How former Vine stars Gabbie Hanna and Jessi Smiles' friendship unraveled in a multi-year saga on YouTube

Gabbie Hanna has posted nearly eight hours of YouTube content in the past two weeks, including a full three-hour phone call which she said took place between her and Jessi Smiles on June 22, 2020.

The information overload is part of a YouTube series the 30-year-old influencer is calling "Confessions of a Washed-Up YouTube Has-Been," in which Hanna painstakingly recounts her sides of the scandals she's been involved in — both privately and publicly — over the past seven years.

Hanna, who has over 5.5 million YouTube subscribers and releases poetry and alternative pop music on the side, has long been a polarizing figure online who is frequently involved in YouTube drama.

Before joining YouTube, Hanna grew a following on Vine and was at one point a member of David Dobrik's "Vlog Squad." She was well-known for being a "Storytime" YouTuber who got millions of views per video at her peak, from 2015 to 2018.

She has drawn millions of views and widespread backlash to the new series. Each installment focuses largely on an interpersonal conflict Hanna has experienced with another YouTuber, and the people she's discussing are responding, sometimes to debunk Hanna's claims.

Over just the past two weeks, she has prompted responses from popular YouTubers Trisha Paytas, Joey Graceffa, Daniel Preda, and a number of drama and commentary channels.

But her drama with Smiles, whose real name is Jessi Vazquez, is one of her most famous feuds. It dates back to 2014, when Hanna tweeted that she was skeptical of Vazquez's rape allegations against an ex-boyfriend who was later found guilty of assault.

Vazquez responded to Hanna's leaking of the call with "Gabbie Hanna will never stop," an hour-and-20-minutes long plea for her to stop talking about the 2014 rape case. (Hanna shared the full recording of the conversation after Vazquez leaked portions of it online.)

Vazquez declined to comment for this article. Hanna did not reply to a request for comment.

Here's what led to Hanna posting the three-hour call, which Vazquez said was authentic, and what the call revealed about their feud.

Hanna and Vazquez's rocky relationship began during the two creators' Vine era, when stars from the now-defunct six-second video app were blowing up, moving to LA, and making it big as influencers. Vazquez had gained 1 million followers on Vine in four weeks by August 2013 and was in a relationship with another Vine star, Curtis Lepore.

Lepore was arrested in October 2013 after he admitted to raping Vazquez on a call recorded by police. He later took a plea deal on a charge of felony assault and the charge was dropped to a misdemeanor months later. In a 2019 tweet, Vazquez said that she hit her head and got a concussion while filming a video and that Lepore had raped her while she was asleep. On December 19, 2019, Lepore made a public statement on Twitter about the events.

TMZ broke the news of the rape allegations on January 16, 2014. That day, Hanna tweeted multiple times about the situation. At the time, Hanna hadn't met Lepore or Vazquez and was still working in a sales job in her Pennsylvania hometown, but had 200,000 followers on Vine.

Hanna allegedly tweeted that she didn't believe Vazquez because "thousands of girls had cried rape" in her hometown, though she has said she deleted the tweet later that day. She also responded to one of Lepore's tweets that day and wrote, "Beware beware beware of a woman with a broken heart," a lyric that was popular on Vine at the time.

A screenshot verifying the tweet referencing girls who "cried rape" has never been publicized and Insider could not obtain it but Hanna confirmed the tweet existed on the 2020 phone call. In the same conversation, Hanna said that in 2019, she didn't remember the tweet.

According to Hanna's comments in the recording of the 2020 phone conversation, those tweets came after Vazquez blocked her and left a negative comment about her on Vine after Hanna made a video saying she'd take Vazquez's crown, and it hurt Hanna's feelings (Vazquez confirmed this happened in 2013). Hanna also said that her tweet was referencing a male friend of hers who was falsely accused of rape.

Three months later, in March 2014, Hanna and Vazquez met for the first time at a Vine meet-up in New York City, according to the call recording. Both women said that Hanna apologized to Vazquez for her tweets and that Vazquez accepted an apology.

When Hanna moved to LA later that year, the two became "best friends" and even lived together for a period of time, they said on the call.

According to Hanna and Vazquez on the call, their friendship started to fall apart in early 2015. Vazquez said she attended a retreat that caused her to have a major epiphany and said she decided to text Hanna and end their friendship.

Hanna said on their 2020 call that Vazquez had made comments about Hanna "using" her for social media success and money. Vazquez said that she didn't feel that way, but may have said she felt "used" at the time.

