Piper Rockelle Just Posted Cryptic Videos About Telling Her Own ‘Story’ After Claiming Bad Influence Is ‘Mean’ Towards Her & Her Mom
Piper Rockelle is breaking her silence about the Netflix documentary about her, her mother, and her former group of friends. Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing recounts her friends’ experiences in The Squad and how they were exploited by the family.
Piper Rockelle and her mother Tiffany Smith recruited teenagers Sophie Fergi, Gavin Magnus, Sawyer Sharbino, Hayden Haas, Corinne Joy, Jentzen Ramirez, Claire Rock Smith and Symonne Harrison, to appear in her videos as The Squad. Together, they were named the Squad and posted on a very consistent schedule. However, what was happening behind the scenes was more sinister than what the public thought.
Eleven teenagers sued Rockwell and her mother filed a lawsuit complaining of exploitation and being “frequently subjected to an emotionally, physically and sometimes sexually abusive environment perpetrated by Piper’s mom.” They claimed that Tiffany inflicted ongoing abuse such as shouting explicit comments, repeatedly touching the plaintiffs inappropriately and encouraging them to be “sexy” and “sexually aggressive” in videos. Each teenager sued the mother-daughter duo for $2 million, making the lawsuit add up to $22 million. The case was later settled for $1.8 million
In Bad Influence, the teenagers claim that Piper herself is a victim of her mother’s exploitation, but she continues to defend her to this day.
How did Piper Rockelle respond to Bad Influence?
In a statement to USA Today, Piper said, “Honestly, I just want to move on from all of this because it’s really painful to deal with every day. And not surprisingly, my mental health has suffered more than anyone knows. She later claimed the accusations are “mean, untrue, and honestly all about money. My mom did not do any of those things that they said. And I’ll stand by my mom to the end.”
The content creator also posted a series of cryptic videos on TikTok. In a video that’s a partner post with the AI therapy app Tolan, she asked it about how to figure out life when big rumors keep circulating around her. She said, “This rumor unfortunately has kind of hurt my lifestyle in a lot of ways but I’ve just kept going as much as I possibly can. Is it worth trying to tell the truth to everyone who believes this rumor?” She also captioned the post, “rumors rumors are not fun, rumors rumors hurt someone 💔”
In another post, she posted the caption, “Can’t wait to tell my own story and not have other people tell it for me,” with a video of her lipsyncing to the song “I know, I know, I know” by ALINA. The song contains the lyrics: “Draw another line, say a quick goodbye / Never care to take the time, baby / Look at me like that / Are you feeling bad? / Know you think I’m all attached, but I’m not an idiot.”
Tiffany Smith also made a statement to People about how the documentary was inflating the situation. “This whole experience — from the claims and power plays from the stage moms to, now, the Netflix reality show — has been the most upsetting and difficult experience of my life,” she said on April 8. “And it’s been even harder for my daughter, Piper, who’s become collateral damage in a mess of adults behaving badly.”
“The reason the investigation cleared us — and declared the allegations unfounded — is because it was crazy people making even crazier accusations. I guess that makes for a good Netflix reality show,” her statement continued.
