What to Know
More than two years after she was accused of inappropriate behavior toward teens, YouTuber Colleen Ballinger says she’s embarrassed by how she responded to the allegations at the time. In 2023, former fans accused Colleen, who is best known for her YouTube persona Miranda Sings, of asking them about sex when they were teenagers and she was a grown adult.
One former fan named Adam said Colleen sent him underwear when he was a teen. When the allegations came to light, Colleen did not exactly apologize. Instead, she uploaded a lengthy ukulele video.
Recently, the controversial YouTuber appeared on the podcast Tea Time with Raven and Miranda, which is the podcast Raven-Symoné hosts alongside her wife, Miranda Maday. While on the podcast, Colleen admitted that her initial “apology” was “embarrassing,” but she still didn’t apologize until Raven prompted her to do so.
In her 2023 video, Colleen denied being ‘creepy.’
With the song, Colleen seemingly tried to focus on defending herself rather than apologizing. Though she admitted to interacting with fans, she claimed it was “not in a creepy way.”
Instead, “it was more of a loser kind of way.” She sang about how the allegations made people think she’s “the type of person who manipulates and abuses children.” In the song, she asserted that she’s not “a horrible person” but admitted that some of her behavior was “really weird.”
She sang, “I just wanted to say the only thing I’ve ever groomed is my two Persian cats. I’m not a groomer. I’m 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.”
Now, Colleen says she ‘didn’t think about a power dynamic’ when she interacted with fans.
She called the grooming allegations “very serious” and said that she thought of her fans as her “friends.” On the podcast, she said, “When I was interacting with my fans, I didn’t think about a power dynamic that could have been there, I didn’t think about a parasocial relationship, and I should have. I should have been more responsible in thinking about that, but I didn’t even think of myself that way. I was like, ‘Yeah, we are friends.’ I think I felt the same way, and so for me, I was like, I’m just talking to my friends. I talk to all of them like they’re my friends, my sisters, all the fans, and I definitely should have been more careful with the way I was joking with them and the things I was saying to them.”
Though she admitted that the interactions were inappropriate, she still denied the grooming allegations.
“I know that my intention and my actions have never been fueled with the desire to manipulate or groom anybody, ever,” she said. “That has never been something I have done or will ever do. It’s a very serious accusation.”
Raven told Colleen that fans wanted an apology.
Now that some time has passed since Colleen uploaded her “apology” video, she admits that it was a questionable approach. “I obviously didn’t handle the situation the way that I should have, and it’s really embarrassing,” she said. “I wish I could have handled it a lot differently than I did.”
However, it was Raven who reminded her that people probably wanted to hear her say “sorry.” Raven pointed out, “I think people want an apology.” Colleen then agreed and said, “I think they do want an apology, and I am sorry.”
Colleen went on to acknowledge that her so-called apology song was not actually an apology. Instead, it was an “angry” response to the allegations.
She continued with, “People keep saying [the song is] an apology song — I didn’t apologize in that thing. There was no ‘sorry’ in that…It’s very clear that I was angry, and that’s why I keep saying I wish that I had just paused for a second and listened to my fans, my supporters.”
People are not convinced that Colleen is actually sorry.
On Reddit, someone called the podcast episode “very infuriating for people who want predators to be held accountable.” They also noticed that “Raven and Miranda feed Colleen answers.” On YouTube, people slammed Raven and Miranda for giving Colleen a platform and called the conversation absolutely “disgusting.”
One person commented, “lets be clear here: if a grown man had sent a little girl underwear in the mail, we would not be doing this ‘it was such a grey area at the time’ nonsense.”
