17-year-old Charli D’Amelio, who has 115.2 million TikTok followers, says criticism of her 'every move' is difficult: 'It's hard'
Charli D'Amelio is the most prominent person on TikTok with 115.2 million followers at just 17 years old. But the teen is opening up about how her quick success on the app has led to struggles throughout her personal and professional life as she figures out what to do next with her fame.
"A lot of excitement around trying some new things, trying to get into some different categories that I might have been in before but it wasn’t really me, if that makes sense. Just definitely like a lot of exploring what I can do with what I’ve been given," she shared while on sister Dixie D'Amelio's YouTube talk show.
What Charli expressed as her biggest concern, however, is getting in the way of her friendships with other creators.
"I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes," she said. "And I feel like if I were to go in any direction, I’m like…I don’t know. I would hate to be that person, which I feel like is why I’ve kind of been holding myself back from trying a lot of new things."
Although Charli became best known for her dancing on the social media platform, she quickly secured deals with Dunkin' Donuts, Hollister and makeup brand Morphe to create and promote exclusive products in a number of different categories. While Dixie went on to release music and create a growing interview series, however, Charli seemingly feels left behind.
"Everyone kind of already has their thing and I haven’t really found mine yet," Charli continued. "It’s just difficult because as difficult as it is to try something that no one else has done, it’s like, I would rather search for that than try to compete with my friends. But it’s definitely difficult, I don’t want to have bad blood with anyone."
She even admitted that a lot of the fun of her job has been sucked out by both the growing criticism and competition.
"I feel like when you have opportunities that are so amazing, but then an entire world of critiques for your every move, it’s very difficult to find enjoyment in things that are being torn down so much," she admitted. "It’s extremely difficult to want to continue doing something that people say how much they hate and it’s hard. It doesn’t feel like it used to where there was collaborations and fun and everyone was friends. Now it’s like, everyone’s trying to beat each other and it’s like, that doesn’t make sense to me."
Charli went on to say that people who she thought were her friends began reaching out only when it was "convenient for them," and even stopped reaching out because she was seemingly in such high demand. "The people that were trying to be there for everyone, they kind of left them in the dust and that’s kind of where I feel like I’ve been," she said. "So it’s difficult when you don’t have like a big friend group to support you when you’re going through things."
Dixie concurred with her sister saying, "When they realized you wanted a real friendship and not just collab and they couldn’t use you, that’s when they stopped. ... They left all the real people behind."
"I mean I’ve trusted a lot of people and they showed their true colors," Charli said.
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