Also during the 2020 call, Hanna said that she had become friends with Jenna Marbles (a beloved retired YouTuber whose real name is Jenna Mourey), and Hanna said that Vazquez made comments about her hanging out with people who had more followers than Vazquez. Vazquez denied making those comments or caring about subscriber counts.

At around this time, Hanna said on the call that an unnamed mutual friend gave Lepore her number. She said that Lepore called her in early 2015 on FaceTime and Hanna said she answered because she didn't recognize the number.

Hanna said that Lepore asked her if he could tell her his version of the events from the night Vazquez was raped. Hanna said on the call that she listened to Lepore and said his retelling matched Vazquez's.

Previously, in a 2019 YouTube exposé about Hanna on Vazquez's channel, Vazquez described this interaction happening in person at a party Hanna attended with Lepore's friends. But on the 2020 call, Hanna told Vazquez that the FaceTime took place in addition to their interaction at a party.

Lepore did not respond to an inquiry from Insider for this article.

After the FaceTime call with Lepore, Hanna alleged in the phone call with Vazquez that Lepore tried to "blackmail" her — a claim Hanna also made in her most recent YouTube video.

She said that Lepore recorded the call and edited together Hanna saying "I believe you" and "Jessi is a liar" so that it would sound like she defended him.

Hanna also said that Lepore asked Hanna to defend him publicly or else he would leak the call; Hanna did not defend him and he didn't leak anything.

Hanna said on the call that she told Vazquez about the FaceTime with Lepore, while Vazquez maintained that she heard about the details of the call for the first time in 2020. Hanna said she had three more interactions with Lepore after the FaceTime and she showed purported text messages of Lepore asking her to be in a video with him in November 2016. In the messages, Hanna asks when, because she's leaving to go on tour.

Hanna said she responded because she was afraid of Lepore "blackmailing" her.

Hanna also said that she was at two influencer events with Lepore at some point after their FaceTime. At one event in Hollywood, Hanna said Lepore took a selfie with her and Hanna asked him to delete it. Later that night, Hanna said Lepore took a picture of her and Zane Hijazi (from the Vlog Squad) across from them at a diner. Separately, Hanna said she ran into Lepore at 1600 Vine, an apartment complex where Viners lived and created content together.

In addition to saying that Lepore blackmailed her, Hanna alleged that Vazquez told her to take one of her 2017 "Storytime" videos down or else Vazquez would publicly dispute it. Vazquez denied Hanna's claim on the call and did not publicly dispute any of Hanna's 2017 "Storytime" videos.

In her most recent response to Hanna after the full three-hour call was leaked, Vazquez showed purported direct Instagram messages between an unnamed person and Lepore.

According to Vazquez, the unnamed person messaged Lepore on June 8, 2021, and asked about Hanna's claims regarding their FaceTime call. According to those purported messages, Lepore wrote "Gabbi FaceTimed to me saying how sorry she felt for me and told me she thought jessi was lying about it all."

The person purported to be Lepore also wrote, "I asked her to speak publicly which honestly I'm glad she didn't and she said no. At the time I recorded everything for my own legal protection. She must have thought I would post that conversation."

During the leaked 2020 call, Hanna said that Vazquez repeatedly made videos about her without naming her, tweeted about her without naming her, and liked tweets about her. Hanna alleged that the social media interactions and posts brought her negative attention.

Vazquez said on the call that her public "subtweets" and references to Hanna were in response to things Hanna did to her privately as well as publicly, including when Vazquez said Hanna privately congratulated her on her pregnancy only to make a "Storytime" video about Vazquez a few months later in May 2017.

In the video, called "I Stole My Best Friend's Boyfriend," Hanna said she had "no bad blood" with the ex-friend she was describing. She called the ex-friend a "crazy b----" and an "emotionally unstable, neurotic," and "psychotic" person. (Similarly, in August 2016, Vazquez made a "Storytime" video she later confirmed was about Hanna — both women acknowledged each "Storytime" was about one another on the leaked 2020 call).

Vazquez said that Hanna also reached out to Vazquez's ex-boyfriend — the one who Hanna's "Storytime" was about — on OKCupid. The ex-boyfriend was not Lepore, but a different man Vazquez dated later.

Hanna said that the ex-boyfriend vented to her about Vazquez blocking and un-blocking him, and that Hanna suggested they have sex to spite Vazquez.

The two did not end up having sex, Hanna said on the 2020 phone call, but on the same call, Hanna said, "If I wanted to have sex with [him] I would, so stop trying to tell people I f---ed your ex-boyfriend when I didn't." Vazquez also said that Hanna called her a "slut" in her messages to Vazquez's ex-boyfriend, and Hanna said, "If I called you a slut it's because of you going after every guy I said I was interested in and f---ing them."

