Ali Spice, Hooters waitress turned TikTok star, dies at 21 in head-on collision
Ali Spice, a former Hooters girl who garnered almost a million followers on TikTok, died with two other friends when a wrong-way driver plowed into their car on a Florida highway early Sunday, friends and family said on Tuesday.
Angela Gillis, who spoke to The Daytona Beach News-Journal, part of the USA TODAY network, on Tuesday, said her brother, Kyle Moser, 25, was also killed in the car with Spice, 21, whose real name is Alexandra Dulin. Gillis said her brother, Dulin and another friend, Ava Fellerman, were killed in the crash, which took place on State Road 44 near DeLand, Florida.
The driver of the vehicle, Devin Perkins, 21, Dulin's boyfriend, was seriously injured, she said. The friends were heading home after a night out, Gillis said.
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Zachary Wilkerson and RJ Fleming, friends of Perkins, said Tuesday that Perkins was well known as an avid truck fan. The friends said they have known Perkins for two years after meeting him at truck events.
"He was a hard worker and worked for the things he had," the friends said. Wilkerson and Fleming said they believe Perkins may have met Dulin at a truck event. "She was really nice," Wilkerson said.
Media and internet reports indicate that Dulin gained popularity as a TikTok and social media influencer, often sharing about her experience as a Hooters waitress. She had 919,000 fans following her on TikTok. Fans and friends flooded social media after learning of her passing.
Florida Highway Patrol investigators said Sunday that the driver who caused the crash was driving a Toyota Tacoma when it crashed head-on at 2:20 a.m. with the car driven by Perkins.
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After crashing into Perkins' car, the driver of the Toyota Tacoma then crashed into a second vehicle. A third vehicle avoided the crash but hit debris. In a brief 911 recording released Tuesday, a caller reported that lots of debris was in the roadway.
“We are stopped. We can’t go through because there is so much debris on the road,” the woman told a dispatcher. “I don’t know how I am going to get through.”
The driver of the Toyota Tacoma fled the scene, and a sheriff’s K-9 unit helping in the search for the suspect failed to locate him, troopers said. A woman who was riding in the vehicle is refusing to identify the driver who escaped from the scene, Florida Highway Patrol investigators said.
On Tuesday, FHP Lt. Tara Crescenzi said her agency is not releasing any more information on the crash as it is still under investigation.
“There is no update at the moment to provide,” Crescenzi said. “Once we have a suspect in custody, then we will push out an updated press release.”
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This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Ali Spice, TikTok star, dies at 21 in highway car crash