Content warning: This article discusses disturbing themes, including sexual harassment, sexual assault, abuse, grooming, and graphic depictions of trauma involving minors.
It seems like more and more former child influencers are heading to court or speaking out about what they went through during filming. The most recent bunch was part of a group featured on child YouTuber Piper Rockelle‘s channel called “The Squad.”
Eleven members filed a joint civil complaint against Rockelle’s mother, Tiffany Rockelle Smith, and associate Hunter Hill on Jan. 12, 2022. Three years later, some of those kids sat down with Netflix to speak publicly about their experiences in the new docuseries Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing.
With the increase in family vloggers and social media pages dedicated to children, the abuse The Squad faced serves as just one example of child exploitation and what it looks like in today’s society.
the filing
The legal complaint addressed the lack of payment to the children working for Smith and attempts to sabotage the kids’ careers if they left. Most notably, though, it addressed the “grossly inappropriate, offensive and abusive treatment of plaintiffs.”
Several examples of the inappropriate comments made by Smith to the plaintiffs were provided, including telling Sophia “Sophie” F., “I wonder since [this Squad member] has freckles, whether he has a bunch of freckles on his d***,” in addition to “asking various Plaintiffs whether they have had sex before, including oral sex, and then encouraging Plaintiffs to try oral sex.”
Once again, these were minors.
The document described an occasion where Smith, who would pretend to voice a character named “Lenny the Dead Cat,” asked the youngest Plaintiff, her niece, Reese, if she had had sex before. When she said she had not, Smith proceeded to take on the character of Lenny and tell the young girl, “smell my smelly d***,” according to the filing.
The lawsuit also alleges that Smith approached her as Lenny several other times with different sexual advances including a time Smith “ambushed her, grabbed her by the neck, tossed her onto the bed and began pretending that her right arm was “Lenny’s penis” and rubbing it all over Reese’s face, head and mouth.”
Smith paid a $1.85 million settlement in October 2024, but the kids still have stories to tell.
Overworked and underpaid
Netflix’s new three-part docuseries, Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, premiered on April 9, essentially recapping how Smith took Piper and the other kids to stardom and just how quickly good turned bad.
“They make it seem like it’s this fun, happy house when it’s really a house of horror,” Sophie said in the series.
The Squad was similar to iconic groups like the ensemble cast of Friends and Jake Paul’s Team 10. They started making videos as friends, but it soon became a full-time job. The children would film 10-15 videos a day, starting at 11 a.m. and ending at 1 or 2 a.m., according to Sophie.
Corrine and Sawyer, both former Squad members, noted in the docuseries how intense and “unfun” it was to make videos. Sophie, Sawyer, and Sophie’s mother, Heather Nichole, all remember separate instances of Piper not wanting to continue making content.
“She’s pretty trapped in this,” Sawyer said in episode two.
“I’ve heard her say several times she did not wanna film. She wanted to move back to Georgia,” Nichole added.
The channel had made so much that Piper was essentially the sole provider for her and her mother. Many children in the influencer industry are, which is only emboldened by the lack of regulations in the field. The other kids in the Squad were making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, but the parents allege they did not see the money.
Emotional Manipulation
Aside from crush content and challenges, the Squad’s videos included several pranks.
Episode two, “#crush,” narrows in on a prank where Squad member Lev gets arrested. Unlike in other videos, nobody knew it was a prank except for Smith, Hill, and Nichole. Several of the children were seen on camera crying in genuine fear for their friend.
Sophie and former Squad member Jentzen took the longest to process that it was all fake, and were still visibly upset after. Jentzen’s mom, Johna Ramirez, who was also in the dark about the prank, voiced her frustrations to Smith.
Ramirez told Netflix that Smith got upset and threatened Jentzen’s position in the group. Actor Rigo Obezo, who played one of the cops in the prank, uploaded a behind-the-scenes video of the prank where Smith’s outburst is caught on camera.
“I don’t want her in The Squad anymore,” Smith told Hill. “You didn’t hear the way she spoke to me!”
Hill attempted to calm Smith down and get her to issue a warning to Ramirez, but Smith stood firm on her statement, saying, “I can’t warn her. She tells her kid everything!”
Throughout the filing and the docuseries, several parents and Squad members note how Smith isolated the children from their parents and was able to keep both parties in the dark. Ramirez pulled her son out of the group, but her husband spoke to Tiffany without the mother’s consent and let Jentzen continue filming.
Over time, Smith began telling Jentzen that his mom was trying to take his money, according to Jenn Bryant, a mother of another ex-Squad member, who was featured in the series. Jentzen responded in a YouTube video immediately after, saying his mother’s claims were untrue. He eventually filed for emancipation from his mother.
