Who was Scott Wampler? Tributes pour in as Kingcast podcast co-host dies

Scott Wampler, co-host of the podcast Kingcast, passed away on Friday, May 31, 2024, at his home in Austin, Texas. Additional details, including his cause of death, time, and age, were not released at the time of writing this article. Wampler co-hosted the Stephen-Hawking-focused podcast Kingcast since 2020 with Eric Vespe.

Eric announced the news of his death on X, where he called Scott his friend, co-host, and partner-in-crime," adding that he was in shock about the news.

Scott Wampler was a well-known podcast host, film critic, and Texas-based entertainment journalist. He wrote for multiple publications, including Birth.Movies.Death, Collider, and Fangoria, a horror magazine-turned into a website.

Wampler was also known for his active social media presence and tongue-in-cheek tone while covering entertainment news. He and his co-host on Kingcast, Eric Vespe, previously worked together as entertainment journalists before starting the podcast.

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Scott Wampler hosted multiple well-known personalities in the Kingcast podcast

Eric Vespe and Scott Wampler started the Kingcast podcast in 2020, as both were avid fans of the horror writer Stephen King. Their podcast focused on Stephen King's work and discussed his books, other works, and the underlying themes.

Wampler told the Dallas Observer in an interview that he and Vespe started the podcast as both were fans of Stephen King's books as well as the horror genre.

“It was like one of the only things that Eric felt qualified to do a podcast about because he was so well-read, and I had read all the books. Stephen King books were something we were already talking about anyway,” Scott noted

Wampler and Vespe also invited well-known personalities from the horror genre to share their thoughts about the genre and King's works on the podcast. Kingcast featured guests like Elijah Wood, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kumail Nanjiani, David Lowery, and Guillermo Del Toro.

The duo also brought in Stephen King as a guest on the podcast after it completed 108 episodes. Scott Wampler spoke about meeting King during his Dallas Observer interview. He said that King asked him to "get a life" after Wampler asked King a "deeply nerdy question" about the biological relationship between three monsters from the author's novels.

"[It was] a direct quote from the old SNL sketch where William Shatner loses his patience with a bunch of nerdy Star Trek fans. Spoken entirely in jest, of course, but a moment so good we singled it out and used it to promote the episode,” Scott told the publication.

Following the announcement of Wampler's death, celebrities who had featured on the Kingcast podcast took to social media to pay their respects to him. Director Guillermo Del Toro took to X to write that Scott "lived a full life" that was "brimming with passion."

"Scott was loved, loved, loved and he lived a full life and one that was brimming with passion and many deep friendships. @EricVespe I send you much light and love. I am here if you need me," the director tweeted.

Director Scott Derrickson also posted about Scott Wampler on X and called him "one of the brightest lights in the genre film community."

"We lost Scott Wampler (@ScottWamplerRIP) today. He was one of the brightest lights in the genre film community. Always engaging, highly intelligent and disarmingly funny. This is a very sad day for all of us who knew him. He will be greatly missed," Derrickson wrote.

Apart from working on his podcast, Scott was best known for his tongue-in-cheek tone when reporting entertainment news. He was born in Plano, Texas, but grew up in Dallas.

He began his professional career while working for Birth.Movies.Death, owned by Alamo Drafthouse. Before the magazine was shut down in 2020, Scott served as its managing editor.

As mentioned earlier, he also wrote for Collider and Fangoria. As a part of Fangoria, he collaborated with his old friend Eric Vespe before they started the Kingcast podcast.

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A week before he passed away, on May 22, 2024, Scott Wampler indicated that he had a big announcement for a new show. However, details about the project are not known.

According to Fangoria's website, Scott Wampler's death was "without any pain," although the cause of his death and other details have yet to be officially confirmed. In his post announcing Wampler's death, Vespe also mentioned Wampler was "with friends" at the time of his death.