Colleen Ballinger of 'Miranda Sings' confirmed that she sent lingerie to a teen: 'This was my fault'
In 2020, Colleen Ballinger, known for her character Miranda Sings, apologized for sending lingerie to a then-13-year-old fan, Adam McIntyre.
Today, scrutiny of Ballinger's relationship with McIntyre and other young fans has lit the internet ablaze.
Ballinger called the allegations a "toxic gossip train" in a widely-reviled response video.
Allegations from former fans that the YouTuber Colleen Ballinger had interacted with them in ways that now made them feel uncomfortable reached a fever pitch this week, including that the creator made sexual jokes in group chats and in her stage act.
On Wednesday, Ballinger — a YouTube staple since 2008 who became famous for her fictional character named Miranda Sings — broke her silence in a 10-minute video that further compounded her cancellation.
She denied allegations she was manipulative, or a "groomer" or "predator," but acknowledged that she had drawn inappropriate boundaries with fans. But she said she'd already taken accountability and changed her behavior.
Ballinger's contentious relationship with one of her accusers, a former fan who's a creator himself, Adam McIntyre, dates back to 2020. At the time, Ballinger addressed allegations she sent McIntyre lingerie when he was just 13 years old, while also enlisting his unpaid help in ghost-writing tweets.
Ballinger said that while she did send McIntyre a bra and underwear in 2016, it wasn't "sneaky" or "gross," but rather a part of a longstanding tradition she had within her fandom of giving away different items. Ballinger added that just recently she mailed a piece of toilet paper to a fan.
According to Ballinger, when her friend Kory Desoto modeled the lingerie set in a 2016 livestream, McIntyre said on Twitter that he wanted them. In McIntyre's account of the situation, he did not say that he had asked for the lingerie, but he did later tweet reminding Ballinger that she had to send the gift.
"In my mind at the time, this was no different than the other stuff I send to my fans as a joke. Now in hindsight, I realize how completely stupid of me… I should have realized and recognized how dumb that was and never sent it to him," Ballinger said. "But it was never a creepy, gross thing that I was doing in secret. It was a silly, stupid mistake, that now is being blown way out of proportion."
Ballinger said that while McIntyre claimed his parents had a problem with his friendship with the much older woman, she had no idea. "He let me know multiple times how much his parents loved me and watched my videos," she said. "This was surprising for me to hear, because if I had known that, I would have stopped all interactions with him, if I ever knew his parents were uncomfortable."
She went on to say that while McIntyre claimed he helped write jokes for years, he was just one of many fans who participated in helping crowdsource content.
Ballinger said that she frequently asks fans for "input" on Twitter and enjoys their ideas for Miranda Sings jokes. "I love your advice, I love your input, I've taken a handful of suggestions as to what I should tweet as Miranda from my fans over the years, and [McIntyre] is included in that."
According to Ballinger, it was in this context that she used "a couple of his tweet ideas" within the last few years. "Since then, he has asked me multiple times if he can help me out with social media again. I always thought that was really, really sweet, but most of the time I did not engage in those conversations, until recently."
When McIntyre reached out in March offering to help, Ballinger, who recently had a baby, accepted his proposition. McIntyre sent ideas for tweets from the Miranda character, and Ballinger said she was planning on adding McIntyre to her company's official payroll if she was happy with his work.
"If it went well, then I wanted to hire him. I gave him access to my account, and he started tweeting stuff for me," she said. But that first day, one of his tweets — which he had sent to Ballinger ahead of time in a direct message — was called out for being problematic. The tweet said that Miranda was "coming out" as a fan of Meghan Trainor.
McIntyre said he was distraught after Ballinger seemed to blame him and expressed she was "upset" with what happened. He took it upon himself to log out of the Twitter account.
Ballinger accepted that she was responsible for the backlash to the Trainor tweets. "This was my fault. He sent me very long list of a ton of different things he wanted to post and I did not look over it closely enough," she said, adding that she was breastfeeding her son at the time that he sent those messages. "When he posted it I put zero blame on him at all. It was my fault. I knew better than to let someone else tweet for me. I should have reviewed closely every single thing that was going to come out of Miranda's mouth."
Ballinger also addressed controversy over insensitive videos that have resurfaced from more than a decade ago.
In Tuesday's video, Ballinger also apologized for past racist and insensitive remarks she's made in her videos, after a video resurfaced from more than a decade ago depicting her and her sister acting as Latinx women. Ballinger said she's "grateful" to her viewers for helping her grow as a person in the last 12 years of her YouTube career.
"Any and all mistakes I ever make are definitely shown and blasted to thousands and sometimes millions of people all over the world. That's not an easy thing to deal with. However, I'm really grateful for that. Over the past 12 years, you guys have been really wonderful, helping me learn and grow to be a better person," she said. "Because of you, I have become a better person."
Ballinger closed her video by addressing COVID-19, and said that she was sorry if her words had contributed to anyone's stress. "We're in the middle of a global pandemic and it is scary. And I just want to say I am so sorry if this situation made any of you feel more stressed, or uncomfortable, or sad than you already do because of all the horrible things that are currently going on in our world," she said.
Correction: July 10, 2023 — A photo caption in an earlier version of this story included an outdated description of Colleen Ballinger's apology video. The video, from 2020, was no longer "new" when this story was republished with new information in July 2023.
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