Colleen Ballinger has apologized, but one might ask how sincere she is after her latest controversy because she said her sorries in a song she is now monetizing.
Then again, the apology song isn’t really much of an apology anyway. It sounds more like an explanation peppered with excuses and absolutely no accountability — especially considering the severity of the accusations she is facing.
That’s right; the disgraced social media star sang her apology tune for her fans on a YouTube video at the end of June.
Naturally, that produced a wave of backlash (and some great parodies) because it seemed to make light of the seriousness of the allegations against her.
In it, she sings lyrics like “Many years ago, I used to message my fans/Uh, but not in a creepy way like a lot of you are trying to suggest/It was more of a loser kind of way/Where I was just trying to be besties with everybody.”
Then, when Colleen’s critics used her Toxic Gossip Train song to create videos talking about the allegations and picking apart the “apology,” she found a pretty clever way to shut them down.
What is Colleen Ballinger accused of doing?
For those that aren’t in the know, Colleen has been accused of grooming and forming inappropriate relationships with underage fans, and it’s not the first time either.
A YouTuber named Adam McIntyre made a video in 2020 where he made shocking allegations against the Miranda Sings star, claiming that Colleen groomed him, made him uncomfortable, and then harassed him in a group chat for three years.
In a Twitch stream on June 28, the same day she updated this new song, he said, “This is your response? Your response is making fun of us? I’m in awe.”
Adam claims that when he was a teenager and Colleen was in her 30s (she’s 36 now), she befriended him, and he helped her with her social media. He accused Colleen of sending him lingerie as a joke and said she put him in many uncomfortable situations during their “friendship.”
These allegations against Collen seemed to have died down until recently, when another YouTuber, KodeeRants, pulled out receipts from a group chat where Colleen was asking her fans inappropriate questions along the lines of “what is your favorite position?” as proof that she was very inappropriate in a group chat that she called “weenies.”
Screenshots of the group chat showed Colleen speaking openly about the demise of her marriage, as she accused her ex-husband of cheating on her.
The timing of the screenshot receipts is interesting, considering that Colleen had just started a new podcast called Oversharing with Trisha Paytas. The pair were three episodes deep when the receipts were dropped, and Colleen became an entertainment pariah once again.
Trisha, who was rumored to be joining RHOBH just a few months ago, didn’t want anything to do with this controversy, saying she was “embarrassed” by what was going on and parted ways with Colleen immediately, ending the Oversharing podcast almost as fast as it got started.
Colleen Ballinger accused of hitting critics with copyright
What’s really got Colleen Ballinger’s critics worked up is that many of them created their own videos about this latest social media drama and used part or all of her song, Toxic Gossip Train, in it while taking aim.
However, since the song has been copyrighted, some of those who used it in their criticisms claim that they have received copyright strikes and that their videos are being taken down due to the use of her song.
Colleen has amassed 11 million views on the controversial song in 13 days just on YouTube alone. Now, she’s uploaded it to Apple Music, where she’s bound to rack up even more streams, making even more revenue off the controversy surrounding her.