Teenager Piper Rockelle and her friends created a multimillion-dollar YouTube empire. A lawsuit threatens it, and ask questions about whether what young influencers do for a living constitutes "work."
Teenager Piper Rockelle and her friends created a multimillion-dollar YouTube empire. A lawsuit threatens it, and brings up questions about whether what young influencers do for a living constitutes “work.”
Today, we examine the history of child labor laws in California, and what might happen in this digital age. Read the full transcript here.
Host: Gustavo Arellano
Guests: L.A. Times senior entertainment reporter Amy Kaufman, and L.A. Times arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt
More reading:
Inside the blockbuster lawsuit threatening one teen YouTube star’s multimillion-dollar empire
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Who’s protecting social media’s child stars? Inside the lawsuit against one YouTuber’s empire
Gustavo Arellano: California has some of the strictest protections in the country for child performers.
But in a time where social media fame is a full-time job for many teens and tweens ...
Regulating child labor is tricky ...
Especially because a lot of this stuff is being filmed in private homes.
Take 15-year-old Piper Rockelle.
She and her group call themselves the Squad, and they have more than 10 million subscribers on YouTube.
But some former members of the Squad, they're not happy.
Sophie: So I just kept going over and doing videos, and it was like nothing was weird for a while until it did get weird.
Gustavo Arellano: In a civil lawsuit, they claimed that they were quote “frequently subjected to an emotionally, physically, and sometimes sexually abusive environment” end quote.
Ashley Rock Smith: We all just cried.We were like, we kind of just left what almost felt like a cult. You know what I mean? I know that we were all very happy to and grateful because we could just breathe again.
Gustavo Arellano: This lawsuit offers an unsettling glimpse into a largely unregulated world of social media and its child stars.
Gustavo Arellano: I'm Gustavo Arellano. You're listening to The Times, Essential News from the LA Times.
It's Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023.
Today, the lawsuit that's putting a YouTube child star’s multimillion dollar company in jeopardy.
Gustavo Arellano: Amy Kaufman is an L.A. Times senior entertainment writer, and our colleague Jessica Gelt, is an arts and culture writer. Amy and Jessica, welcome to The Times.
Amy Kaufman: Thanks for having us, Gustavo.
Jessica Gelt: Thank you for having us.
Gustavo Arellano: So, Amy, who's at the center of this lawsuit?
Amy Kaufman: Well, her name is Piper Rockelle.
Amy Kaufman: She's a 15-year-old who has millions of followers on YouTube. And basically, you know, she looks like your girl next door. She's really cute, really bubblegum poppy.
Piper intro tape: Shalom, guys, I hope your day been good but better watching this video! Today the squad and I are becoming cheerleaders!
Amy Kaufman: She loves to perform. She dances, she sings, and her videos are kind of just her and her friends hanging out. They like to do pranks on each other.
Piper videotape: I'm going to be doing my very first prank. Yeah, that's right. You heard it. I'm gonna do my very first prank and I can't do this alone. Like I need the all-time prank master, PIPER! WOO! HI, GUYS!
Amy Kaufman: It's them talking about their crushes on one another and doing like 24-hour challenges and that kind of stuff. The fans who watch the videos really love the interactions between her and her friends because it makes it seem like they are all just hanging out like normal teenagers, but with sort of heightened circumstances because they're in L.A. and kind of wearing cool clothes and maybe going to fun places sometimes.
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, there's so many. I mean, I think all tweens and zillennials or whatever you call young people nowadays, they're uploading their entire lives to social media, Jessica. So how did Piper end up becoming a 15-year-old making millions? Like, what is it specifically about what she offers that distinguishes her from her peers?
Jessica Gelt: You know, it's one thing just to be a kid who's on social media uploading things, and then there's kids who really do it as a full-time job. And that's what's going on with Piper and kids like her who are real influencers, and they're doing it all the time. Her videos have amassed over 1.87 billion views. And she's got just a huge following online, and she's making branded content. So there's companies that are paying her basically to plug their shows and to plug their clothes and their makeup and things like that. So companies like NBCUniversal, Disney, Amazon: They were paying her to promote on Instagram and TikTok. And then she's also making money through more traditional revenue share that she gets from the advertisements that run on her YouTube videos. And she also does a tour. I think she's even going to Australia this year. And she and her squad members perform and dance and that kind of thing. And those tickets can sell for, I think, up to about $500. So she’s …
Gustavo Arellano: Oh, wow.
