My Friend Daisy

What is the podcast about?

My Friend Daisy is a 10-part true-crime limited series that investigates the 2021 murder of Daisy De La O, a 19-year-old woman from Compton, California. Announced in March 2025 by iHeartPodcasts and Paris Hilton's 11:11 Media, the podcast sets out to reconstruct the circumstances of Daisy's death, explore who she was as a person, and ask why a case involving a young woman of color in Compton did not receive the media attention it deserved.

The series title, My Friend Daisy, is deliberately intimate — a direct statement of solidarity with the victim rather than a sensationalist hook. The podcast frames Daisy not as a statistic but as a daughter, a neighbor, and a friend to people in her community. That framing is central to the editorial approach: listeners are introduced to Daisy the person before they are confronted with Daisy the victim.

New episodes dropped every Wednesday on iHeartRadio and on all major podcast platforms where the show was available from launch day, March 26, 2025.

The case behind the podcast

In 2021, Daisy De La O was shot and killed outside her apartment in Compton, California. She was 19 years old. The killing took place in a city that has historically struggled with gang violence and where homicide cases — particularly those involving young women of color — frequently fail to generate sustained national media coverage.

The details available from the podcast's promotional materials and press coverage paint a picture of a young woman whose death went largely unnoticed beyond her immediate circle. It is precisely this perceived neglect — by press, by public attention, and potentially by investigative resources — that the podcast takes as its central subject. According to reporting around the launch, the production team spent significant time with people who knew Daisy personally, building a portrait of her life before her murder.

As of the time of writing, the podcast materials available in press releases and promotional snippets do not name a convicted perpetrator, and no verified court records or sentencing details have been confirmed in accessible sources. The status of any criminal proceedings related to Daisy De La O's murder remains unclear from public reporting tied to the podcast.

The host and the production

My Friend Daisy is hosted and written by Jenn Swann, a journalist who brings a reporter's rigor to the storytelling. Swann is the creative engine of the series on a day-to-day basis — she conducted the interviews, shaped the narrative arc, and gives the podcast its investigative backbone.

The executive producer is Paris Hilton, whose audio production arm, London Audio — the podcast division of her company 11:11 Media — co-produced the series alongside iHeartPodcasts. Hilton's involvement is not merely a celebrity branding exercise: 11:11 Media developed the project as part of a broader push into premium audio content, and the partnership with iHeartPodcasts gave the show significant distribution infrastructure from day one.

As noted in the iHeartMedia press release, the collaboration between iHeartPodcasts and 11:11 Media positions My Friend Daisy as a flagship release for both organizations in the true-crime space. The decision to produce a 10-part limited series — rather than an open-ended feed — reflects an industry-wide trend toward narrative true-crime podcasts structured more like documentary miniseries than traditional weekly crime shows.

Jenn Swann's role as both host and writer is significant. In the current podcast landscape, the best limited true-crime series tend to succeed when a single, skilled journalist owns the story from reporting through to final narration. Swann's dual credit suggests the production was designed with that model in mind.

Reception

Paris Hilton announced on LinkedIn that all 10 episodes of My Friend Daisy are now available, and that the podcast reached #6 on Apple Podcasts — a strong chart position for a limited series with no prior audience. Hilton described it as a "viral true crime phenomenon," signaling that the show outperformed expectations in its opening weeks.

Beyond that chart milestone, no formal critical reviews, industry awards, or verified listener totals have been confirmed in the sources available at time of writing. The absence of detailed critical reception may simply reflect the recency of the release: the podcast launched in late March 2025, and the full press cycle had not yet run its course when this entry was compiled.

No substantive public criticism of the podcast's approach, ethics, or accuracy has been verified from available sources. Given the sensitivity of covering the murder of a young woman of color in a community that has historically been underserved by media attention, the production's framing choices — centering Daisy's humanity rather than the mechanics of the crime — appear to have been received positively by early audiences.

The case today

The underlying criminal case — the 2021 murder of Daisy De La O — remains incompletely documented in publicly accessible sources connected to the podcast. No perpetrator has been named in verified press materials, and no court outcome has been confirmed. Whether the case is solved, pending trial, or unresolved at the time of the podcast's release is not stated in available production materials.

Coverage around the launch focuses on the podcast itself rather than on any courtroom developments, which may indicate that the criminal investigation's status is either ongoing or deliberately withheld from promotional materials to preserve narrative tension across the 10 episodes.

For readers and listeners who want to follow developments beyond what the podcast covers, monitoring California court records and Compton-area crime reporting remains the most reliable path to updated information on the case.