Tiffany Smith, the mother of teenage YouTube celebrity Piper Rockelle, will appear in court on Monday to face allegations that she sexually, physically, and emotionally abused about a dozen of her daughter’s young co-creators. Let’s see about it in detail.
Who is YouTuber Piper Rockelle?
Piper, a 15-year-old YouTube sensation with a huge 10 million subscribers, has an estimated net worth of $3 million. Internet trolls have been furious with the channel for years because of its content, including pop artist Pink, who in August accused Piper’s parents of exploiting her when she posted YouTube videos and Instagram pictures of herself in a swimsuit.
According to the lawsuit, Tiffany Smith pushed the children to act “sexy,” boasted that she “makes kiddie porn,” and exposed them to “harassment, molestation, and abuse.”
Sawyer Sharbino, Donlad Dougher, Corrine Joy, Connor Cain, Symonne Harrison, Ayden Mekus, Hayden Haas, Walker Bryant, Sophia Fergi, Claire Rocksmith, and Reese Rocksmith are the child actors who filed the case and are suing Smith and her boyfriend, Hill, for $2 million.
Who is Tiffany Smith?
The 11 teenage content creators sued Tiffany Smith, whose daughter is 15-year-old YouTuber Piper Rockelle, last year over the claimed mistreatment and an apparent lack of payment for their work.
The complaint, which was submitted in January 2022, claims that Smith has subjected people to “harassment, molestation, and abuse.”
According to NBC News, the civil trial is scheduled to commence on Monday. In the suit, it is claimed that the manager had a reputation as a “mean-spirited control freak” whose interactions with the content producers “were not only sexually inappropriate and confrontational but frequently reprehensible and even illegal.”
According to the lawsuit, Smith allegedly made disturbing comments about the adolescents’ anatomy, including asking one video creator how long his penis was. She supposedly admitted to another creator that her chest was flat. Another troubling allegation in the lawsuit is that Smith reportedly sent her daughter’s pants to an unidentified guy because, according to one of the plaintiffs, “old men like to smell this stuff.”
In addition, the mother of the YouTuber would tell males to remove their shirts because “sex sells” and would ask girls if they “knew what a dildo was for.” The group alleged that the deranged mother would adopt an alter persona such as “Frank the Pug” or “Lenny the Dead Cat” and hurl filthy words at the kids. According to reports, Smith reportedly used her alter persona when she screamed, “I’m going to f**k you up the**” and “I’m going to touch you in your sleep.” She once referred to the penis of a member of the Squad as “Dwayne the Rock Hard Johnson.”
To make the faked romantic relationship appear more genuine, she is also charged with caressing the kids’ buttocks, thighs, and legs improperly and urging the youngsters to act sexually aggressively during video sessions, according to the lawsuit. According to NBC News, the teenage artists’ fictitious love obsessions with one another may have contributed to online abuse. Ashley Anne-Rock Smith told the site, “I just want peace with my kids again.” Her two kids, Rockelle’s cousins, starred in about 100 of her videos.
According to the lawsuit, Smith never paid the plaintiffs for using their likenesses to advertise Piper’s content. They admitted, nonetheless, that no advance payment was guaranteed. According to the lawsuit, when nine of the video producers left “Piper’s Squad,” their individual YouTube channels received fewer clicks and subscribers.
The plaintiffs said that Smith and her partner limited their films on YouTube by erroneously flagging their videos as unsuitable or by embedding their content on porn websites. They all lost out on having more money collected as a result, the lawsuit claims.
Investigating Piper’s channel resulted in YouTube demonetization:
Piper’s channel on YouTube, which has more than 9 million members and almost 2 billion views, was demonetized in February. Piper, who also has 5 million Instagram followers and over 10 million TikTok followers, is well-known for releasing themed prank films and vlog-style videos that feature her pals. She is among the most prominent teen influencers.
Following years of online sleuths claiming Piper needed to be saved from her mother and questioning whether she was being used for financial advantage, California filed a lawsuit against Smith. A popular tweet from the musician Pink criticising her parents was among the critics. Some YouTube haters claimed Piper’s thumbnail images on the channel had a suggestive quality, and they voiced worry about the platform’s lengthy history of predators sexualizing minors in comment areas. Smith and Hill responded in court in May and categorically refuted every accusation. In her counterclaim, Smith claims that the accusations made against her are false.
Tiffany Smith countersue:
Smith countersued for $30 million in July and accused the mothers of the plaintiffs of collaborating to extort money by inventing fake accusations of sexual assault.
The $30 million that Smith and Piper are requesting is based on the money they claim they have lost as a result of YouTube demonetizing Piper’s channel, as well as “injury to reputation” and other fines and damages.
According to the lawsuit, the channel’s programming was bringing in between $300,000 and $500,000 per month in ad income and an extra $50,000 to $125,000 per month in commercial arrangements until YouTube cut off its revenue streams. There is no proof of the earnings in the allegation.
In August, when it had roughly 8 million members, according to an archived snapshot of Piper’s profile on the data-analytics website Social Blade, the channel was earning between $18,000 and $297,000 per month from advertising. Social Blade estimates sometimes have wide ranges, and Smith’s attorney did not present proof of the precise income.
In their counterclaim, Smith and her daughter claim that one of the defendants conspired with the other defendants last year to utilize a Google Drive folder and a Gmail account to plan a campaign of extortion by fabricating charges of sexual assault against Smith. According to the complaint, one defendant, Angela Sharbino, instructed the other defendants to provide a lawyer $10,000 so that they could “file a false count of sexual battery” against Smith.
The lawsuit includes images of what it claims to be a text exchange between Sharbino and a defendant who has not been identified, in which Sharbino seems to encourage the defendant to come forward with information and support their campaign against Smith.
According to the lawsuit, Sharbino texted the other individual, making reference to a Piper Squad mother, saying, “She lies constantly why should you care about doing the same?” A request for comment from Insider went unanswered from Sharbino.
Before the moms could react, Smith voluntarily dropped the complaint, and one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Matthew Sarelson, referred to it as “baseless.”
A request for a response from Smith’s lawyer went unanswered. Smith stated that at the time the films were being recorded with Rockelle, she did not perceive herself as the plaintiffs’ employer in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that was published in December. Smith informed the Times that she has subsequently obtained permission to work with adolescents.
Ronald Bell, the attorney who is defending Smith and Piper in the Illinois complaint, told Insider that these accusations were false. The attorney representing the 11 kids in the California complaint, Matthew Sarelson, referred to Smith’s action as “a public-relations stunt designed to deflect.”
Sarelson told Insider in an email,
“Eleven underage kids came forward and made very specific allegations of abuse. Their allegations were properly vetted over a period of many months,”
“The suggestion that these kids are collectively lying is non-sense.”
Help!
If you’ve been the victim of sexual assault, you may get private help by calling the National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-4673) or visiting to their website.
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Rohini (Editor) is a content writer with 3 years of experience in content writing. She joined Medico Topics on the Breaking News trainee scheme in 2022 and now works on MedicoTopics.com. She possesses a keen interest in political and entertainment matters, including the latest and most widely circulating celebrity rumors, and comprehensive resources on the wealth of renowned actors, athletes, players, and politicians around the globe.
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