"We look for confidence in our achievements, our appearance, our accomplishments," intoned the perfectly coiffed and made-up Angela Halili on a recent episode of the "Girls Gone Bible" podcast. But "godly confidence," she continued, "has nothing to do with your external circumstance." Her co-host, Arielle Reitsma, also in heavy makeup and with equally perfect hair, chimed in with an occasional "yeah" as Halili continued: "It's about finding confidence that's rooted in your identity in Jesus and trusting God that he has a purpose and plan for your life."
Fans of "Girls Gone Bible" swooned in the comments on YouTube over Halili and Reitsma's professions of Christian humility. But there's no denying that this explosively popular podcast has also produced worldly accomplishments for its hosts. "Girls Gone Bible" has only existed for two years, but it's been a huge success. Their YouTube channel has more than 730,000 subscribers and nearly a million Instagram followers. Their show sits at the top of Spotify's podcast charts in the Religion & Spirituality category.
Reitsma and Halili, both professed "Jesus freaks," have packed venues with thousands of fans on their national tours, delivering what the hosts call a "ministry" at ticket prices that start around $40 but can be $100 or more. They market "GGB+" subscriptions to their young female fanbase for $7 a month. The two women frequently appear on Fox News. They gave the invocation at a Donald Trump "victory" rally in January, making news by conflating Trump with God himself and using ominous language: "I pray that a holy fire will rain down" on Trump's opponents, they said, and that "no weapon formed against him will prosper."
Girls Gone Bible completely butchered the Lord’s Prayer, saying “Your will be done…in the life of President Trump as it is in Heaven.”
— J (@WillaRance) January 19, 2025
YIKES. Welcome to North Korea.#TrumpRally pic.twitter.com/bLpKyaxRy6
Halili and Reitsma look nothing like stereotypical church ladies, to put it mildly. They look like sexy young actresses on the outer fringes of Hollywood, which is what they are: According to IMDB, their movie roles include the horror movie victim in "Spin the Bottle" and the "slutty girl" in "Rock of Ages." This incongruity between cosmopolitan appearance and fundamentalist message is central to their popularity.
Whether or not this is entirely strategic, "Girls Gone Bible" and other female-centric, Christian-themed podcasts can be understood as parallel to the better-known "manfluencer" content of Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson and others. Although their content manifests first and foremost as lifestyle advice on dating, working out and fashion, for example, those influencers are perceived as driving younger men into the misogynistic far right and the MAGA movement, and may have been a decisive factor in the 2024 presidential election. Halili and Reitsma are offering a sense of community and religious fellowship to younger women who want to be seen as feminine, fashionable and sexually attractive. But the political and cultural ramifications of their messaging, which includes urging young women to accept a "submissive" role in marriage and overt support for the Trump agenda, are impossible to miss.
Lifestyle and entertainment online shows that are nominally nonpolitical often "bring right-leaning politics to their trusted audiences," said Kayla Gogarty, research director for Media Matters. She authored a recent report that suggests this strategy has helped the far right capture larger audiences than progressive online creators, "seeping into nonpolitical spaces and exploiting algorithms that could bring users from lifestyle content to pro-MAGA, manosphere and other right-wing content."
"The religious right has reached young men through new media with incredible success, but has largely struggled to reach young women," added Taylor Leigh, a former evangelical who hosts the Antibot YouTube channel, which analyzes and criticizes evangelical culture. It's clear that "Girls Gone Bible" is an attempt to change that.
What Halili and Reitsma are selling is a "mix between the Hawk Tuah Girl and the prosperity gospel," according to religion professor Bradley Onishi, host of the "Spirit and Power" podcast. As counterintuitive as this may seem to outsiders, Onishi said, it's a huge deal in evangelical culture when young people perceived as "fashionable" or "cool" who could be hanging out at "cool clubs or parties" are seen as giving that up and "committing themselves to God." That identity can also make them accessible to more secular users. One former GGB fan, Jennifer Nieman, told Salon that the hosts didn't initially strike her as political at all: They were offering "fun girly time, wrapped in with faith, and they're also beautiful women."