Hanna said on the call that later, at a summer 2017 party, Vazquez threatened to "knock her teeth out" if she didn't leave her alone. Vazquez said that was because of Hanna's interactions with her ex-boyfriend, whom Vazquez said told her that Hanna also asked him to make an "exposé" video with her about Vazquez.

Still, Hanna maintained that she and Vazquez were on good terms privately in 2017, while Vazquez said she wanted to avoid Hanna because of Hanna's interactions with her ex-boyfriend.

In a February 2019 video, Vazquez said that she and Hanna both hurt each other and that they weren't good friends to each other. Hanna said in a recent YouTube video that at the time, she wanted that information removed from Vazquez's video.

Eight months later, Hanna and fellow YouTuber Trisha Paytas were publicly feuding over Hanna allegedly telling Paytas' ex-boyfriend Jason Nash that she heard a rumor that Paytas had herpes. Paytas, who uses the pronouns "they" and "them," said that they didn't have herpes and condemned Hanna for spreading rumors about their sexual health.

On November 9, 2019, Paytas posted an exposé video called "Why I Don't Trust Gabbie Hanna." Later, Vazquez tweeted that "if you are a s---ty person, the world will find out." Vazquez later deleted it, but a YouTube viewer followed with a viral tweet saying that Hanna "chose a rapist [...] over her then best friend, who was the victim."

As Insider previously reported, Hanna started sending direct messages to that Twitter user, whose name is Deanna, telling her that she never tweeted in support of Lepore. Deanna told Insider in an interview at the time that she felt Hanna was being manipulative.

Deanna tweeted an apology for her tweet about Hanna, but a former Vine star, Jen Dent, noticed and connected Deanna with Vazquez, who subsequently posted a YouTube video called "Gabbie Hanna needs to be stopped" about Hanna's conversation with Deanna and her interactions with Lepore. Vazquez described Hanna's messages with Deanna as inappropriate and the catalyst for her video.

Later, on the 2020 call, Hanna said that it was Vazquez's fault that Hanna was being called a "rape apologist" and being told that she had collaborated with Lepore. (Vazquez didn't call Hanna a "rape apologist" or say she collaborated with Lepore in the video with Deanna.)

Hanna also described Vazquez's video as a "disproportionate" reaction to Hanna having a conversation with a former fan about Vazquez.

Also on the call, Vazquez confronted Hanna about whether she had actually tweeted in 2014 defending Lepore. Hanna confirmed that she had.

By the time this call took place, Hanna had publicly and privately denied that the tweets ever existed. She denied their existence in public statements, direct messages to fans, and YouTube videos, and even falsely claimed that all tweets would have been archived on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, but the database does not have screenshots of any of Hanna's tweets pre-2019.

But in the 2020 call, Hanna denied that she had been lying and said any mention of the tweets was "deflection."

Hanna responded on Twitter to Vazquez's November 2019 exposé, apologizing for sending screenshots to Deanna and to Vazquez for her past behavior. She didn't post a response on YouTube at the time.

Then, on May 10, 2020, Vazquez posted a Q&A segment on YouTube in which she answered a question asking whether Hanna reached out privately after that 2019 video. Vazquez said that Hanna hadn't reached out and included the question in the video's thumbnail.

Four days later, Hanna posted a YouTube response video to Vazquez's claims, along with responses to other feuds Hanna was involved in at the time.

In that video, she denied tweeting in defense of Lepore or against Vazquez on January 16, 2014. Hanna showed the evidence of her deleted tweets and said she hadn't read the TMZ article before tweeting them. Hanna also said that she and Vazquez had been on good terms prior to Vazquez's video and Hanna said she didn't understand why they had positive text exchanges leading up to the video if Vazquez harbored negative feelings toward her.

Between May 17 and May 19, 2020, according to texts Hanna showed in her most recent YouTube video, Vazquez started texting her and asking if they could have a private phone conversation. Vazquez said she had evidence disproving Hanna's claims from the May 14 video and was considering making another video responding. Hanna said she wasn't in a good headspace for a call.

Over the course of the next month, Hanna's public attitude toward Vazquez shifted rapidly. In her May 14 video, she expressed positive feelings toward Vazquez, but on Twitter later that month, Hanna started replying to hate tweets and denied that she was ever a "rape apologist." She also began claiming that Vazquez and Vazquez's friends had been perpetuating lies and rumors about her online for six years.

