Colleen Ballinger, who first became a YouTube sensation in the 2010s with her alter-ego Miranda Sings, has come under fire with her fans and beyond, and not for the first time in her career.
The Internet star, 36, has been largely known for over a decade for the aforementioned alter-ego, her character's parody of an annoying teenage girl whose trademark is a crooked, badly painted smear of red lipstick.
Though the height of her career came in the 2010s, she experienced a resurgence via TikTok as herself, Colleen, when she shared non-satiric content of her daily life with her three kids and her husband, Erik Stocklin.
© GettyWhen did the first allegations against Colleen Ballinger appear?
Accusations of inappropriate behavior against Colleen date back to 2020, after ex-fan and fellow YouTuber Adam McIntyre accused her of having had an inappropriate relationship with him when he was a minor.
Adam was only ten years old when he launched a Miranda Sings fan account in 2013, after which the two developed an online friendship.
Years later, in a video shared in April 2020 by him titled "colleen ballinger, stop lying," he detailed a message he received from Colleen a month prior which read: "I have a present for you today. I've never done this with anyone but I'm trusting you."
Colleen went on to give Adam access to the official Miranda Sings Twitter account, and considered him her "social media intern," though after a slew of posts faced backlash, he alleges she cut him off, bad-mouthed him, and cost him the community of friends he had created via the fandom.
He has since shared several more videos this month detailing his relationship with Colleen. In one particularly problematic allegation, he recounts the time he was 15 and Colleen was 31, and they planned to spend the day together, though the meeting only lasted a few minutes after Colleen became unresponsive and unkind towards him.
© GettyWhat was Colleen Ballinger's first apology?
In a May 2020 video titled "addressing everything," Colleen responded to a slew of allegations, including Adam's claim that she sent him a pair of her underwear. She said: "No, I should have never sent a fan underwear, how stupid am I? No, I definitely should have never given him access to my Twitter account, and no, I shouldn't have talked to him as often as I did."
She also apologized for a racist video mocking Latina women, for making a fatphobic comment about a woman on an airplane, and addressed a now-viral video where she jokes about abusing her childhood dog, who in turn bit her, which led her family to subsequently put him down.
© GettyWhat are the new allegations against Colleen Ballinger?
New and old allegations against Colleen resurfaced this month after Kodee Tyler Dahl's since-deleted YouTube video titled “why I left the colleen ballinger fandom …," where they explained that they were going to share their own follow-up to Adam's 2020 video about the drama before Colleen asked them not to.
In their video, they exposed a Twitter group chat between Colleen and her closest fans titled "colleeny's weenies group chat," screenshots of which allegedly see the YouTuber making inappropriate comments and questions to the members – many of them were minors – such as about their virginity, their favorite sex positions, and "trauma dumping" about her personal life.
Colleen as Miranda Sings has also received her fair share of backlash over similar instances. On June 6, a fan with the social media tag @notitsbecks detailed her experience at a 2019 Miranda Sings show, where she was brought up on stage by "Miranda" and has since claimed she was "exploited" on stage when she was put in exposing positions.
Other similar instances have been brought to light, such as her asking a nine-year-old to reach into her pants for a "snack" from the bag of cheese balls she would stuff in them while on stage, and slut-shaming a 14-year-old (when she was in her 30s) over her outfit for a Miranda Sings show.
i’ve been debating posting this picture, but this was me on stage. she encouraged her fans to wear revealing clothing so we would get called on stage. and then she exploited us and our bodies for her own gain. so yeah, i’m okay with calling her a predator. https://t.co/uQRHsi9zD7 pic.twitter.com/8CWZtoN8cw
— becky (@noitsbecks) June 10, 2023
What did Colleen Ballinger say in her apology video?
Colleen released a new apology video on June 28 titled “hi,” where she denied most of the grooming allegations and beyond, through a ten minute song performed with a ukulele.
In it, she accuses Internet users of encouraging the "toxic gossip train, chugging down the tracks of misinformation," and though she admits to messaging her fans often, she says it was done in a "loser" way and that: "The only thing I’ve ever groomed is my two Persian cats."
She maintained: "I know that you wanted me to say that I was 100 percent in the wrong/ Well, I'm sorry I'm not going to take that route of admitting to lies and rumors that you made up for clout."
