intentionally DISTURBING Ariadna Jacob: Surviving a smear campaign

[Music] Oh, hey. You're here. Hi guys. I'm Dr. Leslie, and this is Intentionally Disturbing. On this episode, I get to speak with Ari Jacob. Ari was the victim, you could say victim. Uh, she was quite resilient, actually, of a smear campaign and being cancelled in Hollywood after a scathing New York Times article came out about her, and she actually sued the New York Times. I would love for you to listen to her story because I want the world to see the inside of Hollywood and maybe a little of what happens behind the scenes for content creators, influencers, uh, those people popular on TikTok, Instagram, but also the power that lawyers have and the power that the elite have when they stick together and they don't want to stand up for the truth. So they don't want to stand up for friends because they don't want to ruin their reputations and their potential for climbing ladders.

People ask a lot, you know, how did things get so bad? If we think about Shan Colmes or the Diddy case, how did it get so bad? How did it go on for so long? I think this is a really great example of of how we don't stop it when we're a part of it because it could hurt where we're going. Um, and I say we because I've been a part of things like this, too. So, I hope you enjoy the episode.

Oh, hey. You're here. Thanks for doing this.

Anyways, nice to meet you.

Yeah.

Yeah. Nice to meet you. I was excited to talk to you because it's just so it's such an interesting world that you've lived in since since the start of your career, and it's it's so one it's interesting to me because I only started social media like a year ago, but then two I thought with this platform it would be really awesome to show the rest of the world a little inside scoop, you show them a little bit of what actually happens because they rely so much on the media that they're given, right? And they don't they don't have the experience you have of, you know, potential smear campaigns or just all the all the freaking people that work behind the scenes.

Yeah. And unfortunately, you don't really get the lesson until you go through it, and then you're able to share about it. So that's why I think it's been about five years, which is kind of crazy, but now it's so interesting to, you know, have a conversation like this with you where I've already processed everything that happened. Like there was so many, you know, they say there's so many, was it like five stages of grief or something? I think there's like a certain amount of stages of like getting cancelled. And for me, it happened on this really huge platform, the New York Times and so on. Uh, but I think people in their everyday lives experience cancel culture like whether they're an influencer or um, you know, somebody at the office is bullying them. It it's uh, and now with social media, it's even more pervasive like people can do this uh, you know, in the shadows essentially, you know, writing mean things about you and whatnot. So, it's it's it's an interesting thing that happened, but uh I'm glad that I was resilient and that I'm here to talk about it, and maybe it can help somebody going through definitely something.

Yeah. I wonder if we can give a bit of a a backstory of what happened.

So, sure. So, you moved here when you were super young.

Yes. And this was kind of your calling.

Yeah. I was born in Mexico City, and then I moved to the US when I was like two. My uh my dad had passed away from a heart attack, and my mom met an American, and they had this you know the love story where they got married, and he adopted me and you know treated me like his daughter. So I was really, you know, grateful to live in the US and uh kind of always had that mindset of like I want to build a business. I want to change the world. And uh I ended up uh building a successful talent management company managing uh Charlie D'Amelio and Addison Rae, the huge TikTok stars that um Charlie D'Amelio has like well a lot of followers.

Yeah, I think yeah, at one point she had over like a hundred million followers or something. I don't know. But she ended up from 2019 when I worked with her to uh just like a year or two ago, I think her and her sister made over $90 million. Charlie was really kind of uh I don't know. I I've you you hear these stories of like overnight success, and usually they are not overnight success, but with her it really was because she was just this high you know girl in high school that was kind of the all-American girl and didn't wear a lot of makeup and uh she learned these dances, and the reason why at the time the I believe she went so viral is because TikTok was a dancing app, and so whenever you wanted to learn like the trending dance you would go cuz Charlie did all the dances. So you would go to Charlie's page. And then I think the reason why she went super mega viral was because in order to learn the dance, you'd have to watch the video over and over and over again. And that just told the algorithm like, "Oh my gosh, this is going to sky, you know, shoot skyhigh." And then I think she kind of became like TikTok's darling. And like I'll never forget um and even her sister too. Her sister was like, "Well, what am I supposed to do? am I just like the sidekick?" But, you know, she ended up having a singing career, and they were honestly really kind people and their and their family was supportive, and I think that it was just like the all-American dream became that like young people looked at Charlie and said, "Oh, if she can do that, maybe I can do that." And so, um, you know, I had established when I before I managed Charlie, I had established a lot of notable industry relationships. I knew that TikTok was going to be huge. At the time, a lot of people didn't really see it that way. Uh I just saw where things were going, and I'm like, "Okay, this this is going to be huge." And then the pandemic happened, and people were stuck at home, and there was nothing else to do but to watch TikTok videos, and the people that I was representing, they were the ones that had like created so many videos and because at the time it was a bit voyeuristic to post a video on social media, you know.

