Influencer Scandals of 2023

is depressing that Christmas is over. I have been speaking now for weeks about how it's just gone so quickly. This whole year has gone quickly. I can't believe there's only a few more days left of twenty twenty three. Oh, it is crazy. Particularly when I was reflecting what's actually happened in the influencer space this year, it was actually hard to pick five top scandals, and a lot of them. I was like, oh, that only happened a couple of months ago, but it was back in January or February.

Let's start the countdown. Now, coming in at number five is the Karna Irby photoshopping debacle. So this happened back in May when an American sloper sluthor count run by John Dawesy accused the body positivity influencer of editing her body on Instagram. Now, she was labeled a hypocrite because her whole social media platform is based on embracing your body, and she even urges her followers not to edit their own photos. This story was massive, particularly because Instagram watchdog

account Influence Updates got dragged into the drama. So, like usual, she picked up on the story and reshared the real to her account. Absolute chaos followed. So it turned out that Karna allegedly sent both John and Influencer updates AU a cease and desist letter demanding they remove the content before blocking them. The best bit is that Karina wrote crease and desist rather than cease and desist. Look, I wouldn't quite say the Influencer Updates was dragged into this drama.

She was quite happy to report on it. But it's quite funny the turn of events suddenly when these pages start reporting that they have been sent legal letters and it becomes part of the story. Well, I don't think she was expecting the backlash that occurred because she simply just reshared the reel. It wasn't like she was further commenting on it. She was just aring it to her audience. Now. Rather than backing down, John used the moment to call

Karina out for more alleged photoshopping. It was then time for Karina to release a statement, so she admitted to editing her photos in the past and said that she suffers from mild body dysmorphia. Things didn't end there, so Karna then enlisted the help of a lawyer who sent John the most bizarre legal letter I've ever read. It sounded completely unprofessional and very highly emotive. For instance, one of the lines read, it is one thing to call

my client out for photoshopping photos and being hypocritical. It is another to obsess over my client, pick a public fight with her, and encourage others to bully and incite hate towards her. The letter then oddly also confirmed the original claims that Dawsy made, stating to be frank my client gently photoshopping photos, not immediately owning up to it, and responding in a way that suggests the conduct you

complained about was old. Behavior does not deserve the vitual your repeated videos and aggressive hate campanes continue to incite. Well done on reading that out, because it was a very long run on sense. It was a bit of a struggle. Yeah. Now, John ended up enlisting the free service of an American lawyer who absolutely schooled Karna's Gold Coast lawyer in Australian defamation law. Now he referred to the original legal letter as a prank cease and assistance

that it obviously must have been sent in jest. He also labeled Karina's claims as farcical and said the lawyer had failed to include any legal authority to demonstrate how Karina was entitled to relief in the Federal Court of Australia. Now, this line was my favorite bit, he wrote. Rest assured I've at least convinced him that it was certainly not some impulsive, ham fisted attempt to bully an individual solely because of his well known efforts to shed lights on

the Charlatans ramp it throughout the fitness industry. After all, as lawyers, you and I both know that would be flagrantly unconstitutional. I love that people are finally hitting back at these bullshit legal letters that are being sent out by influencers, because quite frankly, most of the time they are not worth the paper that they are written. On. Yeah, but I'm actually surprised though that these lawyers will even send them out, because it's quite embarrassing for this legal

firm to put their name to it. No, it's all about threatening people most of the time. There's no legal substance to these letters that are being sent out, and it's just in a way to try and rinse people of any money. Yeah, but this one was written in such an unprofessional way. It wasn't evenly a motive, wasn't it. Now. As for Influencer updates AU, she ended up removing the real and announce she was taking a break from public posting and would only share updates to her paying close

friends list. This was clearly the straw that broke the camel's back, because Amber, the owner of Influencer updates AU, then went on to say that this was the sign that she needed to make the decision to change the page over to a subscriber sort of format, and she felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Since then, she has been posting constant updates to her close friends list, but she has returned to publicly posting feed posts now, Sophie, I feel like this one has

a special place in your heart. Coming in at number four is Lily Brown and her smelly pajamas. So back in August, Lily gave influences a masterclass on how not to respond to criticism. So it all started when her sleepwear line She'll, issued an apology to customers after receiving complaints that their latest pajama range had an unusual odor. So in an email to affected customers, the brand stated that the unfamiliar scent was caused by an eco die

used in manufacturing. And if you're wondering, well, what did those pajamas smell like? One of our listeners wrote in alleging the chill was stinky, Let me tell you that it smelt like boiled egg after you peel it. Best way to describe it geez. I could not imagine wanting

to sleep in that sort of scent. The funniest thing was that in this email that they sent out to customers alerting them of what had happened, they were trying to come up with a remedy of how to get rid of it, and they said, oh, you've got to wash it a number of times. In this particular solution, it was in white vas and buikarb soda and to me, I always see this as a remedy to make things smell better, but whenever I've used it, it actually makes things

smell worse. Yeah. A few days later, Lily then jumped in her stories to finally address the matter personally and said, I think we're close to cracking how to get rid of this smell. So this smell must have been so pungent that even this proposed solution did not work. It reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld when that guy's bo attaches itself to the car. Now, two options were

then provided to customers. Those who wanted to keep their smelly pajamas were told they could get fifty percent store credit, while those who wanted to return their pjs could get one hundred percent store credit. However, the option of a full refund was omitted. Now we ended up getting dragged into the drama after we merely reported on the facts of this story in an Instagram reel. So after that, Lily DM, thus demanding that we take the video down.