Tia Levings, author of "A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy," said she sees GGB and similar content as "definitely a pipeline to MAGA, a funnel to Christian nationalism." While the online far right targets married women with content about health nutrition and parenting, she said, GGB appeals to "a bevy of Kardashian and Sephora-addicted Gen Z young women who want to be rich, famous and in love."
Like their male counterparts in online Christian discourse, Halili and Reitsma don't seem much interested in Christian doctrines about feeding the poor, healing the sick or welcoming the stranger. Theirs is a post-Oprah self-help Christianity, with podcast episodes about dating, mental health, addiction and the struggles of adolescence. Rather than connecting audiences with experts on such topics, however, they present evangelical-style faith as something close to a cure-all. "We found Jesus because of mental health issues," Halili explained in a 2024 episode, describing their podcast as a "healing ministry" that deploys the "authority of Jesus" as "the power to heal ourselves, to heal others," in the "same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead."
The hosts of "Girls Gone Bible" frequently speak about "staying pure," telling their followers that sex before marriage "ruins lives" and that "modesty is very important" if women wish to avoid appearing "promiscuous." So it was something of a branding problem when a video appeared on the internet earlier this year showing Halili on all fours wearing a minidress, while several other scantily-clad women dance around her, giggling. "I don't do this type of stuff anymore," says Halili. "I have a religious podcast!"
https://twitter.com/LeeVanCleef1930/status/1900683230543835207
That video circulated rapidly on TikTok and other social media, leading to rumors and allegations that Halili and Reitsma had behaved abusively to fans who had trusted in them as "ministers." (Neither woman has any formal religious education or training in Christian ministry.) While they have frequently suggested they were both less than "pure" in the past — narratives of redemption and salvation are central to Christian faith, after all — the details were left vague. As the online rumors escalated, "Girls Gone Bible" devoted its March 21 podcast to addressing the controversy.
The episode was entitled "Past & Shame," and Halili promised "true raw transparency" that would add "clarity to the context and timeline" of the leaked video. It had been shot, she said, "before 'Girls Gone Bible' was even created." They were only in "talks" about creating a podcast at the time, she insisted, and her mock-protest seen in the video was "a joke that is just, like, ridiculous." Her behavior on camera was "provocative and, like, lusty," she admitted, but she said she was "not drunk, not high, not on anything" when it was filmed. She did not address any of the other online accusations or claims directed at either woman.
Comments below the video were largely supportive: "Your past does not define who you are," wrote one fan, a core American precept if ever there was one. Indeed, Reitsma and Halili have long portrayed themselves as reformed party girls, as already mentioned. Halili has said she is a recovered alcoholic, nearly six years sober.
Their stories about the past have never been specific, although the general outlines are clear enough: They went to nightclubs, they dated numerous men, they had sex without the benefit of matrimony. All of which sounds entirely normal and relatable, but is sufficient to provide a "redemption" narrative for Christian magazines like Relevant, without seeming remotely scandalous or unusual. "Past & Shame" appeared to fit neatly into that narrative. But questions about Reitsma and Halili's past, and exactly how their podcast was created and constructed, have not gone away.
A poker girl speaks out
Nicole Aldrete, who shared numerous text messages, photos and videos to Salon to establish her former friendship with Halili, suggests that the narrative behind "Girls Gone Bible" is largely untrue. Aldrete is a former "poker girl," the term used to describe young women — often unemployed or underemployed actresses — who work at underground poker games in Los Angeles, sometimes frequented by wealthy and influential men in Hollywood and related businesses. This is closer to the world depicted in the Oscar-winning movie "Anora" — which portrays the intersection of rich, criminal-adjacent men and strip clubs — than to a low-stakes basement poker game among friends. Glimpses of these games occasionally surface in local L.A. media, largely because of violence resulting from feuds between rival game operators.
Poker girls are officially described as waitresses, and are hired along with other staff like bartenders, chefs and parking valets to work at poker parties in private homes. They dress in sexy outfits and are expected to drink and flirt with male customers in exchange for generous tips. They are not sex workers and their jobs are entirely legal, but Aldrete said that poker girls sometimes form "sugar" relationships with affluent players, exchanging their companionship for financial support.
