Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing.
In 2022, a group of young actors once known as ‘The Squad’ filed a lawsuit against YouTube influencer Piper Rockelle’s mum, Tiffany Smith.
Accused of abusing them, it was claimed she sent out her tween 'daughter’s underwear to men’ and had the children work without rest breaks for YouTube content.
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The case was settled last year, but a new Netflix documentary is set to look further into the momager’s ‘cult-like manipulation’ of the aspiring child stars.
Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing releases today (9 April) and delves into the ‘context and many of the specifics’ alleged by the 11 members of social media group The Squad.
Smith and Hunter Hill (her then-boyfriend and colleague) denied the allegations in the lawsuit and it was settled for $1.85 million (£1.45 million) while the claimants had originally sought at least $22 million (£17.2 million) in damages.
Who are Piper Rockelle and The Squad?
With over 12 million followers on YouTube and six million on Instagram, 17-year-old Piper has been making content and appearing on screen since a young age.
Around 2017 and 2018, her mum Tiffany started to form The Squad, with a rotating cast of tweens appearing in her videos.
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They’d be involved in various storylines and vlog style content on Piper’s YouTube channel. And eventually, some members moved in with the influencer and Smith in order to boost their content output.
From the outside, their videos seemed silly and innocent, but some of The Squad’s parents began to take issue with the way Smith directed the kids to behave – both on and off camera.
Eleven members of the squad filed the lawsuit in complaint of exploitation and being ‘frequently subjected to an emotionally, physically and sometimes sexually abusive environment perpetrated by Piper’s mom’.
Allegations made against Tiffany Smith
While Piper was said to be making over half a million dollars a month at one point, the members claimed in the lawsuit that they would often be working without meal or rest breaks and didn’t get on-set schooling.
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A Los Angeles Times investigation into the business in 2022 dragged up some particularly serious allegations. Some children said Smith offered to show one 11-year-old girl how to perform oral sex and posted out Piper’s underwear to men.
The complaint alleged that the plaintiffs ‘spent significant time, energy and expense collaborating’ on the YouTube channel ‘without any compensation’.
It also alleged that they were subject to ‘wildly offensive and sexually explicit comments’ from the momager and would offer ‘hemp brownies’ to the children ‘who unwittingly consumed them’.
One of the plaintiffs and member of The Squad, Sophia Fergi, said the woman told them to ‘push their butts out’, ‘suck their stomachs in’ and ‘wear something sluttier'.
“My youth was stripped away at a very young age because of Tiffany,” Fergi alleged. “This lawsuit was never about money — it was to make sure she couldn’t do what she did to me to another kid.”
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The lawsuit was settled for $1.85 million in October 2024 and Smith denies all the allegations.
LADbible has contacted The Squad, Smith, and Rockelle’s reps for comment.
Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing is available to watch on Netflix now.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, contact the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000, 10am-8pm Monday to Friday. If you are a child seeking advice and support, call Childline for free on 0800 1111, 24/7.
Topics: Netflix, Parenting, Social Media, YouTube
Jess Battison