With a combined following of over 120 million, Dixie and Charli D’Amelio are the most popular stars on TikTok. A quick Google of TikTok stars and the many Hype Houses, and you’d see them there. They even have their own Morphe collection and a reality TV show in the works. But, one new conspiracy theory claims that the family faked it till they made it, and their father allegedly bought their rise to TikTok stardom.
Spicy Opinions is a TikTok channel that shares spicy, raw, unfiltered and anonymous takes on celebrities, pop culture and everyday things. Six days ago, it shared one that left many questioning the app’s most prolific players: did the D’Amelio sisters’ father, Marc D’Amelio, buy their followers?
The anonymous conspiracy theory claims that it’s oddly suspicious that while the app (even when it was Musical.y) has been around for five years, no one else has risen to fame so quickly and with so many followers as Charli. With 90 million followers in “not even a year” and allegedly gaining five million every week, “especially with such mediocre content,” something just doesn’t add up, they say.
“I’m not saying she “sold her soul” but her dad is sus,” the anonymous claim read. “He’s rich AND a politician. Those two things never go together well.”
Charli and Dixie’s father, Marx D’Amelio, is a former Republican Candidate who ran for Senate in Norwalk, Connecticut. According to The Hour, he once blamed politics and Democrats for a resurfaced police report and court documents detailing his drunk-driving arrest in 2013 (charming…).
While he declared in December last year that he “will never run for political office again” because “politics is the most toxic thing I have ever been involved in,” the TikTok conspiracy theory claims that if he is buying his daughters’ followers, it could be part of a rebranded campaign to win an upcoming election.
“In a future election and being known worldwide as ‘Charli, the unproblematic TikTok dancer who has done no wrong’s father’ could possibly ensure the votes of the future generation of voters who aren’t very educated in the political field,” they summarise. “Y’all, I don’t know but Charli’s fame story doesn’t add up lol, I don’t care. It can’t be coincidental.”
According to Dexerto, Dixie replied to the video, “lol what.” Charli has yet to respond and neither has her father.
Instead, the 16-year-old dancing teen announced earlier today that she is jumping ship and joining TikTok’s rival app Triller, which is co-owned and managed by 20-year-old Sway House members. We’ll have a clearer idea about whether this theory has more substance as she grows on the app.
According to The Verge, Triller has more than 100 million monthly active users and more than 27 million daily users (TikTok has roughly 50 million daily users), sooo we’ll know something is suss if a majority of them all follow Charli in a week.