Kid YouTubers are making millions. But who's in charge? Inside the blockbuster lawsuit threatening one teen's online empire.
Jennifer and Walker Bryant, a former member of the Squad, are seen in the kitchen of their Los Angeles home.
Another mother, Angela Sharbino, said Smith told her she used to put Piper and her crush alone in a room together for 30 minutes a day to create chemistry between them. Later, Sharbino said, Smith suggested she try the same tactic with her son, Sawyer, and his crush. Smith says this is untrue, adding that Piper and her crush “naturally had chemistry and enjoyed each other’s company.”Sawyer Sharbino looks on from in front of a computer. The 16-year-old had more than 1.
Claire loved being with her cousin. They made chores fun by singing, she said, and they both loved Christmas music. But life in the house quickly deteriorated. The filming schedule was hectic, and Ashley grew worried that Claire was falling behind in school because she wasn’t getting enough sleep. Donlad, 15, is one of the only plaintiffs in the lawsuit who came from Southern California — and from money. He and his mother, Yvonne Dougher, live in a $3.7-million angular modern mansion cut into the hills of Los Feliz with a distant view of downtown’s jagged skyline. His father is a real estate investor with multimillion-dollar properties across the Southland, and as a boy, Donlad often showcased his family’s wealthy lifestyle using the moniker “The RICHEST Kid in America.
Steevy Areeco, the mother of a Squad member named Corinne who had met Piper when both families lived in Georgia, said she was shocked when she saw the 2017 video clip but was told the kiss was consensual. She said she was already leery of Smith and began distancing herself after that. Those allegations, highlighted in the lawsuit, led the FBI to make inquiries into Smith. The bureau’s questions extended beyond the Squad to include a young man named Raegan Fingles.
After a day of filming with Piper, Fingles said a group that included Hill and two other friends decided to “party and chill” at Smith’s Hollywood Boulevard apartment. He was 17, but Smith “provided alcohol to everyone,” he wrote in a May 2020 signed statement later filed in L.A. County Superior Court. “She drank a lot herself and was extremely drunk.”
Despite her daughter’s protesting, “Tiffany didn’t stop coming onto me,” Fingles wrote in the filed statement. “She grabbed me by the waist and tried to pull my underwear. She dragged me into her bedroom.” In June, Fingles said an FBI agent contacted him for an interview; The Times reviewed that voicemail. He said he then met the agent for an interview to recount the 2017 incident in an hourlong recorded session.
Smith strongly denied the claim, as did Piper. “That’s honestly kind of funny that they even said that,” Piper said. “That’s sick to think about.” Public records show that the LAPD visited Smith and Piper’s residences six times between April 2020 and April 2022. An LAPD spokesperson declined to comment. Smith acknowledged that police visited her home “in response to a third party who directed minors on social media to make false police reports against me.” Another time, she said, officers arrived after her residence had been vandalized.
The lawsuit also contends that Smith asked Squad members including Corinne, then 11, about their sex lives, encouraging some to “try oral sex.” Corinne said in an interview that Smith once asked her if she’d “ever given a blow job before,” even though the child did not know what the sex act was.“She was like, ‘I’ll show you, just try one on Hunter,’” Corinne said of the 2019 incident. “She said she was gonna pull his pants down.
“Lenny, does not talk like that to kids,” she said, adding, “I have no interest in kids, like, that’s disgusting to me. …There was no touching, there was no sexual contact.”Piper’s cousins, Claire and Reese, allege in the lawsuit that Smith used Lenny’s voice while sitting on a bed and “moving her hand” toward the vagina of her 9-year-old niece, Reese.
Smith denied these claims. She said that Reese liked Lenny and would use his voice herself, saying, “I want to be just like Aunt Tiffany.” Patience and Ashley Rock Smith said this was not true. “You know Tiff didn’t touch those kids,” Destinee said she told Patience. “And Patience said, loud and clear, ‘I know she didn’t, Desi. I know she didn’t.’”
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