Jessica Gelt: Yeah, so she's got a lot going on.
Gustavo Arellano: So it's not like my little nieces doing their thing, then?
Amy Kaufman: Well, it kind of started like that, though, you know, and I think that's Piper's story and part of why we were interested in telling it is because so many kids, I think, you know, the number one occupation now that young people dream of to be an influencer. And Piper, who just started by watching “Toddlers and Tiaras” and was in like the beauty pageant world, then eventually started doing social media. And first she was on Musical.ly, which is now a defunct app that's become TikTok, but she did YouTube videos and it did kind of look like, you know, just a girl making slime, like the stuff that you see your cousin doing. And now she has this Squad. The Squad is the teenage group of friends who she hangs out with, and over the years there've been a number of kids who've cycled in and out of it. And part of what our story revolves around is that some of the former Squad members are not too happy with how their lives have gone once they left or were kicked out of the Squad.
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, Amy, you mentioned troubles. All of this sounds really cool, kind of wholesome, very rich, but what are the specifics of this lawsuit, then? When was it filed? What's alleged? All of that stuff.
Amy Kaufman: So about a year ago, last January 2022, a lawsuit was filed by 11 former members of Piper's Squad, including two of her cousins who were actually in the Squad for a little bit. And in it, they made some pretty shocking claims against Piper's mom, whose name is Tiffany Smith. They claimed that they were frequently subjected to an emotionally, physically and sometimes sexually abusive environment perpetrated by her mom. And they say that this supposed abuse happened on and off set while they were with Piper while they were working for her company, Piper Rockelle Inc. And the least amount they're seeking is $22 million in damages.
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah. Jessica, I know that child actors have to follow all kinds of strict rules when they're on the set of movies, television shows – they have to take time to go to school and all of that. So do the same rules apply to social media video stars like Piper and her Squad and others?
Jessica Gelt: Yeah. That's the interesting thing. And that's what we were really drilling into when we were reporting this story – is yes, these rules do apply to these kids. But a lot of influencers themselves will say that they don't because they're not acting a part and they're just doing it at home. But you know, in the case of the Squad, they were saying they were working up to like 12 hours a day. And in California, the protections that are included for sets are a maximum eight-hour work day, three hours per weekday of on-school set instruction, a state licensed studio teacher has to be present at all times during the production, the state also mandates that adults employing children have to obtain permits to do this, and a 100% of the child's earnings have to belong to that child. That's called the Coogan Law, and Tiffany, Piper's mom, said that she did set up a Coogan account and follow those financial rules for Piper, but other than that it seems like these kids were allegedly weren't in school, were allegedly working all kinds of crazy hours. And the plaintiffs are otherwise alleging a completely freewheeling, unregulated environment.
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, I knew about the Coogan Law because that was based on a child star who used to do films with Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Coogan. He made millions, and then his parents just totally ripped him off so that by the time he was adult, there wasn’t much money left. This is from like the 1930s. So this lawsuit against Piper Rockelle's company, it just focuses on them and its alleged practices. But, Jessica, what can this lawsuit mean for other kids who are making money on social media?
Jessica Gelt: Well, basically people who are interested in protecting social media influencers and child performers, advocacy groups are basically saying these laws really, really need to be enforced on these sets for these micro-celebrities, that kids are becoming on social media are actually, you know, not just micro-celebrities, they're becoming major celebrities in many ways.
Jessica Gelt: Lots and lots of kids say they wanna be a YouTuber or influencer and that's what they wanna do with their lives. And so they're kind of becoming their own types of their brands in and of themselves. So, parents who are helping their kids achieve these goals, really need to think in terms of privacy and labor practices and make sure they have safety nets set up for their kids because, unfortunately, it seems like there aren't any real built-in protections or regulatory agencies who can just go in to a home and make sure these things are set up.
Gustavo Arellano: Coming up after the break, how this lawsuit against Piper's Squad all started. We'll be right back.
Gustavo Arellano: Amy, I saw some of the videos from Piper's Squad. One of the members was trying to make avocado toast. One of her friends was trying to spray olive spray on a pan and it was going all over. I laughed, I chuckled. How did, then, a company like this set up to be wholesome and to make you smile, turn into this nasty lawsuit with all sorts of serious allegations?
