Sitting in a music studio in Los Angeles, Piper Rockelle is counting down the last days of her childhood. First famous at age 8 and now an infamous influencer with 17.1 million TikTok followers, 12.2 million YouTube subscribers, and 6.5 million Instagram followers, that childhood has been far from typical. But in this studio, in a black body suit and jeans, her long brown hair tied in a ponytail with two pieces framing her face, Rockelle is on a precipice. She’s here to talk to me about turning 18. The way she tells it, this birthday could change everything.
“I’m so excited,” she says, just a few weeks out from her birthday at the time of this conversation. “Being an 18-year-old is going to be a lot different. Probably people will take me seriously — in a human way and even just a business way, too.” Once she turns 18 on August 21, Rockelle hopes — a hope so fervent that I can see it on her face — that she’ll be able to move on from her past. In Rockelle’s view, turning 18 seems to be like a sort of magic portal that she must step through into the rest of her life: brands will be willing to work with her again, collaboration opportunities will open up, her YouTube channel could get remonetized, the content she posts that people pan as overly sexual for a minor won’t get the same attention, and detractors will stop bringing up the harrowing allegations against her mother. But she’s been through enough to know that nothing is really magic.
“What if I think I’m going to have all these opportunities… and my life is going to be beautiful, but [it’s not] because of everything that’s still happened? And I’m still trapped in the same loop-de-loop? That’s a terrible fear as well,” Rockelle says. “But I just have to let it happen. I can’t change it.”
Rockelle, who was born in Georgia, rose quickly to fame after a stint in pageants starting at age 3 and then a break on reality television, a Lifetime show called Dance Twins, according to the Los Angeles Times. In short order, she started gaining traction online, and she and her mother, Tiffany Smith, moved to Los Angeles to make a go at Rockelle’s burgeoning career. When she started posting to YouTube, one of her first videos, featuring Rockelle making slime in a large bowl, got more than 4 million views. To amplify her reach, Rockelle joined up with a group of other kid influencers, in which she was the obvious star. The group was called Piper Rockelle and the Squad.
For a few years, it looked like the kids were living the dream: they were reportedly pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars a month and their stars kept rising as they gained more followers and more opportunities. It seemed that the sky was the limit – until cracks appeared in the Squad and members began to leave. In 2022, 11 former members of the Squad filed a lawsuit against Smith and her boyfriend, Hunter Hill. The lawsuit accused Smith specifically of “emotional, verbal, physical, and at times, sexual abuse.” Hill was not accused of abuse. Additionally, the plaintiffs claimed they weren’t paid sufficiently for their participation in the Squad and that Smith used “dirty tactics” to sabotage the YouTube channels of ex-Squad members after they had left. Smith and Hill have publicly denied these allegations. The 11 plaintiffs — Rockelle’s former friends — sought $22 million in damages.
Rockelle was devastated by the lawsuit and its ripple effects, which included YouTube choosing to demonetize her channel. She says many of her paid collaborations and sponsored content dried up. This was a difficult time for Rockelle. She told me in a May interview for Rolling Stone that, when the lawsuit was settled in 2024 for a reported $1.85 million, it felt like an answer to her prayers. Finally, she could breathe. But then, in April 2025, Netflix released the documentary series Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, which tracks Rockelle and the Squad’s rise to fame and details the allegations against her mother and Hill which led to the lawsuit. The documentary paints Smith as fame-obsessed and willing to sacrifice her daughter’s wellbeing in the name of profit and likes (there’s even a scene where an ex-Squad member claims Smith sold Rockelle’s underwear and bras to fans, which Smith denied in a statement to People). In a statement to E! News in April, Smith called the lawsuit and the documentary the “most painful chapter” of her family’s lives, saying the legal claims against her were “baseless” and calling the documentary exploitative.
