Who is Uncle Chris, the TikTok star who checked himself into a mental-health facility after watching 'Sound of Freedom'?

• Chris Rooney is a beloved TikToker who began making videos with his niece and his nephew in 2020.
• Rooney, better known as Uncle Chris, has amassed more than 5 million followers on the platform.

Chris Rooney, better known as Uncle Chris, is a beloved TikTok creator who recently fell into a crisis.

Rooney, a 26-year-old from Fredericksburg, Virginia, found a huge audience when he started making videos with his young niece and his nephew in January 2020. Most of the videos involved the toddlers making a big mess while attempting to pour drinks into glasses.

The videos are posted on the account @theyeeetbaby, fronted mostly by Rooney, his niece Marleigh, and his nephew Jack. Footage of Marleigh and Jack making a mess with milk, sodas, and other drinks, charmed the internet and gained 5.7 million followers.

One of the most popular videos, in which the children poured chocolate milk over a table and themselves, has more than 87 million views.

The origins of Yeet Baby

Marleigh and Jack's parents, Alexandra and Tyler Grant, are mostly off-screen but played a part in managing the Yeet Baby social-media accounts.

The name, Yeet Baby, originated because Marleigh's first word was apparently "Yeet" — internet slang for throwing something, often used as an exclamation.

Rooney and the account faced some criticism in recent years amid the growing debate about making viral content with children too young to give consent. However, his fan base has remained strong, and the TikToks continue to perform well, often gaining more than a million views.

Rooney's disappearance

His family wrote on Instagram that Rooney had disappeared on July 25 and reappeared on August 3 after checking himself into a mental facility.

The post said Rooney had been "found safe" on August 3.

Before vanishing, he posted a video on his personal TikTok account that some found troubling.

In the video, Rooney replied to a comment about his separation from his wife, Emily Rooney: "Alcohol is poison. You lost your beautiful wife because of it so that tells me you need to stop drinking 100%. Have you tried naltrexone?"

Rooney, clearly upset, said the comment was "not even remotely true."

"Comments like this, they trigger me," he said. "They make me an angry person. So please don't make me an angry person. Because if I'm around other angry people, you know, we're going to have to get to fighting because too many stupid comments like this."

The video has now been deleted but has been recirculated on Reddit.

A further statement from Rooney's family, posted on August 8, went into more detail about what had happened. It said he had struggled mentally after watching the child-sex-trafficking movie "Sound of Freedom."

"We, as his family and friends, were afraid for his life. We posted immediately on social media to look out for him to aid police in looking for him," it read.

"After several hours of not knowing if he was alive or dead, we got word that he had checked himself into a mental health facility."

The statement also included a message attributed to Rooney that thanked followers for their support.

"Unfortunately, there was nothing anyone could do to help me," he said. "It is something that I have to work on and am going to make it my life's mission to not only get myself healthy but also others."

Rooney received thousands of comments, thanking him for being candid about his mental health and encouraging him to return when he was ready.