Amy Kaufman: Well, at the heart of this lawsuit and many others, of course, is money. You know, a lot of what the plaintiffs told us, the parents of the former Squad members and the kids who were in the Squad who are parties of the lawsuit, said that when they left the Squad, they started to notice that their viewership on their YouTube channels was completely tanking. And you might think, OK, well, they were in the Squad and they're associated with Piper, who has like more than 10 million followers on YouTube. That makes sense, right? They said that the dropoff was so intense that they suspected something nefarious was going on. And when they started talking to other former Squad members, they were all in the same boat. And that was one of the first things that they started to look into because their channels used to be controlled by Tiffany's boyfriend. His name is Hunter Hill. He's the cinematographer for the Squad, and he also is sort of the algorithm guru. So when you're a Squad member, he controls your YouTube channel. He posts the videos, he puts in the little like, you know, hashtags to help make it do well on YouTube. And in the lawsuit, these plaintiffs were alleging that they suspected because he knew how to manipulate the algorithms to do well, maybe he had something to do with tanking them once they left. Of course, Tiffany, Hunter and Piper all vehemently deny this.
Gustavo Arellano: And Tiffany, of course, is the mother of Piper. Jessica, once they realized these are happening, were they complaining to any public officials or law enforcement or anything like that?
Jessica Gelt: Yeah, so they basically started talking amongst themselves before they left the Squad. They started talking about possible labor violations. And they did, in fact, report some of these to the Labor Board and to the LAPD. And then once they left, they all started talking about what Amy was saying about their numbers tanking, and of course they were all losing money from their YouTube views. And then the kids talking about these sexual allegations, things that had happened with Tiffany on set that were, very, very upsetting. Like her mailing Piper's underwear to older men and just some other very disturbing things. So when we were looking into all of the allegations, we spoke with Ashley Rock Smith, who was a mother who was married to Tiffany's sister, Patience.
Jessica Gelt: Ashley has two daughters who were in the Squad. These were Piper's cousins. And she had a lot to say about the situation, and she was the one that talked a bit about how when the parents got together, their kids started coming out with these sexual allegations. And that was when she said the kids started saying, “Oh, my God, that happened to me too.”
Ashley Rock Smith: When we had a lot of these kids talking to each other, and they were like, “Oh, my God, that happened to you?” “Wait, that happened to you” “Wait, she did that to me too.” “Wait.” All these kids started to realize that, you know, oh, well maybe that wasn't cool. So a lot of the parents, our jaws were on the floor. And some of you guys were crying.
Jessica Gelt: So then this other side of things started pouring out and ultimately, the FBI got involved.
Amy Kaufman: I mean, one of the most wild and alarming allegations in the lawsuit had to do with a cat named Lenny. Lenny, the dead cat actually. Tiffany and Piper are huge cat lovers. They reportedly have dozens of cats even currently in their home. She lives in a mansion, by the way, that was once owned by the actress Bella Thorne in Sherman Oaks. It's a bright pink house. So they love cats, and when Piper was little, she had one she especially was close to named Lenny. Lenny had a very tragic death. The mom, Tiffany, did as many, I think, pet lovers and owners do, um, had a voice for this cat, Lenny. And when the cat died, she continued doing the voice for Piper to feel like still close to the cat, Lenny. Unfortunately, that morphed into what the former Squad members allege was the way that Tiffany actually abused them. The plaintiffs say that Tiffany would use Lenny the cat's voice to say vulgar things to them, to touch them in inappropriate ways and because it was masked in a playful manner, they didn't necessarily know that it was inappropriate and told us that that's why eventually they had that moment when all the former Squad kids got together and were like, things weren't really OK. And some of them hadn't told their parents about these things until they were out of the Squad.
Jessica Gelt: It's important to add that Amy and I did interview Tiffany and Piper and we spoke to them about these allegations, all of which they vehemently denied.
Amy Kaufman: So there were certainly some allegations that were a tad bizarre. But there were really serious ones as well, including one from an individual named Raegan Fingles. Raegan is another content creator who met Piper back when Musical.ly was still a thing and they used to make videos together. And Raegan alleged that one day he went over to make some videos with Piper, and after they were done, they kept hanging out at Piper and Tiffany's apartment. And Raegan said that Tiffany offered him alcohol. He was only 17 at the time,and said that during a livestream that they were filming, all of a sudden, Tiffany kissed him. Then he said she actually did it again, even though he was shocked. He said that Piper was so alarmed she tried to pull her mom away and they stopped the livestream. And then Raegan said Tiffany actually tried to pull him into her bedroom. Of course, Tiffany denies all of this happened. But Raegan said that he was very alarmed by what happened. He proceeded to tell his manager about it, and the clip was online. It still circulates to this day. And that was one of the first signs Squad members point to seeing this video circulating online that they had a sense that maybe something unsavory was going on with Tiffany.
