The Dark Side of Kidfluencing’ Trailer

A new Netflix docuseries investigates allegations of child exploitation against the momager Piper Rockelle, a child influencer who rose to prominence around 2017. The three-part series, Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, will premiere on the platform on April 9.

The trailer shows Rockelle’s origins as a fun-loving, free-spirited tween whose antics attracted more than 10 million YouTube followers. It also shows her mother, Tiffany Smith, whom the filmmakers portray as a fame-hungry predator. “Tiffany finds people who want to be famous,” one person says in a voiceover. “She takes advantage of them. Things can get very muddy when kids are making an obscene amount of money.” According to the trailer, Rockelle’s networks were pulling in up to half a million dollars a month. The clip contends that Rockelle’s audience was mostly adult men and that Smith encouraged the young members of Rockelle’s “Squad” to “make it sexy.” (Smith has denied all allegations.)

Other allegations in the trailer include that “everything was controlled by Tiffany” and that the squad was filming 10 – 15 videos a day. Some of those interviewed also claimed that Smith started “hate campaigns” against squad members who went against her wishes. “It’s like a cult or something, like you can’t get out,” says one woman.

Last year, Smith and her onetime boyfriend, Hunter Hill, settled a $1.85 million lawsuit filed by 11 teenage influencers and their guardians in 2021 who claimed she had “emotionally, physically, and sometimes sexually” abused them, according to the Los Angeles Times. The suit claimed that Smith had not paid them for their work. She did not make a statement to the Times, but the paper reported she denied the allegations. “I’m happy and relieved for my clients,” Matthew Sarelson, the Squad’s lawyer, said in a statement, “11 kids who endured an abusive environment and had the courage to speak out publicly.”