YouTuber Colleen Ballinger denied grooming and acting inappropriately with teen fans via a bizarre ukulele song

• Allegations have been mounting against Colleen Ballinger over the last few weeks.
• Several former fans have accused her of inappropriate behavior, both on stage and in group chats.

Colleen Ballinger responded to the allegations of inappropriate behavior with fans that have been mounting against her for the past few weeks with a 10-minute YouTube video titled "hi."

Looking to the camera, Ballinger, 36, started strumming a ukulele and sang a song addressing some of the accusations. She said while her team had "strongly advised" her to not to say what she wanted, nobody had told her she couldn't sing.

"Hey," she said. "It's been a while since I saw my face. I haven't been doing so great so I took a little break."

Ballinger, who is best known for her eccentric, kooky character Miranda Sings, has been a content creator since 2008.

Sings, with her bad makeup and childish nature, catapulted Ballinger to fame. She appeared on late-night talk shows, got her own Netflix series, performed on Broadway, and published two books.

But Ballinger has been mostly absent from the internet since former fans came forward and said she had interacted with them in ways that now made them feel uncomfortable.

The backlash began with YouTuber Adam McIntyre, who made a video in 2020 saying Ballinger had formed an inappropriate relationship with him when he was between the ages of 13 and 16. In the video, McIntyre said he wrote many of Ballinger's tweets for her but was never paid, and claimed she had sent him lingerie (Ballinger later confirmed this and apologized).

McIntyre's allegations were brushed aside by much of Ballinger's fandom at the time.

But earlier this month, another creator named KodeeRants posted a video including messages from a group chat called "Colleeny's Weenies," where Ballinger would speak with young fans.

One message included a question from Ballinger to the group, who were mostly underage, about their "favorite position," an apparent sexual reference.

Ballinger was then hit by a wave of allegations from other former fans. One said Ballinger brought her on stage during a show when she was 16, made her spread her legs, and then played a fart noise for a "yoga challenge," which she said felt "incredibly sexually violating."

Some fans told NBC that they were experiencing guilt about their support of Ballinger over the past decade, and could no longer condone her actions.

In Ballinger's video, the first time she has responded to the backlash, she said some of the allegations were untrue, calling them a "toxic gossip train."

The video was uploaded to her Colleen Vlogs channel which has over 3 million subscribers. She has around 22 million subscribers across several YouTube channels.

Ballinger said her issue had stemmed from trying to be "besties with everybody" and compared herself to a "weird aunt." She said she would "overshare" in direct messages with fans, but that she "changed" her behavior "and took accountability."

She also said she had "made some jokes in poor taste" in the past and made "lots of dumb mistakes" which she was sorry for. But she denied allegations she was manipulative, or a "groomer" or "predator."

"But everyone just believes that you are the type of person who manipulates and abuses children," she said.

"So I just wanted to say that the only thing I've ever groomed is my two Persian cats. I'm not a groomer. I'm just a loser who didn't understand I shouldn't respond to fans. And I'm not a predator, even though a lot of you think so because five years ago I made a fart joke."

The fan Ballinger was referencing, named Becky, responded in a TikTok, saying Ballinger had invalidated her trauma by reducing her experience on stage to a fart joke.

Ballinger also hit out at the people speaking out against her, calling it "mob mentality."

"Your goal is to ruin the life of the person you despise," she sang. "While you dramatize your lies and monetize their demise."

While Ballinger's fans thought her apology was a decent one, many of her critics labeled the song "manipulative." McIntyre responded to Ballinger's video in a tweet, calling her an "evil woman" who had now shown her real self to the world.

"The mask has slipped," he said. "Everyone meet the REAL colleen ballinger."