Miss Bella Grace Gates stole the show when she went through sorority recruitment at the University of Alabama in 2023 — and for good reason. As many aspiring RushTok stars did, the then-PNM posted daily OOTDs as she talked through her Bama Rush journey, but she stood out as special to viewers for her sweetness and enduring positivity throughout every video. Even after she “ran home” to Pi Phi on bid day, Bella Grace has remained a staple of college TikTok, sharing videos of her outfits, sorority life, and more, all with that same infectious energy that viewers initially fell in love with. However, in late August 2024, a resurfaced video of Bella Grace started going viral, and it’s showing a somewhat different side of the sorority girl.
In the video, which looks like it was taken during a typical college night out, a person is heard asking, “Why do you have a Southern accent on your Instagram or TikTok?” The camera then flips to a close-up of Bella Grace, who replies, “Because it makes f*ckin’ money.” Her Campus reached out to Bella Grace’s team about the video and the internet’s reaction to it, but did not hear back in time for publication.
It turns out, this video isn’t new. A celebrity gossip account called Front Page Pop shared it on TikTok back in February. Plus, according to multiple comments across TikToks that have shared this video, the clip went viral within Bama’s student body months ago. It’s likely that the video recently resurfaced due to the hype surrounding the 2024 season of Bama Rush, which just had their Bid Day on Aug. 18.
In fact, Bella Grace may have subtly addressed this video back in June, when she posted a TikTok talking about the way her voice has changed since she first started posting Bama Rush videos in 2023. Although she doesn’t specifically address her accent, nor the video in question, she does admit she used to use a much higher-pitched tone in her early videos, which she calls her “customer service voice” (IYKYK). “When I get super nervous, I have the highest-pitched voice possible,” she says in the video. “The reason I did that baby voice — had that voice specifically — I was just a girl trying to fit in.” She then went on to add, “Social media definitely tends to blow things out of proportion; that’s exactly what happened in my case. But I can assure you that I’m the same girl you started off with — I just got more confident.”
For as many people who are criticizing Bella Grace for seemingly “faking” a Southern accent — whether to fit in, to make money on social media, or for any other reason — there seems to be just as many people who are defending her. “Thank God there is a real Bella Grace inside that sticky sweet Bama Rush Bella,” one TikTok user commented about the viral clip. Another added: “I love her for this. As she should get that bag.”
Of course, this TikTok drama is extremely tame compared to the controversies many other influencers are currently facing. Bella Grace didn’t say anything harmful — it’s even possible she was just joking around and sarcastically repeating criticism she’s been hearing about herself ever since she got famous. (Ever since Bama Rush 2023, commenters have pointed out that Bella Grace is from Michigan and questioned why she’d have a Southern accent in the first place.) Regardless of the context, though, this incident provides an important lesson for any college student growing up in the age of TikTok: Be careful who you let your guard down around, even if you’re just goofing off, because it could end up on the internet for the world to weigh in on.