Young women in L.A. who "work poker behind the scenes" generally "don't talk about it," Aldrete said. "It's very taboo." Game operators can find a steady supply of labor in a city famously thick with struggling actresses and models. The work is "really draining," Aldrete added. "You have to put up with a lot from these men." The poker girls are expected to be "pretty accessories," and are often pressured to drink heavily and sometimes to use illegal drugs like ketamine or cocaine. She showed Salon photos and videos of poker girls doing their makeup in luxurious bedrooms of mansions, or partying aboard a yacht. She has signed a non-disclosure agreement and could not share specific names and addresses, but said: "I experienced a lot of crazy things and saw a lot of crazy things."
According to Aldrete, the now-viral video of Halili was shot at the end of such a poker party, likely around 3 or 4 in the morning. She says she met both Reitsma and Halili when all three were working as poker girls, and that the hosts of "Girls Gone Bible" were still working parties as they posted early episodes.
The video copy shared with Salon seems to corroborate this, since the date on the copy given to Salon indicates it was shot on the morning of April 13, 2023, exactly a week before Reitsma and Halili filed paperwork for the LLC that produces "Girls Gone Bible." The address given on the paperwork also appears in a text message from Halili to Aldrete, inviting her to a get-together. As many online observers have noted, Halili appears to be wearing the same outfit and makeup in the leaked video as she did in the first episode of "Girls Gone Bible," posted on May 10, 2023.
Text messages Aldrete shared with Salon seemed to confirm her story of a brief but intense friendship with Halili that began in late 2022. "We just started talking about how we're both Christian, how we both believe in Jesus and our love for Jesus," Aldrete said. The women bonded over their shared feelings about working in a "dark industry," which they felt was necessary because they were "struggling economically."
Soon after that, she said, the two began attending church services together — and also working poker parties together. Aldrete provided photos of herself with Halili and screenshots of text messages in which the two women talk both Christ and poker. In one text message from January 2023, Aldrete asks, "Babe did you get paid from the game on the 10th yet?" Halili replies, "No babe wtf. Idk why." In a text from May 2023, after the launch of "Girls Gone Bible," — Aldrete asks Halili, "Did you work last night?" She was concerned about a shooting and a car fire, covered in local media. Halili replies, "Yes babe."
Their friendship lasted for several months after the launch of "Girls Gone Bible," but as the podcast began to take off, Aldrete said, Halili pulled away. Their last text exchange was in June 2023, when Aldrete wrote, "I miss my sister in Christ." Halili responded, "I love you more," but said she was "in Vegas tryna werk."
Nearly a year later, Aldrete said, in May 2024, Halili contacted her "out of nowhere." She texted, called and left a voice message apologizing for abandoning Aldrete, saying, "I had to separate myself from all of this." Aldrete said she believes this outreach was because the now-famous video of Halili on all fours had been posted on Instagram, and Halili was trying to find out who did it. The video didn't make much of a splash at first, but resurfaced again this year, apparently reposted by a former fan who had soured on "Girls Gone Bible."
Aldrete says she's come forward now "not to shame their past," but because of "the hypocrisy of it all." After the podcast became successful, she said, she and other poker girls she knew "were happy for them." But when Halili and Reitsma "started talking about modesty and not living with your partner before marriage or having sex with your partner before marriage," she began to see them as dishonest. It was just a "cash grab," she said. "They were just doing it to exploit the Christian faith and the people."
Much of the "Girls Gone Bible" brand, Aldrete said, is about "being transparent" and embracing the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. If Halili and Reitsma are sincere, she asks, "why not just admit" the truth about their recent past?
"This isn't your mama's purity culture"
The marketing of "Girls Gone Bible" leans heavily on authenticity. The origin story Halili gave the Christian-themed magazine Relevant for a January profile makes the decision to start the podcast sound impulsive. "We were sitting in my living room, reading the Bible," she said, and spontaneously decided to "hit record and started talking."
