How YouTube’s biggest ‘momager’ Tiffany Smith saw $500k-a-MONTH empire rocked by sinister ‘child abuse’ scandal
WITH their larger-than-life personalities, millions of fans, and tight-knit friendship, child YouTube sensations The Squad seemed to have it all.
Fronted by child influencer Piper Rockelle, the group – aged between nine and their early teens – had racked up more fame and fortune than most make in a lifetime.
Behind their viral success was Piper’s ‘momager’, Tiffany Smith, who placed her daughter at the heart of The Squad and recruited other young influencers to boost their brand – earning millions in the process.
But while their videos looked like innocent fun, off-camera, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
In 2022, Smith and her video-editor partner, Hunter Hill, were accused of sexual, verbal, and emotional abuse, as well as financial exploitation, by 11 former Squad members.
Now, a bombshell Netflix documentary, Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, is exposing the disturbing claims behind the scandal.
The series charts Piper’s meteoric rise to fame – engineered by Smith and Hill – and dives deep into the murky world of family vlogging and child influencers.
Despite declining to be interviewed, Piper, Smith, and Hill have publicly denied all allegations made in the doc.
“We were supposed to protect them and we didn’t,” says Heather Nicholls, whose daughter Sophie is among the alleged victims. “We couldn’t. We didn’t know.”
Piper was raised in Canon, Georgia, by her single mum, Smith. “She was an outgoing kid,” her aunt Patience Rock Smith recalls.
From the age of three, Smith entered Piper into beauty pageants. By the early 2010s, she shifted her focus to social media, making videos on Musical.ly (which later became TikTok).
“She was a natural,” her aunt says, revealing how creating content became “routine” in their household.
At just nine years old, Piper was cast on reality show Dance Twins – where footage shows Smith pushing her daughter to win competitions instead of attending school.
Now, as the truth about The Squad comes to light, the doc asks: how far is too far when it comes to child influencers?
In 2017, as Piper’s YouTube following skyrocketed, Smith uprooted their lives to Los Angeles – the hotspot of kidfluencer culture, packed with talent agencies and social media managers eager to cash in.
It was there that Hunter Hill, then 20, became a key figure in Piper’s content, posing as her ‘older brother’ in videos.
But according to Piper’s aunt, Patience Rock Smith, Hill wasn’t her sibling at all.
“He was Tiffany’s very much younger boyfriend,” she claims in the Netflix doc, adding another layer of controversy to the already shocking story.
Piper soon landed a spot on the show Mani, a breakout hit on YouTube, produced by Brat – dubbed the ‘Disney Channel for the internet’.
It is claimed that Smith “dragged Piper off set” and pulled her off the show because another child was given more lines.
In 2018, with Piper’s YouTube presence skyrocketing, Smith brought other child content creators into videos built around her daughter as the star, branding them The Squad.
We were supposed to protect them and we didn’t
Heather Nicholls, mum of former Squad member
The Squad went on tour, with “thousands of kids” attending, while Piper, whose channel surpassed 1.5million subscribers, released a single and collaborated with brands including Mattel and Apple.
The channel is thought to have been making a six-figure sum per month in revenue.
Yet Steevy Areeco says her daughter Corinne Joy, who was a member, was not being paid – and that, when she asked Smith about it, the momager told her: “Oh, she’s getting exposure.”
Former kidfluencer Sawyer says members of The Squad had to hand over control of their personal channels to content editor Hill.
Around 2019, Heather Nicholls and content creator daughter Sophie moved into an apartment with Smith, Hill and Piper so they could film more.
Sophie says Piper begged her to agree to the move, explaining: “She didn’t really have a mother, she just had this person in her life who made her do content and wasn’t really there in her best interest.”
Traditional child entertainers in films and music are subject to laws designed to prevent exploitation – with limited hours, breaks, designated school hours and fair pay.
But kidfluencers are not subject to the same protections.
Former Squad members say they would arrive at 11am and stay until 2am, filming up to 15 videos a day.
“I would go to bed like two to three hours, get up at seven-ish and do school, close my table and then I would have to get ready to film,” Sophie recalls.
Disturbing footage shows Hill berating Sophie for falling asleep between takes, shouting: “Pull yourself together!” Another shows Tiffany urging a child to lick a drink from a concrete street, framing it as a dare.
Former members say Smith would hold pet pug Frank on camera and be the ‘voice’ for the animal, making “bullying” remarks like calling the kids “ugly” and “assholes”.
“I would go to bed like two to three hours, get up at seven-ish and do school, close my table and then I would have to get ready to film
Sophie, former Squad member
“It became a very stressful environment,” Sophie recalls.
Shocking livestream footage shows Smith kissing another former kidfluencer, Raegan Beast, who worked with Piper.
Raegan – who is transgender – recalls going to their house to film content aged 17 and says Tiffany gave him alcohol and kissed him on camera.
“I remember laughing and then being like, ‘I think we should end the stream’,” he recalls.
It prompted an initial social media backlash – then the footage vanished from the internet “overnight”.
Raegan says he cut ties with Tiffany but was too scared to go to the police, fearing it would ruin his and Piper’s careers.
