Colleen Ballinger has denied allegations she “groomed” and formed inappropriate relationships with underage fans.
The YouTuber, 36, who initially found fame with her alter ego Miranda Sings, recently took to social media to refute the claims through a song titled “Toxic Gossip Train.” In a YouTube video posted on Wednesday, June 28, Ballinger played the ukulele and claimed viewers were on a “one-way ticket to manipulation station” while the internet “ties me to the tracks and harass me for my past.”
Ballinger began her video by alleging that “some people are saying things about me that just aren’t true” and that “even though my team has strongly advised me not to say what I’m going to say, I realized they never said I couldn’t sing about what I want to say.”
The content creator then jumped into her tune, explaining that she used to message her fans “to be besties with everybody” but “didn’t understand that maybe there should be some boundaries there.” She added that had no plans to “take the route” of saying she is “100 percent in the wrong” and to do so would be “admitting to lies and rumors that you made up for clout.”
The Haters Back Off star also claimed that while were “times in the DMs when I would overshare details of my life which was really weird of me” she hasn’t “done that in years” and has already taken “accountability” for her mistakes.
“The only thing I’ve ever groomed is my two Persian cats / I’m not a groomer, 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 / because five years ago I made a fart joke,” she sang into the camera.
Ballinger was accused of grooming her fans earlier this month when YouTuber KodeeRants shared alleged screenshots between a group of young fans and Ballinger. The actress allegedly asked the text chain, titled “Colleen’s Weenies,” their “favorite position” during one particular conversation, according to NBC News. (KodeeRants has since deleted their YouTube and Twitter accounts.)
The allegations against Ballinger began back in 2020 when content creator Adam McIntyre made a YouTube video claiming that Ballinger formed “an inappropriate personal friendship with him while he was between the ages of 13 and 16, which included her sending him lingerie as a joke.”
Ballinger responded to McIntyre’s claims at the time through her own video titled “Addressing Everything,” in which she claimed McIntyre asked for the underwear to be sent to him after she posted an online unboxing clip. Ballinger also noted that it became a “big joke within the fandom.”
“Now, in hindsight, I see how completely stupid of me, I should have never sent that,” Ballinger added in the 2020 video. “I don’t know what part of my brain was missing at the time that I thought, ‘Oh this is a normal, silly thing to do.’”
Speaking to NBC News last week, a fan named Erin shared why allegations against Ballinger are coming to light in 2023. “The reason that this is, I think, gaining so much traction now is because all of her first cycle of fans that she had, you know, me and the other group of fans that started 10 years ago, we’ve all grown up now,” she told the outlet. “And we are recognizing … the parasocial relationships that she has allowed to happen and encouraged to happen.”