Rockelle, for her part, is painted as a victim of her mother and the all-encompassing internet fame machine. In fact, Sophie Fergi, a former Squad member who was featured in the documentary and was a plaintiff in the lawsuit, told me in an interview in April that she did the documentary in part to reach Rockelle. Filming the documentary was emotional for Fergi, requiring her to revisit what she described as a very dark time in her life. But she said she “hope[s] that it does reach Piper, and I hope that she can somewhat understand what's happening in her life and understand that it's not normal.”
Rockelle didn’t participate in the documentary, but it of course took its toll. She completely fell apart, she told me, but largely declined to comment on the worst of the allegations against her mom last time we spoke. “I think I should wait until I’m old enough to speak about it,” she said at the time. Just days away from her 18th birthday, she’s holding that silence.
“It’s been my life for three years. I’ve been asked the same questions and I don't really think anyone deserves to have the answers besides me and my family and my [future] husband and kids,” she says, her tone shifting to defensive and maybe a little annoyed. “As long as I can sleep easy at night, that’s all that matters.”
In the comment sections of Rockelle's content, there are breathless predictions, with users wondering whether she’ll use her 18th birthday as a catalyst for separating her life from her mother. Commenters write lengthy missives about how sad it is that Rockelle has lived the life she has, which they see as hopelessly overexposed in the pursuit of viral fame. (A recent comment: It breaks my heart to see a beautiful girl who was never allowed to be a child. Please take good care of yourself and get help as soon as possible. I’m keeping my fingers tightly crossed that it hasn’t completely destroyed you.) Of the comments, which read as sympathetic but can often feel like just another way of hating to Rockelle, she says, “Of course it gets to me, but for the most part I’m just like, I know my worth. You don’t know who I am.”
At the time of the documentary’s release, she says her mother even suggested to Rockelle that she at least publicly take space in their relationship, so people would leave Rockelle alone, but Rockelle refused. And she’s not planning on separating from her mom now that she’s 18. “I’m definitely not interested in making other people happy,” she says. When the lawsuit was filed, Rockelle had recently lost her grandfather. Then came the documentary, and she felt it left little time to process the situation. Now, she's trying to figure out how to feel and what to think, but she's doing it on her own. “If I ask you for your help, then you can give me help.” But to be clear: she’s not asking.
If she were asking, she’d likely ask her mother, or her mother’s boyfriend and one-time codefendant Hunter Hill, or her own boyfriend, 18-year-old content creator Capri Jones. Smith, Hill, Jones, and Rockelle all live together in a house in Los Angeles; Jones moved in after a month of dating, Rockelle says. Other than this core group, Rockelle says she doesn’t have many friends, which is “my own fault. I just don’t open the door to it.” Rockelle and Jones initially connected to form a social media relationship, but they quickly realized that they actually liked each other. Now, they’ve been dating for four months. “He’s my best friend,” she says of the relationship. “I’ve never been so close to someone.”
On the outside of Rockelle’s wrist is a tattoo dedicated to Jones; it says ‘444’ and stands for “for now, forever, for worst, something like that,” she says. Before telling me about the tattoo, she hesitates for a moment. “It’s like, this has a great memory to it, but also not,” she says. “Because we got it and then he pretended to cheat on me on the internet and then I almost got it removed. We were streaming and stuff like that.” Wait, what? She got a tattoo removed so that she could stream it? “Well, I thought [the cheating] was real,” she says. “So I was like, I’m removing this shit.” He didn’t actually cheat, Rockelle explains, but she – and millions of their followers on social media – believed he did. In retaliation, Rockelle started to get their matching tattoo removed on livestream.
“I realized it was a joke right after I smashed his windshield,” she says with a shrug. “I didn’t want to promote violence but I also need to let these girls know they can’t let people treat them like that. I did it on Twitch. It did really well.”
Once she realized the cheating had been an elaborate prank, she went along with it for a few more days before they told their followers it had all been a ruse. But for a time, when she thought her beloved boyfriend had really cheated on her, she was heartbroken. It was real to her, but then fake, but still real in that she was going along with the prank and it was all actually happening in her life. So, she sort of just got over the heartbroken part. “It’s whatever. I’ve been doing this my whole life. It’s going to sound bad but it really helped [us get views]. What people don’t understand is social media is really just how to strategize and market yourself.”
