YouTube royalty Tanya Burr and Jim Chapman once seemed to have it all.
A £2million London home, a fairytale wedding at luxury Somerset members’ club Babington House, nearly ten million followers between them – and a gorgeous dachshund puppy named Martha.
So when their marriage imploded in 2019 after a 12-year relationship, Tanya and Jim’s devoted fans clamoured for answers. Why the sudden split? Who would get the house? What about their joint YouTube empire?
And, above all: what would become of Martha?
Not long after the divorce announcement, the sausage dog’s whereabouts became a mystery. Once a staple on both Tanya and Jim’s online feeds, Martha simply vanished. Weeks turned into months without either Tanya or Jim posting a picture of their beloved pet.
Such was the interest in Martha’s whereabouts that Tanya, now 36, even went so far as to block the word ‘dog’ in her comment section, prompting shrewd fans to ask instead: ‘Where’s the hound?’, a refrain that soon went viral.
One insider tells me: ‘It was a fair question. Tanya and Jim shared everything – their relationship, their home, their holidays – and Martha was part of that. Then suddenly she wasn’t. People just wanted to know she was okay.’
Indeed, the pair had documented their entire relationship online. Tanya first met Jim, 37, at a Norwich house party in 2007. She was then working at a make-up counter, while Jim’s sisters, Nicola and Samantha, were building a loyal online following through makeup tutorials on YouTube.
YouTube royalty Tanya Burr and Jim Chapman with their dachshund puppy Martha
Inspired by their budding career, Tanya launched her own channel in 2009, focusing on beauty tutorials and fashion tips. Jim followed a year later, carving out his niche in men’s fashion and grooming.
Together they became YouTube’s golden couple – part of the influencer ‘Brit Crew’ – which included other online stars such as Zoe ‘Zoella’ Sugg and Alfie Deyes.
After a New York engagement in 2012, they married at Babington House three years later. Soon after came Martha – ‘Martha Moo’ as she was lovingly known – who quickly became the third star of the Chapman-Burr household.
By 2015, Tanya was raking in ten million views a month. A range of lip glosses and nail varnishes she released with the high street health and beauty retailer Superdrug created the biggest waiting list the company had ever seen. ‘I think it comes down to my positive, friendly personality’, she told the Daily Mail at the time.
Jim’s star also rose: he signed with top modelling agency Models 1 and became a presenter on Simon Cowell’s Syco YouTube channel.
Endless footage was posted on Tanya and Jim’s YouTube and Instagram pages of Martha frolicking in the garden of the couple’s £2million Fulham home.
Tanya even released a recipe book featuring homemade dog biscuits. ‘As I was testing recipes for this book I knew I couldn’t leave out my Martha Moo,’ she wrote.
‘I love doing special things for her and I know she appreciates a gift, too. These make the cutest present for any canine friends you want to spoil.’
Tanya and Jim married at Babington House, Somerset, in 2015, but their relationship imploded in 2019 after 12 years together
By 2015, Tanya was raking in ten million views a month, while Jim signed with top modelling agency Models 1 and became a presenter on Simon Cowell’s Syco YouTube channel
Which is why, when Tanya posted on her Instagram page in 2019, ‘Just wanted to let you all know that a few weeks ago Jim and I made the painful decision to no longer be together,’ many fans were more concerned about Martha’s future than the breakdown of their relationship.
‘I know I am not the only one wondering, but I have been worried about what happened to her dog, Martha,’ one concerned fan wrote after the split. ‘It has been months we have not seen her, neither Tanya nor Jim talks about her at all.’
Speculation ran wild: Had Martha died? Had she been rehomed so Tanya could chase an acting career in LA? (She later managed only a handful of minor roles, including an extra in Holby City and a part in the 2021 film Twist.)
Some fans have even claimed to have been blocked from her Instagram account when they messaged her to share their concerns about Martha.
Even close friends seemed baffled. During a podcast appearance, YouTuber-turned-Strictly star Joe Sugg was asked if he knew anything about Martha. He replied: ‘I remember that dog, I’ve forgotten what it’s called. Ah yes, Martha. I feel like I should know where she is.’
Asked if the dog was dead, he said: ‘I assume it probably is.’
Meanwhile, in 2022, a user under the name of Sam Chapman – Jim’s sister – only fuelled speculation after writing in an online gossip forum: ‘She’s alive and well and lives in Norfolk with another sausage.
‘It’s not my story to tell but I 100 per cent confirm that she’s really happy, healthy and not brown bread [cockney rhyming slang for dead].’
Endless footage was posted on Tanya and Jim’s YouTube and Instagram pages of Martha frolicking in the garden of the couple’s £2million Fulham home
And in an interview a month ago, Jim said: ‘She’s fine, but in a way it’s not my story to tell. I know she was my dog, our dog, but I don’t know if I can talk about it. ‘I know she’s fine. But it wasn’t my decision. I don’t want to say anything that might be misconstrued or point fingers.’
When I contacted Tanya’s representatives last week for an explanation, they politely declined. But it appears that persistent questions from fans and journalists alike have finally produced answers.
Last night, Nicola Chapman, 44, broke the silence on Instagram in a video titled ‘Where’s the hound? Question answered.’
She revealed that when Jim moved into her London flat after his split from Tanya – a flat with no garden – Martha’s health problems became impossible to ignore. The dachshund had developed a bad back and could no longer climb up stairs.
‘Martha had to have rehab for her back to try to make that better. It also meant more time, and 24-hour care, and also Tanya and Jim had separated so it made it very difficult,’ Nicola explained. ‘They’d planned to share custody, but it just wasn’t practical.’
Instead, Martha was given to a friend of the family, Hannah, who already had a sausage dog and lived on a farm in Norfolk.
Nicola laughed: ‘When I told my agents about this ages ago, I said “Oh she lives on a farm”. They went, “You can’t say that she lives on a farm, that’s normally what they say when a dog is no longer alive”.
‘So Martha is still alive, she’s absolutely fine. They gave money for her to continue her rehab when [the new owner] took her on, so she is running around happily.’
Martha was given to a friend of the family, Hannah, who already had a sausage dog and lived on a farm in Norfolk
‘I can understand why they probably wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it for a while, because it’s really sad,’ she added.
So, Martha’s mystery is solved at last – though fans remain in the dark about what truly ended Tanya and Jim’s marriage.
Though the pair insisted the divorce was amicable, whispers of infidelity have long swirled.
By July 2020, Jim was engaged to model Sarah Tarleton after 16 months of dating. When an online troll accused Sarah of ‘stealing’ him away from Tanya, she denied it – suggesting that the split was related to Tanya’s wrongdoing.
These days Tanya, still followed by four million people on both YouTube and Instagram, keeps her life more private. She announced her first pregnancy in 2022 with her new partner Dan Herlihy, though neither he nor their child have ever appeared on her social media pages.
Jim, on the other hand, includes his two children and wife Sarah – now a budding influencer herself – in his videos.
An industry insider tells me: ‘People were in love with Tanya and Jim as a couple, and with Martha. They were genuinely concerned when she disappeared. And this is what happens when you share your whole life online.
‘You can’t then one day decide to stop doing so. These people make a very large living from giving every detail away.
