Who is Colleen Ballinger aka Miranda Sings and why is she controversial?

YouTuber Colleen Ballinger, aka Miranda Sings, has been in the headlines recently after being alleged of sexually inappropriate behaviour.

The internet personality, who in 2016 became the first YouTuber to get her own scripted TV show, was accused of “trauma dumping” and sending sexually explicit messages to fans.

In a new video posted to her Colleen Vlogs YouTube account, she denied the allegations while playing the ukelele, labelling them “lies and toxic gossip”.

She said: “Some people are saying things about me that just aren’t true. Even though my team has strongly advised me not to say what I’m going to say, I realised they never said I couldn’t sing about what I want to say.”

Here’s everything we know about the YouTube personality and the new allegations against her.

Who is Colleen Ballinger aka Miranda Sings?

Colleen Ballinger is a Los Angeles-based YouTuber who created the sketch character Miranda Sings. In the role, Ballinger plays a teenage girl with a trademark of badly-applied red lipstick.

First gaining notoriety with the alter-ego in 2008, Miranda Sings gained millions of views with purposefully poor covers of the likes of Adele’s ‘Hello’ and Justin Bieber’s ‘What Do You Mean?’.

Why is Colleen Ballinger controversial?

The internet personality, who in 2016 became the first YouTuber to get her own scripted TV show, has been accused of “trauma dumping” and sending sexually explicit messages to fans.

The allegations first came to light in 2020, when fellow YouTuber Adam MacIntyre posted a video titled “colleen ballinger, stop lying” and accused her of developing an unhealthy relationship with her when he was aged 13.

In a video posted in May 2020, Ballinger responded to the allegations – which included being accused of sending MacIntyre her underwear – in a video titled “addressing everything”.

She said: “No, I should have never sent a fan underwear, how stupid am I? No, I definitely should have never given him access to my Twitter account, and no, I shouldn’t have talked to him as often as I did.”

Now, members of the Miranda Sings fan club have spoken to HuffPost UK about their alleged experiences with her.

One, called Becky, recalled being invited on stage during a 2019 “yoga challenge” event where Ballinger lifted her legs and spread them open, with a fart sound being played over the speakers.

“I looked up to her so much and I just trusted her so much that I did it,” Becky said. “I laid down and she just spread my legs wide open for everybody to see.”

Speaking to Rolling Stone about the incident, she added: “I was mortified in that position. I was in shock. But I had so many like friends through [the fandom] that I didn’t want to necessarily lose.

“So for a little bit, I was pretending to be like ‘Yeah, that was really funny.’ I was worried that I would be called ungrateful because I got to go up on stage.”

Responding to Ballinger’s new video-based denial of the allegations, MacIntyre tweeted: “As much as colleen discredited & made fun of me, im glad her video did ONE thing, show you all EXACTLY the type of evil woman she is, that a lot of us have experienced over the past few years behind the scenes, the mask has slipped…everyone meet the REAL colleen ballinger.”

In Ballinger’s new YouTube video, she said: “Some people are saying things about me that just aren’t true. Even though my team has strongly advised me not to say what I’m going to say, I realised they never said I couldn’t sing about what I want to say.”

She added: “I used to message my fans – but not in a creepy way, like a lot of you are trying to suggest. It was more of a loser kind of way. I was just trying to be besties with everybody.”

Though admitting “there were times in DMs when I would overshare” she added that she “changed my behaviour and took accountability”.

NME has reached out to representatives for Ballinger for comment.