YouTube star Colleen Ballinger – who is famous for creating Internet character Miranda Sings – has been accused of inappropriate, toxic relationships with fans, with old and new allegations against her surfacing.
She became famous in the 2010s mostly due to her online alter-ego, which was built as a parody of a teenage girl with smeared red lipstick, before appearing on the Internet prominently more recently on TikTok telling comedic stories from her family life.
This week, Colleen has responded to the allegations against her by posting a video on her Colleen Vlogs YouTube channel. While playing the ukulele she rejects the accusations, calling them ‘lies’ referring to them as part of a ‘toxic gossip train’ as part of the lyrics to a song she sings.
Here's everything we know about the allegations against her.
What are the allegations against Colleen Ballinger?
Public allegations began as far back as April 2020. In a video named ‘colleen ballinger, stop lying’, a fan named Adam McIntyre accused her of developing an unhealthy relationship with him when he was as young as 13.
They met in 2014, but by 2016 he alleges that Colleen sent him a set of underwear, and that he was part of a Twitter group fan chat called ‘Colleeny’s Weenies’. He reported that within this chat, Colleen asked him what his ‘favourite position’ was and that his ‘a** looks good’, asking for pictures. Adam also shared screenshots of the chat.
Earlier this month, another member of the ‘Colleeny’s Weenies’ chat named KodeeRants who corroborated Adam’s accusations in a since-deleted video.
Adam also accused Colleen of ‘trauma dumping’ on young fans and manipulating them into defending her against ‘emotional abuse’ from her husband at the time, Joshua Evans.
Other members of Colleen’s fan network have come forward to share their experiences with HuffPost UK.
Past incidents have also come to the surface, including one in 2019 when Colleen lifted a fan named Becky’s legs over her head and spread them open during a live yoga challenge. She commented in an interview with HuffPost: ‘I looked up to her so much and I just trusted her so much that I did it. I laid down and she just spread my legs wide open for everybody to see.’
She added in a separate conversation with Rolling Stone: ‘I was mortified in that position. I was in shock. But I had so many like friends through [the fandom] that I didn’t want to necessarily lose.
‘So for a little bit, I was pretending to be like “Yeah, that was really funny.” I was worried that I would be called ungrateful because I got to go up on stage.’
Five former fans told Rolling Stone about their experiences with Colleen, which they described as 'toxic, exploitative, and hurtful', including sending sexually suggestive messages and making jokes at their expense.
How has Colleen Ballinger responded to these accusations?
She previously apologised for sending Adam underwear garments in a video back in 2020. ‘I don’t know what part of my brain was missing at the time,’ she said, referring to the abuse she’d received off the back of these accusations. ‘But I am not a monster, I am not a groomer, and I shouldn’t kill myself.’
Collen added: 'I'm not a groomer, I'm just a loser', explaining that she’d been messaging fans in an effort to be cool.
Her video this week contained denials of the allegations against her, which she insisted ‘aren’t true’.
'Some people are saying things about me that just aren’t true,’ she said. ‘Even though my team has strongly advised me not to say what I’m going to say, I realised they never said I couldn’t sing about what I want to say.’
What was her Toxic Gossip Train song all about?
Lyrics to Colleen’s ukulele-accompanied song include the following:
‘In the beginning of my career I didn't really understand that maybe there should be some boundaries there,’ she sang. ‘There were times in the DMs when I would overshare details of my life, which was really weird of me.
‘I haven't done that for years, you see, because I changed my behaviour and I took accountability.’
The chorus includes her describing those making allegations her as boarding a ‘toxic gossip train’ on ‘the tracks of misinformation’, and she "won't survive in the crash".
She continues that their "goal is to ruin the life of the person you despise", and "it doesn't matter that these things aren't true" – which feels a bit like victim blaming.
Colleen’s concern, according to the song, is that public perception is that she is ‘the type of person who manipulates and abuses children’.
In a bizarre twist, she sang: ‘So I just wanted to say the only thing I've ever groomed is my two Persian cats. I'm not a groomer. I'm just a loser who didn't understand I shouldn't respond to fans. And I'm not a predator even though a lot of you think so.
‘Sometimes people can make a mistake and it doesn't make them a horrible person.’
How have people reacted to Colleen’s Toxic Gossip Train video?
The general reaction has been that a reaction in song is trivialising the accusations made.
One critic tweeted: 'Colleen Ballinger really thought singing “I’m not a groomer I’m just a loser” was a cute way to respond to the very SERIOUS allegations that’ve been levied against her and…it’s beyond sick.'
Another tweeted: 'I hope colleen ballinger loses everything. The audacity to post that embarrassing song and pretend that she's ever actually taken accountability for anything in her life is disgusting. Minimizing the experiences of her victims by talking about "jokes" or "mistakes from her past"'.
Another pointed out: 'If multiple people are telling you that you did something that traumatized them, you don’t pick up a fucking ukulele and sing about how it’s just lies and gossip in response. You are so fucking twisted and you deserve all the hate.'
Adam McIntyre has responded to the video in an emotional tweet: 'As much as colleen discredited & made fun of me, im glad her video did ONE thing, show you all EXACTLY the type of evil woman she is, that a lot of us have experienced over the past few years behind the scenes, the mask has slipped…everyone meet the REAL colleen ballinger.'
Grazia has contacted reps for Colleen for comment.