When we declined, she publicly commented on the video, calling it fake news and claimed we slanted her name and her business. She also said not issuing refunds would be against the law. There was a lot of back and forth, but essentially Lily ended up confirming the pajamas were in fact faulty. She also said that the option of a refund was always available to customers, and it was stated

on the website. But I personally found this to be quite deceptive because when the original letter came out alerting customers to the issue, they only offered store credit. They didn't say that any exchanges were possible, so they assumed that the consumer knew that legally they had the right to an exchange. That's what Lily said, So she said, all consumers know they are entitled to a full refund,

so there was no point including it in the original email. Now, interestingly, Chill's website returns page only offers store credit to not full refunds, like Lily had stated. Now we ended up receiving a legal letter and I do use that term loosely from Lily's manager. I didn't think that managers had law degrees. No, I mean this one did. So she accused us of defamation and slander and said if we didn't agree to their terms, they would seek legal action.

So Essentially what they wanted was they wanted us to take the reel down and to not comment on the matter any further. Now, what we ended up doing was a full episode on the segment, and because it wasn't worth the paper, the legal letter was written on. We didn't mention this in the original segment, but it was quite disappointing because around that time we got a lot of abuse from one particular account who was linked to a number of Lily Brown's friends, pinpointing our age and

making derogatory comments towards us. And when you're just reporting news at the end of the day and facts that have been put out from a statement, I didn't quite understand the complete hostility, and that account seemed to know a lot about what was going on behind the scenes, was really sticking up full Lily. So it was quite interesting anyway. Moving on at number three, we have Ruby Tuesday Matthews, who back in May was accused of sharing an exploitative photo of her four year old son to

sell a hat for her and Roby. Now. Ruby got her son Mars, to model in the marketing campaign at a banana farm. Now in the photo, the four year old was photographed shirtless in low slung pants standing next to a box of bananas that said lady fingers. Now. The backlash was swift, with people labeling the photo exploitative and disgusting. Ruby was also accused of being ignorant to

the dangers of online predators. Now. Ruby addressed the concerns on her Instagram story, claiming she had taken the photos of her son on her iPhone and it wasn't a staged photo shoot. This is despite Ruby tagging a professional photographer in the photos and reels. For me, it doesn't really change things. If she took the photo or the photographer took the photo, there was still the choice to publish these photos. I think she was trying to act like it was just the way the kid happened to

be standing. It wasn't some sort of photo shoot where he was instructed to stand in a certain way. Now. Ruby then explained that they had visited her friend's banana farm and that's just how Mars was wearing his outfit

that day. She so defended the images, saying I'd also like to say, if you were sexualizing that image of him, I think you actually need to have a look at the bigger picture of what your issue is, and maybe you have become so overly sensitive that the line is blurred of what is wrong and what is right, and

there is nothing wrong with that image. Now, that was really a sad turn of events because Ruby revealed that she had been a victim of sexual assault at fourteen, which has made her super aware and vigilant around the content that she shares of her children. And she went on to say that she could claim the backlash had triggered her, but she's a little bigger than that. She finished up by saying how soft she thinks society is these days, and that the lines have been so blurred

that anything can be taken the wrong way. Now. Adam Whittington, the CEO of a not for profit charity that fights to end child trafficking and exploitation of children, weighed into the matter, labeling the photos as total exploitation of the child. He also said it happens every single time a so called influencer gets caught up exploiting their own kids. They always, always, always say, in response to the backlash, if you see my child's image as sexual, you have the problem. You

need to look at your stick problems. They then send trolls to make comments in support of their actions, or call those genuinely trying to help them by educating them trolls and haters. Now, coming in at third place, we have the South Australian Tourism Commission's Influencer only event with Sam Smith. Now, South Australians were left less than impressed when they were not only excluded from being able to attend the concert, but discovered their taxpayer funds we used

to pay for the exclusive event. Now as South Australians ourselves, the state was in uproar. I was pissed off about this. It was just such a bad look. So the invite only event was Sam's only performance in Australia and the

first in South Australia since twenty fifteen. So in total, three hundred people were invited and the Tourism Minister, Zoe Bettison claimed one hundred and fifteen were competition winners, while ninety were influences and media personalities and twenty one were SATC staff Lucky SATC stuff getting a front row ticket to that. Now, the event was supposed to attract national and international exposure for the state through Sam's social channels

as well as the influencers. The problem was the Contra deal offered by the government didn't attract big name influencers, and furthermore, as the influencers were obligated to post, the coverage was very minimal, with most of it disappearing after twenty four hours. They were clearly banking on Sam Smith sharing this to their account because they do have over fourteen million followers. The only catch was the content that they did share was of them outside McDonald's on South