I know you do. I was watching your TikTok videos, and they're super entertaining, and but at that like in 2018 2019 it was weird, and even me as an adult I remember just making videos so that cuz a lot of people were just following me because Charlie followed me, and I just remember being like this is so cringe, and then the influencers were like oh yeah the cringier the better the more views you're going to get, and I'm like okay oh but I remember the feeling like the initial feeling of kind of putting yourself out there, right? And just how uncomfortable it felt like it was a cultural shift.

Totally.

Totally. So, uh, how did you how did you get to this place where you were and I forget what the name was, but you had a company that called a house influences.

Influences. Okay. And so, you rented a house at one point, and then influencers were living inside of it and making content.

Yes. So, I've known a few people who have done this, but I did I've never understood like how it all works. I never got invited.

Well, so it was very weird how I fell into it. So, first of all, I worked with Bella Thorne, and Bella owned this house. So, Bella Thorne was like big already as an influencer and sort of celebrity um making music and and acting and stuff. and she uh she owned this house that was like purple on the outside, pink and every different color you could think of on the inside. She had uh she was really artistic. So anyway, she had this house, and she had moved away, and then the pandemic happened, and I think I just like put the, you know, connected the dots where I was like this would be such a cool place if you were a TikToker to like make dances because there's so many cool things all around. I talked to Bella, and I think it was like at the beginning of the pandemic uh or maybe it was before, but regardless I'm like how you know would it be a lot to rent this house cuz I think they were trying to sell it anyway. We rented it, and then a lot of the TikTokers would come over, and they knew I represented Charlie D'Amelio. So, and she was so famous at the time that everybody wanted me to represent them. And I think that's where I can take some accountability too, which is like I should have just stuck with my big people that I knew were going to be successful, but it was like shiny new object syndrome, I think, because I have ADHD. And it was also not just I didn't look at them as objects. I looked at them as like oh my gosh they were like me when I was younger. Like I wish I had a mentor that could help me navigate like how to do all this stuff. Like I wanted to be that. I think when I was younger you couldn't really make a living on YouTube or if you could there was just a very small amount of people that were doing it, and it was only YouTube that you could do it. So I just saw I think I saw myself in them, and I like wanted to help everybody you I I saw I would meet them, and I'd be like, "Oh, I see so much opportunity in this person." And but I think I think at that point I bit off more than I could chew because people would come over the house, and then they'd be like, "Oh, I want you to represent me." Like, you know, and and and they would tell me stories like, "Oh, my mom doesn't believe in this." Like, "My parents want to kick me out cuz I didn't go to college." And you know, so I was just like, "Oh, I want to help them." So that's kind of how it all started.

It's okay. So it's so interesting. So, you've got you've got a few I I don't know if you call them youngsters. How old are they? They're like teenagers or

Well, I So, Charlie was 16 or 17, I think. I don't remember. Um, but I had a lot of really amazing mentors, and right at the start, they saw what I was building, and they're like, "Okay, Charlie, she's 16, but like don't sign anybody under 18." you know, like it's just going to be a headache.

Oh, yeah. I can imagine.

So, I was like, "Okay, that's fine." You know, and that was kind of my thing. So, I tried to mainly sign people that were over 18. And then, so people just they're glomming on to this idea, and they're all trying to be repped by you. And I can fully understand like, right, this is amazing. Let's I mean, you're you're about to explode.

Well, and the thing was too is that the huge talent agencies, they weren't really paying attention at the time that to this opportunity. I always tell people it was like um finding like a bunch of like beautiful ponies in a field and then just like helping them and you know working with them and then all of a sudden you know when TikTok when people realized what TikTok was about to be you know they grew wings and they became unicorns, and then everybody wanted a unicorn was kind of like how it felt.

So, so okay. So, it started it started with good intentions, but then yeah, it sounds like it just it became one of the darkest times of your life.

