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YouTube sensation Piper Rockelle's mom crowed that she was a "pimp" making "kiddie porn" on the video sharing website where her daughter and her friends dressed in skimpy outfits and had scripted make-out sessions, alleges a bombshell lawsuit.
Rockelle’s mom, Tiffany Smith, 40, is facing a civil trial in Los Angeles later this year over shocking allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse of 11 young co-stars.
Smith and her live-in boyfriend Hunter Hill, 25, who is also named in the suit, produced Rockelle’s popular "Piper Squad" channel, which raked in more than $500,000 a month while her co-stars didn't earn a penny, according to the plaintiffs’ attorney Matthew Sarelson.
The lawyer represents the parents of the alleged victims, who range in age from 10 to 16 and include two of Rockelle’s cousins.
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YouTube star Piper Rockelle, left, and a photo of her and her mom, Tiffany Smith, right. Smith is being sued by 11 young content creators for alleged sexual, physical and emotional abuse. (Instagram)
Dark side of YouTube stardom
Smith, the CEO of Piper Rockelle Inc, and Hill, the director and cinematographer, launched the channel in 2016, which now has nearly 11 million subscribers, according to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Rockelle and the couple live in a $3 million hot-pink house in Sherman Oaks that once belonged to actress Bella Thorne.
The mother-manager, who called herself their "madam" often reminded the teenagers that "sex sells," encouraging the girls to "push their butts out" and dress "sluttier," the complaint alleges.
The $22 million lawsuit filed last year exposed the often disturbing YouTube child star industry.
Piper Rockelle and her mom Tiffany Smith's boyfriend, Hunter Hill, who is named in a $22 million lawsuit alleging he sabotaged child stars who left the "Piper Squad." Rockelle, a 15-year-old YouTube sensation, poses with other social media influencers. (Instagram)
Superstar Youtuber Piper Rockelle whose mom, Tiffany Smith, is being sued by 11 Kids takes pictures in between filming. (Wil Roberts / SplashNews.com)
"When you have teenagers and preteens who are pulling in half a million a month, they are certainly going to create an atmosphere where cutthroat business practices and dealings go on," Sarelson told Fox News Digital. "There’s too much money for it not to get contentious or worse."
Some of his clients recently discovered that in Google searches, their children’s names appear to be linked to pornography websites.
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"How these names are associated with porn sites is something we are aggressively looking into," he said. "My clients worship their kids, and they’re mortified by what they’re seeing, and that’s why they hired us to get to the bottom of it."
Sickening allegations of abuse
The plaintiffs allege that the stage mom soon developed a reputation as a "mean-spirited control freak" whose conduct was "often reprehensible and even illegal."
She allegedly quizzed a boy on the length of his penis, showed a girl pornography and encouraged several of the plaintiffs to "try oral sex."
Piper Rockelle, 15, of the hit YouTube channel the "Piper Squad," wearing a catsuit and kissing a pumpkin.
The suit claims she often touched the teenagers inappropriately, slapping their butts, rubbing their thighs and even trying to squeeze a girl’s breasts.
In her pursuit to produce more titillating content, Smith allegedly pressured a 15-year-old boy "to be more ‘sexually aggressive’ and ‘physical’ with her daughter, Piper, so the pair’s ‘crush’ connection would appear more realistic in Piper’s videos."
One of the plaintiffs allegedly witnessed Smith "grab Piper’s face and make-out with her in an attempt to teach her how to ‘kiss.’"
Piper Rockelle posing with several of her former co-stars who are now suing her mother, Tiffany Smith, for alleged abuse. The group is at the 2nd Annual Toys for Tots Toy Drive in Hollywood, California, Nov. 21, 2020. (Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images)
One video posted to Rockelle’s YouTube page features eight teenagers engaged in a "last to stop kissing" competition with the winner supposedly earning $10,000.
It was not only in the studio where alleged exploitation and abuse flourished.
A 14-year-old girl had the misfortune of accompanying Smith to the post office.
"Ms. Smith mailed out several of Piper’s soiled training bras and panties to an unknown individual," the complaint charges. "Old men like to smell this stuff," Smith allegedly remarked.
Accusations of sabotage
Despite allegedly enduring sickening abuse from 2017 to 2021, the child actors were not compensated for the millions of dollars they helped Rockelle and Smith earn from appearances in more than 550 videos posted to the "Piper Squad" channel.
The suit, however, acknowledges that the plaintiffs were never promised money.
After nine of the members left, Hill allegedly sabotaged their individual YouTube channels by planting porn in their content and falsely flagging their videos as inappropriate.
Superstar Youtuber Piper Rockelle whose Mom is being sued by 11 Kids takes pictures in between filming. (Wil Roberts / SplashNews.com)
A 15-year-old former squad member with 1.3 million YouTube subscribers had been pulling in $22,000 a month. After he left the squad, his revenue dropped to $6,000.
The suit alleges sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, unjust enrichment and other claims and is seeking $22 million in damages.
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Smith filed and then dropped a $30 million countersuit against the plaintiffs last summer, claiming their parents were in a conspiracy to extort money by making up false abuse claims.
Who should protect YouTube child stars?
Entertainment lawyer Max Hass of the Parlatore Law Group said that YouTube, like other social media platforms, offers low barrier for entry into a potentially lucrative market.
"The regulation should come from the parents but, in many cases, the parents are the ones doing the exploiting," he said. "They’re obsessed with making money at all costs and this content can be monetized so easily."
Piper Rockelle of the "Piper Squad" YouTube channel, which has nearly 11 million subscribers and rakes in $500,000 a month, according to a lawsuit against her mom, Tiffany Smith. (Instagram)
He added that it isn’t just "creepy old men" watching these videos but young girls taking cues on what to wear and how to behave.
"Why is it we have so many American parents out there who think this is OK today?" Hass asked.
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Hill and Smith’s lawyers, Kenneth and Karol Ingber, didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
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