Charli DAmelio Cuts Off Family Over Exploitation

For a brief moment in internet history, the D’Amelios felt untouchable. They were the ultimate American family. Attractive, driven, close-knit and, most importantly, profitable.

This was a suburban household transformed into a global brand overnight – all powered by two teenage girls dancing in their bedrooms.

At the centre of it all was Charli D’Amelio: the youngest, the quiet one.

She was just 15 when she became ’s first true mega-star, amassing millions of followers in weeks.

What followed was unprecedented. Global fame before she could drive, seven-figure endorsement deals before she finished school and an entire family profiting from her success.

But now, years later, a very different story is unfolding.

Charli, now 21, has moved to New York, stepped away from the influencer grind and focused on Broadway and more traditional creative work.

And now I can reveal the star has also blocked her sister, mother and father on social media – removing them completely from her life.

Sources tell me the reason for this is because her parents were becoming overwhelmingly fame-hungry.

‘They seemed really toxic and pushed her to work so much,’ one source tells me.

‘Her parents treated her like a cash cow. This is a teenager who was taken advantage of, for money, by her already rich parents, leaving her aggressively sexualised and massively hated online for having the maturity of a teenager.’

To understand this ugly saga we must first go back to 2019 – when Charli started posting on TikTok, an app that was then in its infancy.

A trained dancer, Charli began posting short dance routines and videos of herself lip-syncing to popular songs, which quickly racked up millions of views. It seems unthinkable now that such amateur videos would go viral, but back then the app wasn’t so saturated with young and ‘ordinary’ influencers like Charli. She was a breath of fresh air.

Then in 2020, the world was plunged into Covid lockdown. Everybody was glued to their phones – and Charli soon became a household name among Gen-Z viewers who religiously copied her dance routines and followed her everyday life during the pandemic.

By 2021, Charli was earning an estimated £13million a year in branding and endorsement deals, making her the highest-paid TikTok star in the world. Her older sister Dixie, who was initially embarrassed by Charli’s new career path, had launched her own TikTok page and was making £8million.

Brands such as Amazon, Hollister, Dunkin’ Donuts and Prada flocked to cash in on this new advertising opportunity, paying around £200,000 per sponsored post.

The girls were making sums beyond their parents’ wildest dreams. Marc and Heidi D’Amelio’s life before their daughters’ TikTok fame, though comfortable, was mundune: Marc worked as a salesman for clothing company Mitchell & Ness, while Heidi pursued modelling and personal training.

So the couple, who had met in a New York gym in 1997, were keen to get involved in this lucrative new social media space.

Heidi quickly restyled herself as an influencer in her own right, amassing millions of followers and launching a YouTube channel to show ‘her life as just Dixie and Charli’s mom’. Meanwhile Marc oversaw the family’s growing portfolio of businesses, including snack foods and footwear.

What made the D’Amelio family unique wasn’t just their business savvy, but their wholesome family image. However, the illusion began to crack in 2021, when the family allowed TV network Hulu to film The D’Amelio Show, a reality series that promised an honest look behind the scenes of internet fame.

A far cry from her usual happy, glossy TikTok edits, Charli was frequently shown crying, overwhelmed and visibly anxious. She spoke openly about panic attacks, exhaustion and the relentless pressure of being watched by millions. Concern was also growing among viewers that school-age Charli’s dances were becoming increasingly sexualised.

‘Millions of people watch your every move,’ she said on the show. ‘Millions of people are ready to tear you apart every second, it’s a constant terror.’

In another moment, she broke down sobbing. ‘I am physically and mentally exhausted. It’s work, it’s my personal life, it’s negative comments, it’s school, it’s content I make for myself, it’s deliverables, it’s meetings, it’s interviews, it’s everything.’

Most striking was her admission that she felt responsible not just for herself, but for her entire family and their employees. ‘If I wanted to quit,’ she said, ‘now they [her family] don’t have a job. It’s a lot to put on one person.’