One week after losing a million followers over her and her sister Dixie‘s negative reaction to a paella dinner, Charli D’Amelio has more than made up the difference, becoming the first person to ever reach 100 million followers on TikTok.
D’Amelio has garnered a huge fanbase on the platform thanks to her viral dance videos and is the second-highest earner on the app after Addison Rae, making $4 million in the last year after posting on TikTok for the first time in June 2019. Since then, D’Amelio has appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, sat front row at the Prada Fall 2020 runway show, landed a sponsorship deal with EOS cosmetics, become the new face of Hollister, got her own drink at Dunkin’ before Ben Affleck, and appeared in a Super Bowl commercial for Sabra hummus. In honor of this follower count milestone, TikTok announced that it will donate $100,000 in D’Amelio’s name to the American Dance Movement, an organization committed to improving and increasing access to dance education in America. On December 1, the social media star will announce more details about the “Charli D’Amelio Dance Grant” via a TikTok livestream.
All of this record-setting success comes right on the heels of the D’Amelio sisters’ first major controversy last week. The siblings were criticized for being ungrateful after posting a video on their YouTube channel in which Dixie vomits after eating a snail in a paella dinner prepared for her family by a private chef. In the same clip, Charli also asks if she can have dino nuggets instead of the traditional Spanish dish, all before complaining about having accumulated only 95 million followers one year after hitting 1 million. The backlash to the video caused Charli to question whether or not she even wanted to stay on the app anymore after receiving death threats and harassment. But ultimately, she decided to stick it out and achieve her dream of 100 million followers, even if she didn’t reach the historic achievement on her ideal timeline.
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
— Why Princess Diana’s Controversial 1995 Interview Still Stings
— Inside Britney Spears’s Fight for Legal Control Over Her Life
— Prince Charles Will Wear the Same Royal Wedding Suit As Long As It Fits
— Internet It Girl Poppy Is Burning Down 2020 and Starting Again
— Curious Duchess Camilla Will Watch Herself on The Crown
— Can Princess Märtha Louise of Norway and Shaman Durek Live Happily Ever After?
— Prince William’s COVID Diagnosis Was “No Secret” Among the Royals
— From the Archive: Tina Brown on Princess Diana, the Mouse That Roared
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.