Controversial ‘crush content’
As members of The Squad hit puberty, Smith turned her attention to so-called ‘crush content’ – where a boy and girl appear as a couple online.
She allegedly manufactured relationships between various Squad members – including Piper and two different boys – auditioning new kidfluencers for ‘crush’ roles.
Sawyer says it was presented as a “great opportunity” but says the reality was “awkward and embarrassing” as he didn’t have feelings for his ‘crush’.
Disturbing footage shows child couples kissing with Hill and Smith in the background.
In another, Piper is handcuffed to her crush, with the pair visibly uncomfortable.
But the content was lucrative. Sawyer says he was making around $50,000 a month – “more money than any 14-year-old should be”.
Smith and Hill took a percentage of all Squad members’ channels. At her peak, Piper reportedly earned up to $500,000 a month.
Sophie’s mum Heather, who acted as stylist for all the kids, says Tiffany would tell her to buy “sl**tier” clothes for Piper, recalling: “I was kind of shocked.
“My friend did all the thumbnails and he has texts instructing him to give the girls bigger boobs, smaller waist, make her butt bigger, make the guys’ muscles bigger.”
By 2020 Piper had voiced to members that she was not happy, they claim.
Smith invited her sister Patience and her wife Ashley to join them in LA, with Ashley’s children Claire and Reese joining The Squad.
“Piper had some days where she would just cry,” Claire says.
The pandemic brought pressure to keep subscribers entertained. Challenge videos showed the kids eating hot sauce, doing kissing challenges and seeing who could last longest in an ice bath.
In one ‘prank’, Piper pretended to break her leg and was carried away in a hired ambulance – with the other young creators believing it was real.
In another, fake police officers arrived to ‘arrest’ one child – with even the parents unaware it was not genuine.
“It starts to really take a toll on your mental health, because as soon as the camera comes off I’m depressed and sad,” Sophie recalls.
The Squad’s parents say they were separated from their children during filming and that Smith pitted the mums against each other.
Someone reported Smith to Child Protection Services – but Sophie says she and Piper were instructed by the momager to tell the officers that she was “perfect”.
Toxic environment
As concerns grew, some parents including Steevy, Ashley and Heather pulled their kids from the squad.
“I always wonder, like how is [Piper]?” Heather weeps. “Because we left her there with a f**ing monster.”
Piper and other members appeared in a video in which she ‘unfollowed’ members who had left The Squad and dismissed claims of a “toxic” environment. Trolls began targeting members who’d quit.
“I was only thirteen and I was getting hate from all across the world,” Claire recalls.
Mum Angela Sharbino – whose son Sawyer also quit – says she was so scared of repercussions that she put security cameras up at her house.
After leaving The Squad, former members’ channels “tanked”. Sawyer claims Hill sabotaged their accounts by reporting videos and embedding them porn sites, to adversely impact rankings and subscribers.
FBI probe
Parents of former members finally came together to take legal action.
In 2022 a 147-page lawsuit was filed on behalf of 11 kids against Smith and Hill, accusing them of sexual, verbal and emotional abuse and demanding tens of millions in damages.
“We went in and asked the kids questions and discovered that the stories the parents had told us of what was going on were just the tip of an iceberg,” attorney Jeremiah D Graham says.
Some told how Smith used the character of her pet cat Lenny to voice “all of her dirty or sexual thoughts”.
One named Reese recalls being nine and Smith using Lenny’s ‘voice’ to say: “Reese, I have my pants down. Do you wanna come look?’”
And Corinne says: “I remember Tiffany asking me, like, ‘Corinne, have you ever given a b**w j*b?’ […] and she was like, ‘you can do it on Hunter’.”
“I was eleven,” she adds. “It makes me feel sad for my younger self.”
Sophie says: “Tiffany would sexually assault me, Claire and Reese a lot.” She recalls being woken up with the momager on top of her “rubbing her hand all over me”.
We went in and asked the kids questions and discovered that the parents had told us of what was going on were just the tip of an iceberg
Attorney Jeremiah D Graham
Their parents still grapple with how they allowed their children to be part of The Squad. “When the kids started telling what she did to them, how it had affected them, the mums, we just all started crying,” Angela says.
After the lawsuit was filed the children faced further trolling from Piper’s fans.
But Smith was also hit by heavy criticism and YouTube demonetised the channel, with brand deals also falling through.
Heartbreakingly Piper put out a video defending her mother, saying she feels the fallout is “her fault”.
In 2024, the parents settled their lawsuit for $1.8million to be split amongst the 11 plaintiffs.
Yet Ashley has vowed to continue sharing their experience, saying: “I hope we can prevent other kids going through the situation that our kids went through.”
Smith is understood to still be “monetising” her daughter and The Squad via other platforms.
She and Hill currently face no criminal charges, though the FBI has reportedly spoken to the children named in the lawsuit.
Campaigners are calling for laws to protect kidfluencers, similar to those for other child stars.
Online expert Taylor Lorenz adds: “Until we start taking this industry seriously, until we start viewing influencing as labour, these kids are screwed.”
Tiffany Smith, Hunter Hill, Piper Rockelle, Jentzen Ramirez and Gavin Magnus declined to be interviewed or comment in the Netflix series.
Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing is available on Netflix April 9.