[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
More accusations have come out about Colleen Ballinger’s inappropriate behavior.
For those who don’t know, the 36-year-old YouTube creator is best known for portraying Miranda Sings. After gaining success on social media, she took her character to Netflix to star in a series called Haters Back Off. It ran for two seasons starting in 2016. And lately, Colleen has been at the center of controversy after people have come forward with allegations of grooming, talking about sexual topics with young fans, and encouraging bullying.
And now, a former assistant to the writers and showrunner for Haters Back Off named April Korto Quioh has come forward about her behavior on set – and there are some disgusting and concerning details. You can see what she had to say about her time working with Colleen (below):
Related: Colleen Loses Sponsorships After MORE Inappropriate Interactions With Young Fans Emerge
First Impression
On Friday, April dropped a post on her blog called You Owe Me An Apology, where she recalled her time on set with Colleen. She shared that she was hired as a “Writers’ Assistant/Showrunner’s Assistant/Writers’ PA” for Haters Back Off, and the show was her “first real job in Hollywood.”
When she was hired, April did not know anything about Miranda Sings, so she took it upon herself to look up some videos the night before her first day on set. And let’s just say, she was shocked by what she found:
“I clicked on her YouTube channel and watched video after video in pure confusion. Isn’t this supposed to be for kids? She was dressed like Bozo the Clown but she kept making odd jokes about being, well, molested, and in one clip, I saw her on stage, encouraging what appeared to be a small child to literally reach into her pants and rummage around a bit. I texted my friends, hoping one of them could explain her appeal to me because clearly I was missing something.”
And her opinion of Colleen only worsened when they met for the first time:
“Upon meeting Colleen, my first impression of her was that she was boisterous, opinionated, and had a stunning lack of humility that was unlike anything I had ever seen. Immediately upon entering the writers’ room, I was treated to story after story about her sold out shows, how obsessed her fans were with her and the lengths they would go to get her attention.”
That sounds like a bragger! Elsewhere in the piece, April also noted how Colleen often allegedly made “biting comments” about those on set and often had a “lack of boundaries” with everyone, including her:
“She had a knack for making ‘funny,’ biting comments about the people around her and since we all had her to thank for our jobs, we were forced to just go with it. She saw no issue with commenting on my hair, or my clothes, or asking about my personal life. Her lack of boundaries was remarkable.”
But that’s only half of what April had to witness on set…
Incest & Rape jokes
When it came time to pitch stories for the show, April claimed Colleen often wanted to include references to incest. She allegedly pitched plotlines about Miranda and her uncle’s “special relationship,” where they “would be caught in compromising positions or stomach-churning moments of intimacy.” WTF?! As April said in the post:
“She often pitched stories in which Miranda and Uncle Jim would be caught in compromising positions or stomach-churning moments of intimacy that could always be easily explained away by a clueless Miranda. It was my responsibility to write down every single one of these pitches, schedule calls to look at mockups of The Daddy Saddle [a prop that Miranda would use to ride on her uncle’s back] that would be featured on the show, and mark points in the script where Colleen thought we could make Uncle Jim even more ‘r***y.’”
Again… What the actual f**k? Mind you, this show was meant for her fans – many of whom were minors! Her suggestions for her Miranda and uncle’s character made April “so, so uncomfortable.” However, she was still tasked with helping Colleen as the content creator tried “shoving as much incestual innuendo into the show as possible while assuaging the growing behind-the-scenes concerns that the show would be alienating to the intended audience (which was, again, kids.) April continued:
“It all felt deeply wrong – she would show us photos of the packed rows of smiling children who had attended her show the night before, and in the same breath, spend hours trying to think of a way to show Miranda and Uncle Jim all but having actual sex on screen.”
OMG…
Racism
According to April, she not only had to type “‘jokes’ into the script that to a vulnerable child, could easily make it nearly impossible to identify inappropriate adult behavior in their own lives,” but she also had to deal with a ton of racism on set. Awful.
She recalled one instance where she sat in on a production meeting to take notes about Colleen allegedly insisting that the show have limited background actors of color as the show took place in Washington – and the influencer also thought it would be “distracting” to have them on set. That is just so beyond messed up. And there are unfortunately more instances of her racist comments. April went on to say that Colleen then had an Asian food market be “re-dressed as a bodega for the show and watched her disgust as she demanded assurance that all the ‘Asian s**t’ would be removed before filming.”
When it came time to address why all of the actors in the show were white, April said:
“I sat patiently as the Powers That Be expressed concern that the entire main cast for the show was white and silently prayed that since someone with some actual say had spoken up, things might change. And I took note, yet again, as Colleen assured them that they had only casted the best person for each role and that it wasn’t her fault that all of those people ended up being white.”
In the blog post, April included screenshots of text messages she sent to a friend about the audition process. She told her pal that the lighting on the tape “wasn’t great” and Colleen allegedly yelled out “Where is he” – “implying he is so dark skinned he disappeared.” And that’s not all. She then remembered a time when she allegedly caught Colleen saying the N-word:
“I recall overhearing her once brag that a creator was being ‘cancelled’ for saying the n-word (and if you think she went with ‘n-word’ instead of hitting that hard ‘r’ then you haven’t been paying attention) and that she would never be stupid enough to get caught doing something like that.”
Colleen Ballinger was allegedly caught saying the N-word and making racist remarks about black people while working on her show, ‘Haters Back Off!’
????: https://t.co/25xGosd5No pic.twitter.com/VozVlAIsAX
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 2, 2023
Just vile. April — who was also the only Black person in the office — also mentioned how she often felt Colleen “took a weird pleasure in making me uncomfortable and knowing that even if I wanted to, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.” For instance, she alleged that Colleen “gave me the ‘honor'” of creating a villain character named after her and would “often pitch something vile and then look over to me and ask, “Any thoughts, April?”
No one should have to experience these type of despicable things on set. At this time, Colleen has not addressed the accusations about her behind-the-scenes behavior on set. If she does, here’s hoping she actually takes it seriously and doesn’t perform a 10-minute ukulele response video… again. Reactions to the situation, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments below. You can also read the entire blog post HERE.
To learn more about civil rights issues, check out https://www.splcenter.org/.
[Image via Netflix/YouTube, Colleen Vlogs/YouTube]
Related Posts
