Too often, internet personalities become narcissistic, morally myopic, and grossly manipulative. Gabbie Hanna makes the list with ease. CW: Sexual assault and strong themes.
I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t know who Gabbie Hanna is. Self-obsessed internet personalities like Gabbie, particularly on video mediums such as Vine, Tik Tok, or YouTube, can be unwatchable. And yet, these platforms reward drama and controversy, often propelling the most sociopathic creators to the top. Think in the vein of Shane Dawson, Jeffree Star, the Paul brothers, and of course, Gabbie Hanna. Once the curtain’s been peeled back, it’s just too easy to see through the bullshit. Not to mention the relentless jump cuts, sketchy sponsored partnerships and fake enthusiasm.
Still, I wouldn’t blame you if you know who Gabbie Hanna is, either. YouTube drama is undeniably addictive. Watching huge stars get checked by other huge stars is entertaining. It’s like gossip, but on a macro scale. You get to find out all the dirt, then let loose on the deserving. Most recently, Gabbie Hanna has been in the firing range. So, to save you time, we’ve condensed her sprawling list of controversial behaviour into the juiciest bits.
Scam Artist
In 2018, Gabbie Hanna promoted makeup brushes on her YouTube channel, The Gabbie Show. They were available for free (shipping not included), with Hanna claiming they were “really high quality”. Tens of thousands of fans swept these up but quickly discovered the brushes deteriorated upon their first use. Some orders never even ended up shipping. What’s worse was Gabbie’s ‘apology’ to her loyal fanbase. It’s here that we see the self-righteous, sinister side of Hanna begin to emerge into the public eye. “I’m not sure what quality people were expecting when they paid $10 for 10 brushes”.
The list gets far worse from here.
Fast forward to 2019, and Hanna is showing no signs of self-reflection or changed behaviour. Here’s what happened. Hanna’s ex-friend and fellow content creator JessiSmiles accused her ex-boyfriend, famed Vine star, Curtis Lepore, of rape back in 2013. However, Hanna continued to collaborate with the rapist and remain friends with him.
Smiles addressed this in a YouTube video in 2019, stating, “One of the things that I believe you never do, even if you hate someone now, is hang out with their rapist and their friends”, teary-eyed.
Naturally, personalities and fans turned on Hanna, but her response to the incident remained undesirable and manipulative. It still does. In a 2021 interview with BuzzFeed, Hanna said this about the incident: “It feels like I’m always dishing out apologies, and I’ve never received one, and that to me feels a little chaotic”.
Escape the Night-mare
Escape the Night is a scripted reality TV show ran by popular YouTubers Joey Graceffa and Daniel Preda. For Season 4, they invited their now ex-friend Hanna (do you see the pattern here?) to the show, which quickly became hell for everyone involved. Hanna threw the first punch, posting a video attacking the duo about her time on set and complaining that there wasn’t “proper food” for her to eat.
Graceffa and Preda wasted no time clearing the air with their own individual response videos, debunking Hanna’s complaints and highlighting her ghastly behaviour during filming. “I want to give you a spoiler warning – Gabbie was actually the nightmare”, Graceffa quipped. According to their respective videos, Hanna was consistently unprofessional, missed wardrobe fittings, and called an assistant a “dumb fucking cunt” amidst other toxicities. Yikes.
i believe the strongest people, are people who have fought and survived Gabbie Hanna. So, in short Jessismiles, The whole cast and Staff of Escape The Night, Trisha Paytas (yes, she just handles it different ways.) and any others i cannot think of off the top of my head.
— Samii 사미🍀 (@hanjizzungie) July 11, 2021
Trisha Paytas
Trisha Paytas is another creator with her fair share of controversies. Still, that didn’t stop her from calling out Gabbie’s insensitive remarks, spawning yet another YouTube beef. Firstly, in late 2019, Gabbie falsely told Paytas’ ex-boyfriend that she had herpes, which, as you can imagine, is totally over the line. This caused some unsavoury back and forth online that have remained unresolved.
More recently, Gabbie posted a video where she dressed similarly to a TikToker who was tragically murdered. This thoughtless stunt was called out by Trisha, but we’re yet to hear a response from Hanna. More to come, we’re sure.
Up next: The controversial and cursed history of Neopets.