Hanna also started calling Vazquez an "abuser." Hanna claimed that Vazquez pressured a teen fan for a video — which Vazquez denied on Twitter — and claimed that Vazquez abused Hanna herself.

This culminated with a widely meme-ed podcast episode Hanna posted on June 22 — hours before the leaked three-hour call with Vazquez took place — where she called Vazquez a "high school f---ing bully" and said she was the victim of a "hate campaign" Vazquez started against Hanna.

Later that day, on the three-hour call, Hanna accused Vazquez of putting out negative videos about her while she released music in order to derail her career. Vazquez denied that she intentionally wanted to hurt Hanna's career and said that she didn't keep up with her music releases.

In the call, Hanna told Vazquez that she was hounded by comments calling her a "rape apologist" on every social media platform. Hanna said that though Vazquez didn't call her that, the 2019 exposé caused the demise of her reputation. Hanna said that made it Vazquez's responsibility to tell haters that she shouldn't have made the video in the first place.

Vazquez said that Hanna lying about her 2014 tweets voided any private apology. She said that she made her 2019 video to "stop [Hanna's] behavior," including the DMs with Deanna about the feud.

Vazquez apologized for subtweeting Hanna and for the online turmoil, though she said that she had also experienced the same hate online when she accused Lepore of rape. Vazquez said Hanna was one of the people who contributed to the negative attention in 2014.

Hanna said on the call that she had "damn near killed [herself]" because she was being called a "rape apologist." Hanna said she no longer cared about whether Vazquez was hurt in the process of clearing her own name.

By the end of the three-hour call, Hanna told Vazquez that she was considering suing her for "tortious interference" but didn't want to "take food out of [her] kid's mouth." Hanna said that unless Vazquez put out a statement saying that she never should have made her November 2019 exposé and that it contained inaccuracies (specifically, that Lepore apologized to Hanna over FaceTime, not in person), Hanna would pursue legal action.

Tortious interference is a legal term used when a third party intentionally damages a contractual business agreement between two other parties. Hanna didn't elaborate on which business agreement Vazquez's video impacted, but she also said she wanted Vazquez to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Hanna said that though she wanted Vazquez to sign an NDA, she could not sign one herself.

It is unlikely that Hanna would be able to sue Vazquez for tortious interference due to the statute of limitations for torts in California (two years) and Florida, where Vazquez resides and where Hanna said she would sue her (four years).

Vazquez said in her recent YouTube video that Hanna called her again on July 2, 2020, and threatened to release two podcasts that contained evidence — including private emails and text messages between Hanna and Vazquez — that Hanna said would "hurt" Vazquez. According to purported texts from Hanna that Vazquez showed in her video, Hanna wanted Vazquez's friends to stop tweeting about Hanna, or else she said she would release the videos.

Vazquez said she blocked Hanna at that point and severed communication.

On August 18, 2020, Hanna uploaded a video called "I'm back" where she referred to Vazquez as someone who abused her. Hanna said in that video that she decided not to post the purported evidence against Vazquez, became it made her feel "obsessed."

Vazquez didn't respond to Hanna's claims in "I'm back" and, aside from several tweets denying Hanna's June 22 claims, Vazquez didn't speak out about Hanna again until June 7, 2021. In between, Hanna appeared on Drama Alert, the YouTube channel hosted by Daniel Keem (also known as Keemstar), who has publicly argued against Vazquez's rape allegations. Hanna declined to talk about Vazquez on Drama Alert but Keem called her 2019 exposé "opportunistic."

Then, in April 2021, Hanna started a campaign against small channels that had bashed her poetry and criticized her in other scandals. This culminated in a June 4, 2021, BuzzFeed News profile of Hanna that questioned why she had become so unpopular in the YouTube space compared to other problematic YouTubers. Hanna told BuzzFeed News that it was "chaotic" that Vazquez hasn't apologized to her.

A few days later, Vazquez released portions of the three-hour call on Twitter, making details of the call public for the first time to show Hanna's admission about the 2014 tweets and Hanna's legal threat regarding Vazquez posting a public retraction of her November 2019 exposé.

Hanna didn't respond until July 1, 2021, when she leaked the full three-hour call and maintained that Vazquez is her abuser. Hanna also claimed that, as part of her ongoing series, she will post the two videos that she says contains more evidence regarding her relationship with Vazquez.

Now, Hanna has seemingly pressed pause on her YouTube series, which is overwhelmingly being received poorly. At the same time that Hanna's detractors — and ex-associates — beg her to stop, Hanna is resolute in her attempt to correct the narrative of why her YouTube career faded and became tabloid fodder.