Road and it was a glamorous spot. No because the Tourism Commission they'd taken them to all of these fancy restaurants, winder Stars, grease, wined and dined them and then that was the photo that they chose to share them outside this huge golden Arch sign. They literally could have been anywhere. Now in March, the ABC obtained documents which revealed the details of the deal the SATC struck with influencers to

get them to attend the event. So for some interstate influences, the Contra deal included free flights, transfers, accommodation and meals,

with the commercial costs predicted at two thousand dollars per influencer. Now, the SATC confirmed that they shared the cost for the event with Frontier Touring, who was putting on Sam Smith's concert, and in January, Tourism Minister Zoe Betterson said the Sam Smith concert cost less than half a million dollars and resulted in thirty two million dollars worth of advertising for the state. This was despite the fact that a review found that they had absolutely no way to measure the

influencer's return on investments. Yes, so the results of a review into the handling of the event were revealed in May, and it was found that the SATC needed a greater level of transparency when choosing which influencers to engage with. Sa also agreed to overhaul its policies about engaging with influences. We also have to mention the fact that there was a rogue pisser, so someone apparently pissed in the mosh pit. This was being reported at the time. We still don't

know who that influencer is. Yeah, and also this was the first event that Sophie Kaisha attended with her new girlfriend, Sophie vander Hoovel, so Sophie actually shared vision of her cuddling into the other Sophie at the Sam Smith concert recently for Sophie's birthday. God, it must be so confusing with them both being called Sophie. I'm called Sophie, and when we're reporting on issues with Sophie Guidlin and Sophie Kasha, it gets confusing. The amount of sophie is that are

flying around. Well, I think Sophie Kaysha calls her VD instead. Now I feel like we need a drum roll because coming in in top spot for Outspoken's Biggest Influencer scandal of twenty twenty three is Emma Clair. So. In April, she shocked the internet when she admitted to killing two cats as a child. I can't believe this was in April.

This just feels like the other day now. The twenty eight year old made the disgusting revelation on her newly revamped podcast called Simply Chaotic, and the timing could not have been worse for Emma, who had just given birth to her first child a week earlier. Now. As a refresher, Emma and her co host Kirsty had been sharing personal secrets on the podcast. When Emma said, I've got one. I killed my cat, but I promise I'm really good

with my animals. She then went on to say, I didn't mean to I was young, I was a child. I was swinging my cat around like I was thinking it was just a stuff toy, and I accidentally let go of it. That is really difficult to listen to again. It is deeply disturbing. The incident that took place, and the fact that she thinks that this is some sort of fun secret to share on a podcast. Let's get to know me better. Oh, I horrifically murdered a pet cat. Oh,

it is so disgusting. Emma did later confirm that the cat died from fright rather than an injury, and she also said her sister didn't speak to her for months following the incident and that her mum was fucking fuming. She would then went on to say, I'm giggling about it now, but this happened years and years ago, and like I was a fucking little child. Emma then finished up by offhandly revealing that she also killed her best

friend's cat. For her to then reveal that this wasn't an isolated incident and this has actually happened a second time with another friend's cat, was just so deeply troubling. Yeah, it really was. I just still can't believe that she even recorded this, edited it, and then put it out for the world to listener, and also used it as a teaser to promote the episode. That's so true. This wasn't live. This was said with a lot of hindsight, and I just can't still get over it now. The

backlash was swift, causing Emma to share a statement. However, rather than apologizing, she told her followers to chill and said the story is a bit of light humor. She also advised her audience to not listen to her podcast if they couldn't handle the humor. She finished the statement by writing again, sorry, not sorry for an hour accident that happened over twenty years ago, and sorry not sorry for having a giggle about it, because I think, still

twenty years on, I'm in shock by it now. Following Emma's statement, multiple brands cut ties with her, including Lust Minerals and MC beauty. A day later, Emmett had suddenly changed her tune, apologizing for sharing the story and stating that she was well aware that the story was not light humor and in fact very serious. She also deleted the story from her podcast, however, kept up the promotional

material that featured the story. She did end up leaving social media shortly after the incident due to the apparent bullying and death threats that she received. Before leaving the platform, she said, the last nine weeks have been the toughest of my life and my mental health has been destroyed. Now she has stayed offline since then, I am wondering if we will see her return this year. I am really surprised Kate that Sarah's Day has not made the

top five scandals for this year. Well, if we were doing a top ten, I was thinking of putting her Sunny scandal in there, But I have noticed that she really has taken a step back from really big scandals. She's been wearing up to go though, since she has shut down Sunny, so I feel like she may feature next year. Yeah. I am really excited to see what unfolds next year. Now, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you have enjoyed it, could you

please make sure you do share across your stories. Yes, and we do hope you have a wonderful New Year's For Outspoken Plus subscribers, we will be counting down the top five relationship dramas of twenty twenty three, so if you are a subscriber and are looking for more content to get you through the holiday period, it is a great time to sign up now. This podcast was recorded on the traditional land of the Ghana people of the Adelaide Planes. We pay respect to elders past and present,