Nichole recalled Smith trying to drive a wedge in her relationship with Sophie as well.
Sophie said she faced extreme manipulation since she and her mother lived with Piper and Smith. She told Netflix that Smith encouraged her and Piper to lie to Child Protective Services by claiming she would go to jail if they didn’t.
Sophie texted her mom once, writing, “I wish we could adopt Piper and leave,” said Nichole in the docuseries. She responded, “Me too, kid,” and Smith allegedly found out and refused to let Sophie back into the Squad unless Nichole gave up parental rights.
Nichole said she refused, took Sophie, and left.
Oversexualization and sexual assault
The series also addresses occasions in which Smith forced herself onto or made uncomfortable sexual comments towards the child influencers in the Squad.
Sophie and Nichole recalled Smith’s relationship with then-12-year-old ex-Squad member Gavin in episode one, “#momager.” They said Smith would make comments regarding his private parts and showed videos from YouTube of Smith using her pug Frank to try and kiss Gavin/lick his face.
“Gavin would try to laugh about it, brush it off, ’cause he didn’t really understand what she was saying,” Sophie said. “But she wouldn’t do this around parents.”
Transgender YouTuber Raegan Beast recounted a time Smith forced herself onto him in episode two, “#crush.” He said Smith provided alcohol to Beast, and they got drunk. Smith got touchy with him, Beast claimed, by rubbing his arms, giving him massages, and calling him sexy. Then, she kissed him.
Piper is seen in the video pulling her mother away from Beast, but Smith goes right back in just as aggressively. Beast was 17. By the next morning, all traces of the kiss had disappeared from the internet.
“Tiffany took our innocence and just destroyed it,” Claire, Smith’s other niece, said in Bad Influence.
Nichole said she bought the clothes for the children but was under instruction by Smith to get Piper “sluttier clothes.” She also alleged that her friend, who made the thumbnails for the videos, received texts from Smith telling him to enhance features on both the girls and guys, including muscles, breasts, abs, and thighs.
catering to predators
One of the other allegations made both in the filing and the docuseries is that Smith would cater content to and entertain the advances of old men fascinated with Piper. This includes her biggest “fan:” Megan.
Ashley, Smith’s sister and Piper’s aunt, saw all the gifts Piper received from fans on her birthday and thought nothing of it. Sophie also told Netflix she thought Megan was a girl until Smith revealed he was an older male. Smith would boast about Megan being Piper’s stalker, according to Nichole, and incentivized the children of the Squad by telling them they could “get stuff too if you send him pictures.”
“She knew he was a pervert,” Nichole said in episode two.
Corrine’s mother, Steevy Areeco, recalled Corrine coming home and asking, “Why do old men like to sniff underwear?” Smith allegedly shipped off her daughter’s undergarments and exclusive content from photoshoots to old men like “Megan.”
Now that YouTube has demonetized Piper’s channel, Smith has found other platforms to cater to. She is also posting on an 18+ subscription website called BrandArmy.
The now-17-year-old advertises the different tiers, posed suggestively in animal onesies that expose her backside. Her profile photo is of her in a two-piece, once again, posed somewhat provocatively. Although subscribers must be 18, users can be as young as 13.
She also made recent content with members of TikTok’s Bop House. The house is comprised of girls who make content on the explicit platform OnlyFans, and their social media accounts serve to attract potential subscribers.
By posting with Piper, many feel like the girls are introducing a minor to their predatory audience and boosting her like she is “available for preorder.” A lot of these opinions are bolstered by the several comments across multiple social media platforms, either expressing interest in Piper or counting down until she turns 18.
Child exploitation in the digital age
Tiffany Smith is not the only person revealed to be exploiting and abusing minors for the sake of content. In March, Hulu released its docuseries Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke.
Another three-part series, Devil in the Family, focused on the family YouTube channel 8 Passengers and the mother, Ruby Franke. It explained how she forced her children to film and act the way she believed viewers would want to see. When the channel got demonetized, Franke started to cause physical harm to her children.
The two youngest were found emaciated with ligature marks on their hands and wrists from having been held captive in associate Jodi Hildebrant’s house. Franke’s journal held records of everything she and Hildebrant put the children through.
Before all this, however, the 8 Passengers was a “normal” family, but like many family vloggers and kidfluencers, things naturally change when a family’s lavish lifestyle depends on the success of its children.
“I think Piper continued to film because she has to,” Sophie said in episode two. “That’s how she’s making a living, and she has no other choice.”
Hundreds of creators like Piper Rockelle and the Squad have made fun content geared toward children for years, and nobody batted an eye. This unregulated space has allowed countless individuals to exploit minors with little to no consequence. With the rise in young influencers and family-centered content, it is important to remember that not everything is as innocent as it seems.