That seems implausible based on the first several episodes, which appear professionally produced, with high-quality lighting and sound. It also conflicts with the paper trail, which shows that they incorporated and registered the domain "girlsgonebible.com" a month before the first episode was released.
This authenticity branding is important to the success of the "Girls Gone Bible" brand, given the Christian right's dim view of female ambition. Halili and Reitsma don't wear aprons or pose with backyard chickens, but their content still belongs to the same social media universe as "tradwife" content and similarly-themed propaganda for womanly submission. Both women are single, but present themselves much like "before" images of the tradwife: a glamorous young woman who will someday be snatched up by a godly provider and find fulfillment as a compliant housewife.
"I have such a desire, like a true yearning, to be led spiritually. I just want to sit and look up at a man talking to me about theology," Halili said in an episode about being single.
"I believe submission is, like, the highest form of beauty for a woman," Reitsma said in a video defending the fundamentalist teaching of male headship over women. Rather than asking for love or respect from a man, she said, a woman should pray to God and let her husband "come to me in his way." She assured viewers, "There's no way it can fail," because "you're not trying to go head-to-head with each other. There's God in the middle, who works it all out for you guys."
Levings, the ex-evangelical memoirist, described the GGB aesthetic and affect as "sexy baby voice, high femme, tapping into the current vibe of being positive." It doesn't come across as "too political," she added, but said that after watching episodes of "Girls Gone Bible," her YouTube ads were "filled with tradwife content."
There's a significant difference between GGB and tradwife content, however. The latter is partly crafted to appeal to men, with its heavily sexualized fantasies of a woman devoted to domestic servitude. Some of it, like the famous Ballerina Farm, also targets married adult women, offering an idyllic fantasy of farm life far removed from the stressors of most women's daily existence. GGB is clearly pitched at young single women, as evidenced by the "sizzle reels" advertising their live shows, which almost exclusively showcase female fans in their teens and early 20s. Levings identified the target demographic as "young people who aren’t interested in their parents’ religion," adding that the ads announce, "This isn’t your mama’s purity culture."
Jennifer Nieman, the former GGB fan quoted above, has since become something of an anti-GGB influencer in her own right. She claims responsibility for recirculating the video of Halili on all fours, and has collected stories from other former fans and friends who say they've been harmed by the hosts. (Many such allegations can be found on social media, but Salon is not reporting claims that could not be directly sourced.) She first encountered "Girls Gone Bible" at "a low point in my life," after "a really bad break-up," Nieman told Salon.
Her doubts began, she said, after attending a live "Girls Gone Bible" event in Tampa, Florida. Nieman grew up in the mainline Presbyterian church, and still belongs to a congregation that flies the Pride flag. She wasn't familiar with the charismatic, evangelical world behind the "Girls Gone Bible" version of Christianity and described what she saw in Tampa as "some crazy stuff," such as people crying aloud or praising Jesus in theatrical fashion. But it was after the GGB hosts openly embraced Trump, Nieman said, that she turned against them: "If you have good moral standing, you just do not support someone like Donald Trump."
Nieman's existing political convictions drove her away from "Girls Gone Bible," but she believes the podcast's power could lead other young women, who haven't thought these issues through as deeply, down a different path. "The rhetoric they're using is super harmful," Nieman said, especially their message to "be brainless and follow men around." She hopes to "encourage other women to rely on themselves and never on a man." The GGB message is disguised as female empowerment, she said, but it "decreases the value of a woman at the end of the day, because I think we're so much more than a wife."
"Angela and Arielle have already hurt many women as they've built their careers," said Leigh, the former evangelical and podcast host. "I worry that many more will be hurt if their stories aren’t brought to light." Many previous televangelists, she noted, "have seen their empires crumble under the weight of allegations of hypocrisy, abuse and especially sexual scandal." The same fate, she suspects, could befall the "Girls Gone Bible" enterprise.
Salon reached out to Halili and Reitsma, both individually and through the talent agency that represents them, with questions regarding the issues raised by this reporting. They have not responded.