Since she became wildly famous at the age of 8, Rockelle has lived much of her life in front of the camera filming her day to day, but also performing for her audience. This has come alongside the collective grappling with the ethical implications of a monetized childhood lived online, and a handful of laws that regulate how certain child influencers are paid. As advocates wonder what it will do to young kids to grow up with a camera constantly trained on them, Rockelle, who in many ways is the prototypical child influencer, finds herself more at ease in front of cameras than she is without them.
“I’m so afraid of people in the real world. If I’m going to meet a person for the first time… I might have to act like I’m filming a vlog because I get so much more comfortable when there’s a camera on me,” Rockelle says. “When a camera is on, I have worth. That’s my worth right there – I am performing for you and that is what I’m here to do.”
“I feel like life is just a performance,” she continues. “I think everybody is just performing for each other and nobody actually sees when they cut it because we perform for everybody.”
For better or worse, one of Rockelle’s favorite parts of performing is engaging in rage bait. “The whole internet is rage bait,” she says with a flick of her ponytail. “I’m not going to lie, I get scared [sometimes] that I’m not going to find the next entertainment to do. What am I going to rage bait or entertain about?”
Judging solely by her social media posts recently, her favorite rage bait right now seems to be alluding to a potential OnlyFans account the moment she turns 18. A quick scroll through her recent content features videos like one where Rockelle dances in front of the camera in a pink skintight outfit; the overlaid text reads ‘:redheart: for team Sophie Rain :pinkheart: for team lil tay.’ Sophie Rain is an OnlyFans model who says she made $43 million in one year on the platform; Lil Tay is a former child influencer who recently turned 18 and joined OnlyFans, allegedly making $1 million in a matter of hours. Rockelle recently posted a video about sneaking into the Bop House auditions (the Bop House is a content house made up of OnlyFans models). Another recent Instagram reel features Rockelle dancing on top of a car while her boyfriend washes it. (One of the top comments: Somebody help these kids.) As of our conversation, Rockelle said she didn’t have “set in stone” plans.
“I mean, it’s nobody’s decision but mine,” she says. “So when I find the answer, when I feel comfortable enough to speak about it, when I figure out myself and know who I am, then it’s nobody’s choice. It’s just my life and I can decide how to live it.” In her non-answer, I wonder if it’s a choice she’s still weighing. “I don’t sit there and think about it like that,” she says before adding that she’s genuinely thankful for the friendship of OnlyFans models like Sophie Rain and Aishah Sofey. “And nothing they do changes my opinion on who they are. I don’t judge people at all. So that’s where I come from.” Maybe it’s a real choice, and maybe it’s just some classic Rockelle rage bait. “I feel like if my viewers are allowed to joke about [me starting an Only Fans], then I am. You know what I mean?” she says. “Why would I let them get the laugh when I should get it first? Because it’s my life, not theirs.”
In both of the conversations I’ve had with her, Rockelle becomes visibly frustrated when we talk about how overtly sexual people consider her content to be, an accusation that’s long followed her. In 2021, the singer Pink reportedly posted online about a photo of Rockelle in a bikini, calling it exploitation. That’s another reason she can’t wait to turn 18, Rockelle says, brightening. “I know most of them are like, this is so sad, this is so sad. But at that point, when I’m 18, what are you going to be sad about? Like, dry the tears. It’s going to be fine.” She can understand where people are coming from, but they’re viewing it from an outsider’s perspective, without her whole story, she says. Really, she says she’s having fun. “I just enjoy what I’m doing. And if it is sexualized by people, I’m sorry. You don’t have to look at it.”
