When Colleen Ballinger first got started on YouTube, the platform was still brand new. “All these kids started making videos of themselves singing in their bedroom alone,” she said in a 2013 episode of MTV’s True Life. “I just posted a video kind of making fun of them to make my friends laugh.”
That’s how Ballinger’s world-famous character, Miranda Sings, was born, she said at the time. “And now, she’s a monster.”
Ballinger’s True Life episode captured the YouTuber at an inflection point in her career, when she was working overtime to scratch out a different, more durable kind of fame. A decade later, multiple ex-fans have come forward to describe the allegedly inappropriate contact they shared with Ballinger and other members of her circle.

2 years ago
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English (United States) ·