Disability influencer's hell after stranger faked her death on TikTok
Summary
A 22-year-old TikTok influencer with cerebral palsy, Grace Wolstenholme, discovered that a stranger had falsely claimed she had died in a viral TikTok video. The video, which was viewed 650,000 times, falsely portrayed her death and incorrectly stated she had autism. The video was posted by an account that appeared to be selling full-body pillows and was later removed by TikTok for violating community guidelines. The poster also falsely claimed to have cerebral palsy and used Grace’s name and image without permission. As a result of the misinformation, Grace lost thousands of followers and experienced a drop in income from the platform. She reported the incident to the Metropolitan Police, which is investigating the case.
Incident Details
Deliberate or negligent spread of false or misleading information with harmful real-world effects.
False or misleading content spread without intent to deceive.
Sources
1This incident is documented by a single source. Source count reflects coverage in our monitored feeds, not the totality of reporting, and we do not evaluate publication quality.