The mother of a teenage YouTube star is standing trial on charges of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse from a group of teenage content creators.
Tiffany Smith, mother of YouTube star Piper Rockelle, is being sued by 11 teenagers who say Smith held a position of “care and control” over them while they were featured on Rockelle’s channel. The teenagers argue that they suffered physical and emotional injuries from “harassment, molestation, and abuse” while producing “widely viewed — and highly lucrative — content” for the channel, according to an over 140-page complaint filed in the Superior Court of California.
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“Ms. Smith would often boast to Plaintiffs and others about being the ‘Madam of YouTube’ and a ‘Pimp of YouTube’ and that she ‘makes kiddie porn,'” the complaint stated.
The teenagers are asking for roughly $2 million in damages each, amounting to a $22 million civil case against Smith and her boyfriend, Hunter Hill, who is the director and editor of Rockelle’s channel. The trial for Smith began on Monday.
All of the plaintiffs were members of “Piper Squad,” and they were featured on the YouTube channel that has over 10 million subscribers, per the complaint. Despite their ages, the complaint alleges that the teenagers were asked to stage romantic “crushes” on each other to fool audiences and gain views. They would be forced to kiss and perform sexually explicit actions toward each other and Smith on occasion.
The complaint alleges that Smith would assume alter egos called “Lenny the Dead Cat” or “Frank the Pig” and make and shout “obscene and sexually graphic phrases” at the plaintiffs. It also alleges that she asked them questions about “whether they have had sex before, including oral sex, and then encouraging the plaintiffs to try oral sex.”
“Ms. Smith would also pressure Walker B. to be more ‘sexually aggressive’ and ‘physical’ with her daughter, Piper, so the pair’s ‘crush’ connection would appear more realistic in Piper’s videos,” the complaint said of one of the alleged victims.
“Ms. Smith also frequently told the male Plaintiffs to ‘take their shirts off’ for photos and videos because ‘sex sells,’” the complaint continued, mentioning several moments where she asked them to do sexually explicit acts for thumbnail photos.
After the plaintiffs left the channel, the complaint alleges Smith and Hill “actively sought to sabotage Plaintiffs by driving down viewers and subscribers on their individual YouTube channels” by using bots, falsely flagging videos as inappropriate, and embedding the plaintiffs’ videos into pornographic sites, among other methods.
The complaint offered several photos of viewer charts and statistics to show the decrease in views and subscribers allegedly due to Smith and Hill’s actions.
Family members of the teenagers say their children are traumatized by Smith’s actions.
“As children, they don’t understand it, sometimes it goes over their heads,” Steevy Areeco, the mother of one of the plaintiffs, told NBC News. “But now they’re older and they’re starting to understand the trauma that was caused, the things that were said to them, these fake crushes.”
Some of the plaintiffs also argue that they were not paid for their likeness to promote content from Rockelle’s channel, which has now posted nearly 550 videos, according to the complaint. All of them said they were unpaid for their participation in the content, but they noted that they were never promised payment.
YouTube does not take responsibility for off-screen conduct from its creators, and there are few regulations around the creation of social media content involving children or young people. The video platform demonetized Rockelle’s channel in February 2022 after Insider sent them a request for comment following the filing of the lawsuit. Now, the channel no longer makes money, so Rockelle instead sells merchandise and travels around the United States performing music and meeting fans.
“We all love YouTube and it’s a great place, but when somebody is using it as a business and pulling other children in, those people should have to uphold a certain standard,” Areeco said. “We want there to be protections for the children.”
There have been several battles between Smith, the plaintiffs’ mothers, and YouTube in recent years.
In 2020, Smith sued a “Squad” parent, who is not in the current lawsuit, for defamation. Content creator Raegan Fingles accused Smith of aggressively kissing him on a livestream when he was 17, for which he was interviewed by the FBI. Smith acknowledged the kiss but said the incident had been “greatly blown out of proportion.”
In 2021, YouTube removed three thumbnail images from Rockelle’s channel for violating its child safety policy after the singer Pink tweeted that Rockelle was being exploited by Smith.
Smith filed a countersuit in July 2022, accusing the plaintiffs of conspiring to extort money by making false sexual abuse allegations. She voluntarily abandoned the lawsuit before the mothers could respond. In December, she told the Los Angeles Times that, at the time of the allegations, she did not consider herself the employer of the teenagers, but she has since acquired a permit to work with minors.
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The goal of the plaintiffs is for Smith to receive consequences for her actions.
“My goal is that Tiffany Smith never works with a child again,” Jennifer Bryant, mother to a plaintiff, said to NBC News.
