative told Bloomberg.
But Flowers’ relentless push to expand the blockbuster franchise has caused friction inside the company, according to the report.
In one episode detailed by Bloomberg, an employee began appearing in a series of “Crime Junkie” social-media videos about cases.
The posts performed well, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg — but Flowers, who had long been the public face of the show, ordered them removed.
She also upended a major studio redesign after an outside firm spent more than a year working on it, according to the report.
At the last minute, Flowers reconsidered the design, raced to HomeGoods and commandeered chairs from colleagues’ offices for the revamped studio, Bloomberg reported.
The turmoil led to a series of company-wide meetings intended to let employees air their complaints.
Then-CEO Matt Starker launched an “ask me anything” session after workers complained about a range of issues, including the way human resources had handled internal complaints, Bloomberg reported.
Starker responded sympathetically and nearly cried during the first meeting, according to people familiar with what happened.
Flowers pulled the plug on the sessions in March and sent employees an email laying out her own expectations.
“No one at this company works more hours than I do,” Flowers wrote in the email reviewed by Bloomberg.
“Yes, I am the founder, but that is not why. It’s because I care so much about this company and the work we do. I regularly set my alarm at 2 or 3 a.m. and work over the weekend, holidays and when I’m sick.”
In June, Flowers gathered employees to announce she was canceling “The Deck,” her cold-case podcast and Audiochuck’s second most popular show, even though it was pulling more than 300,000 downloads a week, according to Bloomberg.
Flowers said the decision came after her young daughter expressed in stark terms how unhappy she was that her mother worked so much.
“I’m sad and happy,” Flowers told employees in a recorded meeting reviewed by Bloomberg. “And I know it’s the right decision.”
Audiochuck had tried to find another host for “The Deck,” holding numerous auditions for someone Flowers could trust to replace her, Bloomberg reported.
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Flowers’ decision to kill the show cost several employees their jobs and left Audiochuck with less programming to provide Tubi, according to Bloomberg.
Flowers, 37, founded Audiochuck in 2017 after emptying $13,000 from her savings to launch “Crime Junkie” from her Indianapolis home with longtime friend Brit Prawat.
Within just over two years, “Crime Junkie” had become the No. 4 podcast in the country according to Edison Research. It is now just behind No. 1-rated “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
Its success helped Flowers land a distribution and advertising agreement with SiriusXM in 2021 worth $50 million a year, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the deal. SiriusXM publicly disclosed the agreement but not the financial terms.
But the company faces growing competition in the video market it is spending heavily to crack.
During the week of July 27, rival true-crime podcast “Rotten Mango” ranked No. 1 on YouTube’s US podcast chart, while “Crime Junkie” failed to crack the top 100, according to Bloomberg.
Flowers, however, has given employees little indication that she plans to loosen her grip.
“I’m in deep in the same way I was eight and a half years ago,” she told staff while explaining the cancellation of “The Deck.”
“And you’re not going to be able to pry that from my cold, dead hands.”
The Post has sought comment from Flowers and Audiochuck.
