Trisha Paytas has finally broken her silence on Colleen Ballinger.
The creator, who launched a podcast with Colleen in May of this year, has taken to YouTube to address the manipulation and grooming allegations against Colleen by her former fans.
“I wasn’t aware of these most recent things that are coming out,” she says in the video titled ‘colleen’. “Everyone knows I have a very, very, very firm stance on talking to anyone under age, platonic or not.”
“I have a lot of trauma when it comes to my relationships I had when I was underage. And now always sexual, a lot of my trauma comes from school,” she says.
Over the course of her career, Trisha has spoken out about the damaging power dynamics in age-gap relationships— something she claims to be very familiar with, given many of her partners throughout her teens and early 20s were decades older than her.
Trisha has also alleged that her former teacher groomed and sexually assaulted her, however, this story is considered controversial among internet culture fans, as Trisha went on to tell it with discrepancies while co-hosting the Frenemies podcast.
Trisha goes on to say that she was “shocked” when she first saw Colleen’s messages in the group chats with her fans.
“Her video came out, and I was just shocked to say the least that she didn’t at least, acknowledge the stuff that her own fans were saying, how they felt,” she says. “It’s a topic I don’t take lightly and I can’t take lightly as I am a full-time sex worker […] We already have a lot of stigma, misconceptions, allegations against us as sex workers and so I need to nip this in the bud.”
The OnlyFans model goes on to address Twitter user and former Colleen fan, Johnny Silvestri, who claims that Colleen would message Trisha’s nude photos to fans as a way to mock Trisha’s body size.
After making these claims online, Johnny posted several screenshots on July 3rd of alleged messages from Colleen to a young fan that included Trisha’s OnlyFans content.
“I do not condone, at all, unsolicited nudes— sending unsolicited nudes to anybody, sex worker or not. I think using someone’s nudes as a way to hurt them, make fun of them, make light of them, be mean, is the lowest form of human,” she states.
She says she’s not humiliated by the texts, but rather she is humiliated for Colleen.
“These weren’t a long time ago,” Trisha says of the text messages that were exposed. “This is someone well into their 30s who just gave birth, sending nudes. And a month prior, I was in her house, meeting her newborn and doing a Mukbang with her.”
Trisha says Colleen assured her weeks ago that she had never sent photos of Trisha to anyone and that everything was being taken out of context.
“I don’t stand behind Colleen whatsoever. Her video was not an apology and it took away from the severity of her actions of talking to minors, bringing minors on stage at her show. These people are speaking up and they’re uncomfortable for a reason. Acknowledge it, change it, do better,” she says.
Trisha explains that this situation hurts sex workers as a whole. “Yes, I’m a sex worker. But a lot of those images and videos were behind a paywall. One that requires someone to be 18 and over.”
“I will never speak on Colleen again. She just does not exist to me anymore,” she finishes.