When she’s legally an adult, Rockelle imagines that people won’t pity her for content they consider sexual, “I think they’re going to just enjoy it,” she says. “I know that sounds terrible, but now they don’t have to feel bad for enjoying it.” Rockelle has a lot of fans, so it's safe to assume that a lot of people do enjoy her content. But there are enough comments on her posts calling them sad or uncomfortable or exploitative that it also seems safe to say that her detractors won't simply convert to fans because she's aged another year. Because at 18, you're a legal adult, but in many ways, you're still a kid.
It’s a funny thing, being an influencer, because you’re showing your fans parts of your life, but some — maybe much — of it is also a character. Like Rockelle said, being on camera is a performance — like when she thought her boyfriend cheated on her so she staged a stunt for social media content. Where it gets confusing is that the stunt was born from her real feelings, from a real situation she was going through. After so many years, it’s hard to tell where the performance ends, and where the actual Piper Rockelle begins.
“They’re not too different,” she shrugs. “I guess Piper the person has more real feelings than what people see on the internet, but they’re not too different.” One thing she keeps for herself: her love of rescuing animals. Otherwise, her fans know the real her “for the most part,” Rockelle says. But when critics judge her, Rockelle also thinks they don’t really know her. At 18, Rockelle guesses it’s sort of hard to figure out who the real her is anyway. “I don’t even know myself, so how am I going to expect [my audience] to know me if I don’t even know who I am?”
All of this is to say that Rockelle really doesn’t know what’s next, but she’s ready to move into adulthood no matter what it brings. Rockelle has a lot of dreams, but for the last few years, they’ve been overshadowed by the specter of her mother’s alleged wrongdoing and the documentary detailing what is painted as Rockelle’s hellish childhood and adolescence. “But once I’m 18, I don’t have to worry about that,” she says. Maybe, she thinks, brands will want to work with her again, and she dreams of releasing more music (she already has some songs on YouTube). ”I wasn’t born with an angel’s voice but I do think that I could put my mind to it,” she says. She’d even like to try acting: her dream role would be in Netflix’s Outer Banks (“that would be super ironic,” she says of a world in which she appears on Netflix, not as the subject of a documentary, but as an actress).
“How am I supposed to become an actor and start singing and working with a record label and get paid to promote a drink when my name is surrounded by dirt?” Rockelle says. She hopes that after her birthday, she can find a fresh start, away from the allegations about her mom.
Still, behind Rockelle’s teenage bravado, she seems deeply hurt by the events of the last few years of her life. “Of course it hurts,” she says. “It’s never not going to.” As she becomes a legal adult, she’s planning on signing paperwork to transfer the ownership of Piper Rockelle, Inc. to herself from her mother’s hands – but not, she’s quick to clarify, because she doesn’t trust her mother. “It’s protecting my family,” she says. “It’s protecting me. If I take 100% ownership of every aspect of my life, anything that happens from now on will be my problem and nobody else’s.”
It’s easy to relate to Rockelle’s sense that she’s on the brink of a momentous shift — and that adulthood might come with respect, answers, solid ground, freedom from the past. In the years to come, she may think differently about this time, about how young she is even now, the way 18 starts to feel awfully long ago when you’re 22, or 25, or 28.
But at the time of this conversation, she’s 17 and feeling that the whole world is about to crack open in front of her. She knows what she wants the world to see. “Just Piper, the successful girl that looks happy. That’s all I want. For people to be like, she’s happy. She found herself, I guess, is what I would like.”
As for Rockelle’s 18th birthday celebration, she’s going to have her favorite cake — chantilly — and maybe she’ll have some kind of pasta, ideally alfredo, for dinner. She's set to appear at a kitten adoption event, part of that love for rescuing animals. Of course, she curated something for social media, posted promptly at midnight on August 21. “I have a photo shoot so I have photos to post on Instagram and stuff like that. I want to make them super cool. Of course, everyone wants to have a good birthday post.” She's already posted a few, one captioned simply “Hiii fellow adults.”
But before it all happened, the anticipation was killing her. “I’m very excited,” she says. "I’m going to wake up that morning and just relax for a second. Just like, hey. I made it.”
