A NEW reality show on the group of TikTok stars living and working together in The Hype House has exposed the dark side of social media fame and the battle to stay on top.
The controversial show was the subject of criticism since it was announced after one of the group's former stars Tony Lopez was accused of grooming teen girls.
Two of the other founding members of the TikTok collective were also accused of negligence by the teen accusers.
Lopez does not appear in the Hype House show and had left the mansion before it began filming.
When it was founded in 2019, The Hype House began as a group of 19 TikTok influencers, many of them millionaires, living in a Los Angeles mansion where they make and share content.
Living in the $5million mansion rent-free meant creating at least three TikToks day and content at least once a month for The Hype House's own channel to make the $80,000 a month needed to keep the house going.
Both Tony, 21, and his brother Ondreaz were an original part of the collective.
When it began, many of the group were underage and would not live full-time in the house, only visiting to create videos and dances together.
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Yet it was criticized for allowing underage girls to stay with men in their 20s.
While many of its biggest stars such as Addison Rae and Charli D'Amelio have now moved on to their own homes, own shows, and larger fame, they were only young teens starting out.
Charli is still only 17 and has become the most followed person on the platform with 130million followers.
Tony Lopez himself found fame on TikTok in 2019 and currently boasts over 22 million followers on the platform.
Yet in January 2021, an explosive lawsuit accused him of using social media to groom and to have sex with two teenage girls.
He has denied the allegations.
Under the aliases H.L. Doe and C.H. Doe, the teens accused the 21-year-old of texting them and sending them messages on social media despite knowing they were minors.
H.L. accused him of engaging in unlawful sexual acts with her in January 2020 including oral and vaginal sex, according to TMZ.
She alleged that she told him she was 16 before that encounter but admitted to being 15 afterward.
The accuser claimed that despite revealing she was even younger, she had sex with Lopez again at his home in Nevada.
'SEXUAL BATTERY'
In the lawsuit, C.H. claimed to have met Lopez in April 2020 when she was 16.
It claims that they swapped cellphone and Snapchat information and alleged Lopez immediately began soliciting nude pictures from her.
"Show me your boobs," he allegedly said in one message.
Lopez also allegedly sent her pictures exposing his penis.
According to TMZ, both the girls are suing Lopez for sexual battery and emotional distress.
It also names The Hype House founders Thomas Petrou and Chase Hudson who are accused of negligence.
In a statement to TMZ when the news of the lawsuit was broken, Lopez said: "These allegations are not at all true."
"I never sent nudes to these women and didn’t ask them to send me pictures either. And, I certainly wouldn’t have sex with someone who told me they were underage," he added.
"This whole thing seems like a money grab to me. I’m going to fight it to the very end. I will not allow them to continue to slander my name and attack my character."
OTHER ACCUSERS
Lopez has continued with his work on TikTok, posting new videos almost daily.
The lawsuit came after other young girls had come forward to accuse Lopez in 2020.
TikTok user Griffin Brooks shared a screen recording from one of Lopez's alleged victims, a 15-year-old girl, according to Yahoo.
The girl reportedly claimed that Lopez was “always asked for nudes” and "for me to suck him."
Earlier that year, nude photos of him were leaked and he was accused of fetishizing races online, Yahoo reports.
Lopez addressed the girls' claims in a social media post in August 2020, writing that he was “not proud” of what he did in the past.
“I am still new to [the] entertainment / L.A. scene, and I am quickly learning that you can’t believe everything you are told,” he wrote.
“Once I found out the truth, I immediately stopped.”
“I know these actions are not taken lightly and were extremely irresponsible of me,” he added.
“As a young man, I will hold myself responsible for this mistake, rather than run from it. I will learn from it, to help better educate myself for now and the future.”
'LAZY FRIENDS'
In the new series, which was released on Netflix on January 7, the group is reportedly exposed for their stressed-out life despite the image portrayed on their own platforms.
According to The Daily Beast, 22-year-old founder Petrou is "perpetually weathered, exhausted, and has had it up to here with his lazy friends who aren’t doing their part."
“Ninety percent of the most popular social media people don’t want to be social media people,' he says in one episode.
Petrou has also reportedly been embittered by the success of others who have moved on their own fame, Daily Beast reports.
Other members also appear equally unhappy.
“I know it sounds so dumb. You’re a 20-year-old millionaire. What do you have to be depressed about?” says Alex Warren, a TikTok star with 14.7 million followers, according to TechCrunch.
“But that’s what I struggle with. I feel like I’m not allowed to be depressed.
“When you stop posting in this line of work, you lose engagement,” he adds in another scene.
“You don’t get sick days in this job. If you get a sick day, you lose followers, which is a loss of revenue, which is, you know, your job.
“Social media is a numbers game. Your money depends on the numbers." Warren continues.
“If people stop watching as much as I’m putting out, it means I’m doing something wrong, so what am I doing wrong, and how can I get those people back?”
'VOMITING WITH STRESS'
As well as struggling to keep content going, Petrou has recently revealed in a Youtube video that he's spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawsuits.
He also describes waking up and vomiting with the stress of running the collective.
Among the lawsuits was a settled dispute with former member Daisy Keech that has reportedly placed Petrou under an NDA.
"Her team was attempting to sue me which failed horribly. Then they withdrew and now we can’t talk," he told the BFFs podcast last year.
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The dispute is not discussed in the show.
Netflix was contacted for comment on the claims.
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