Gustavo Arellano: So why do Tiffany and Piper think their former Squad members are making these allegations and even suing them?
Jessica Gelt: So Tiffany is also claiming the same thing: It has to do with money. She said that the Squad members are motivated by financial jealousy of her 15-year-old daughter and that that's what they're coming after them for money. Because they did so well and they were so upset after they left the Squad that their numbers tanked and they began losing money. So that's sort of the back and forth between the two camps at this point.
Piper videotape: My mom is being bullied for something she didn't even do, and that hurts me. It doesn't hurt my mom. She doesn't care. It hurts me to see my mom being slandered on social media. It's not fun and I don't like it
Gustavo Arellano: More, after the break.
Gustavo Arellano: Amy, what's the status of the lawsuit right now against Piper Rockelle's company?
Amy Kaufman: There is a hearing scheduled for November. It's unclear if Tiffany and Piper's side will attempt to come to a settlement with the plaintiffs, the former Squad members. But in the meantime, we just have to wait and see until it gets to court.
Gustavo Arellano: And to both you, Amy and Jessica, whatever happens with this lawsuit, what might be next for child stars in the social media world? Are lawmakers actively working on ways to better regulate this industry? Or do you see more lawsuits like this happening?
Jessica Gelt: Well, you know that was sort of one of the frustrating things that we discovered in our reporting, and it was really that these laws do exist, they should apply to these kids, but there seems to be sort of a haphazard approach to enforcement. Nobody seems to have really understood how to enforce them, again, because this filming takes place in such a private realm, mainly in people's homes. So, we didn't see much evidence of entities like the Labor Board or the LAPD or Child Protective Services for that matter, like, working towards fixing this. I can't speak to what may be happening behind the scenes, but nobody came forward with any information to us in our many inquiries about the situation that they were actively trying to implement new laws. But there are advocacy groups. A woman named Anne Henry at a group called Biz Parents. The group actively advocates for child performers and are very, very invested in fixing this situation for social media influencers.
Jessica Gelt: In the meantime, I think ultimately it's gonna be up to brands themselves to regulate and to potentially not work with child performers you know if they don't know for sure that these kids are being protected and their parents are permitted and they have all of the protections in place, then brands really shouldn't work with these performers. And I think that might be the fix, but I don't see that happening anytime soon either.
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah. It seems like a lot of this right now is just self-regulation, self-reporting, but if there's such a drive for clicks and views, really who's gonna say something until it's too late you know?
Amy Kaufman: Right, and a big question is, what is YouTube's responsibility in all of this? Because the way that monetization works is basically, you get a certain number of followers or views, and then YouTube lets you know, OK, you're eligible to be monetized, which pretty much means that they will put, automatically, video ads interspersed in your content on YouTube and you get a fairly big cut of those ad sales. And YouTube, of course, is getting a cut as well. So they're incentivized to monetize their creators, and the creators of course want a piece of this.
Amy Kaufman: So Tiffany is saying these are just kids in my backyard filming videos having fun and YouTube decides to monetize them, like “Who is employing them?” is really the question, right? Is it YouTube? Is it the one-off ads that Piper's sometimes doing for Disney, where she's talking about a movie that comes out or something? It's very confusing, and the industry is certainly still grappling with how to regulate it all.
Gustavo Arellano: Amy and Jessica, thank you so much for this conversation.
Jessica Gelt: Thanks for having us, Gustavo.
Amy Kaufman: Thank you.
Gustavo Arellano: And that's it for this episode of “The Times: Essential News From the LA Times.” Natalie Bettendorf and David Toledo were the jefas on this episode. It was edited by Kinsee Morlan and Mario Diaz mixed and mastered it.
Our show is produced by Denise Guerra Kasha and David Toledo and Ashley Brown. Our editorial assistants are Robert Reyes and Nicolas Perez. Our fellow is Helen Li. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto and Mike Heflin. Our editor is Kinsee Morlan. Our executive producers are Jazmín Aguilera, Shani Hilton and Heba Elorbany. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen.
I'm Gustavo Arellano. We'll be back Friday, with all the news in the desmadre. Gracias.