Get comfortable and get a heap of popcorn because popular YouTuber Colleen Ballinger – aka Miranda Sings – has dropped a wild apology video addressing a heap of controversies that have dogged her over the years, including recruiting fans to work for her without pay, the times where she dipped her toes in the racist and fat-shaming pools, and sending lingerie to a minor for some inexplicable reason.
The tea is absolutely scalding here and arguably rivals the time Shane Dawson claims to have never boned his cat.
Speaking of giant messes, the GOAT team talk about Ellen DeGeneres’ fall from grace on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
There’s a lot to breakdown in Miranda Sings’ bonkers 13-minute apology video but let’s start with the biggest elephant in the room: sending lingerie to a minor, which weirdly ties into the other issue of her recruiting fans to work for her for no pay.
Miranda Sings was recently called out for it by a 17-year-old fan, Adam Mcintyre, who accused her of not paying him for creating content for her and for sending him lingerie in the mail, which is super creepy since he’s a minor. The YouTuber attempts to explain in her apology video that she often gives away odd items and clothing to fans and failed to see how giving underwear to a kid could be problematic.
“It was completely stupid of me. I should have never sent that. I don’t know what part of my brain was missing at the time that I thought, ‘Oh, this is a normal, silly thing to do.’ I should’ve realized and recognized how dumb that was and never sent it to him no matter how much he asked. But it was never a sneaky, creepy, gross thing that I was doing in secret.”
Gross doesn’t begin to cover it, champ.
Shoehorned in that bizarro explanation is confirmation that she does indeed recruit fans to do unpaid work for her but the YouTuber says she cut ties with Adam after he posted something “problematic.” Clearly this was in response to Adam’s vlog titled “colleen ballinger, stop lying.”
That’s just the tip of this messy saga as we still have the fat-shaming and racist stuff to get to.
The racist accusations refer to a recently-surfaced video that was shot over decade ago where Miranda Sings and her sister pretended to be Latina “completely based in racial stereotypes,” something which the YouTuber now says “is not funny” and is “completely hurtful” in her apology video before blaming her ignorant teen self for doing it.
“I am so ashamed and embarrassed that I ever thought this was okay. I was a sheltered teenager who was stupid and ignorant and clearly extremely culturally insensitive.”
As for the fat-shaming stuff, that refers to another video filmed over a decade ago where Miranda Sings made fatphobic comments about a woman who sat next to her on a flight. Addressing the issue, the YouTuber says in her apology video that she was “shocked and appalled that these things were coming out of [her] mouth,” how that “is not the woman who [she is] today,” and how she’s an advocate for women and women’s bodies.
The whole thing is a wild fustercluck of a mess and it makes one question how Miranda Sings has managed to get away with so much crap for so long. Anyway, the entire trainwreck is here for your viewing pleasure, if you can stomach it.
This apology video from Miranda Sings not only hammers home how much of this mess could’ve been avoided had she, you know, used common sense, but also just how increasingly insincere YouTube apologies are.
Yes YouTubers are technically addressing the controversies lobbed at them in these vids, but they’re usually doing it in a way where they ultimately don’t accept responsibility for their actions. And then there’s the issue of posting said apology video on their YouTube channel where it can be monetised. Hard to find the sincerity in an apology when it is done for clicks and attention.
So good on Miranda Sings for talking about what a racist, fat-shaming, sending-lingerie-to-minors POS she’s been. Just don’t expect us to take this “apology” seriously.
Always be in the loop with our snackable podcast breaking the biggest story of the day. Subscribe to It’s Been A Big Day For… on your favourite podcast app.