Yeah. I mean, let's put it bluntly. [ __ ] hit the fan, right? So, so then I decided to start So, it started with Bella's house, and then uh I rented this this huge house. Um, I worked with, so one of the the influencers, uh, his name is Marcus, and he had green hair, and his girlfriend had green hair, and they were kind of like this iconic, um, TikTok couple. And what I didn't realize was that Marcus, you know, I'm not a um I'm not a therapist or anything, you know, I don't have any background in this, but I did date somebody who was like, I think very clearly uh a narcissist or so, I don't know, something in that realm. And th this this person that I represented, he had these he had traits that reminded me of that person that I that I dated, not like just in the sense of um I there was some red flags and and very manipulative and so and this person was like I think 23 or something like that at the time. And so, but another place I can take accountability is like I didn't listen to some of those, you know, alarms going off in my mind because he was he was basically somebody that really um was a leader in like everybody listened to him. He had a lot of followers and and so the other influencers um listened to him, and he was the one initially that had the idea to do this house or whatever. And so I decided to do it. Um, we negotiated the the agreement. At first, he like didn't even want to get a lawyer. And I was like, "No, you need to have a lawyer because I don't want this to turn around on me." And then somebody say, "Hey, she forced them to sign this agreement that they didn't agree to." So, we went through a huge back and forth. He was like the leader. Once they decided, okay, yes, this is okay. He kind of told everybody, okay, it's fine to sign this agreement. And it was a production agreement. So, it wasn't a management contract. It was basically kind of like a music label deal where it's like you're getting an advance. The advance was the house that they were going to get to live in and make content in and in return they had to make a certain amount of content, and then when we got brand opportunities the the production would get that money and everything and then distribute it out um through the production like that would make sense through the production agreement. I felt it was fair, and we negotiated this for about a month, and so they moved in. It was like this great time, and at that point was when this industry started to get very competitive because I would have brands that were calling me. So think about it. Pandemic, Hollywood closes down, okay? There's no music touring in Hollywood. There's no acting. There's no movies being made, no TV shows. And advertisers still wanted to advertise, but how was the best way to advertise? It was through TikTok and Instagram and mainly TikTok because it everybody was just at home on their phones with nothing to do. And so big brands would call me and say, "Hey, we've got, you know, half a million dollars to spend. how should we spend it? And I was like, well, I have a lot of creators that we could spend it on. And they didn't really totally understand TikTok at the time. It was like, how do we do the deal? And so, I had had a lot of experience cuz I worked in digital agencies. I'd basically been in social media marketing since MySpace days. And it was like it was that feeling where I don't know if you you know when you're when you're working something towards something your whole life and people around you are like why are you focused on that? Why are you focused on that? And you're like I I just know it. And then I felt like wow this is going to be my big moment. Like I finally made it. That's how it felt. Like like I hadn't made it yet, you know, moneywise but it felt like oh my gosh I finally made it. You know like this was this was your direction. And this was who you were supposed to be professionally, right?

We'll be right back after this break.

And so th those were some good times. Um but then I noticed that uh you know the in the the creators, they weren't like they were taking side deals. they were um like they weren't, you know, you're supposed to everything's supposed to come into the company and then we negotiate it for them. They do the deal. They weren't doing the deals that I had gotten for them. They were kind of I don't know how to say it in a nice way, but it was a bit of like this laziness thing that came about. It was like the the initial excitement of being in the house was great, and then it became like, you know, they didn't want to do the content every day that they said they were going to do and all this stuff. And then I just became like I felt like somebody's mom, you know, like like I was the mom for all these people. Um, and at the time I had other talent that was uh like not in the house. So there I think at one point there was I don't know if it was like 40 or 50 people that we were managing, maybe even more. I can't remember.

Oh wow.

Um, and but this house was taking up all my time when I had other people that weren't even, you know, like I think I had I had a couple clients in Hawaii, and they they were getting huge brand deals. So I but I was had all my attention on this house and um and then I was you know getting worried because they were doing things like it's supposed to be that if they had somebody over at the house they would sign a release form, and they weren't doing all those things. So I and I had you know mentors that were like make sure because this is a huge liability and you're not ABC you know running the bachelor with you know a ton of um psychologists.

Yes. Psychologist support. You know what's so funny? Actually, I wanted to ask you about this. So, at one point, I remember thinking, okay, a basketball team or a football team, they all bring in a psychologist. They'll bring in like financial experts and my lawyer. And so I I proposed this and my lawyer at the time and another manager um and who was like kind of managing me uh and had a lot of experience and then another mentor of mine were like absolutely don't bring in a psychologist because and I was like why not and they're just like just trust me don't do it. So, I don't know why do you think it was a bad idea to because I'm just like I feel like these kids have like overnight success, and there's nobody like giving them any type of moral compass of like what they should be doing. But yeah, I mean and I think I think the important part for me is that your gut, your intuition was like this is something I'm thinking about, you know, like what in you made you feel like this would be helpful, right? I mean, you These are impressionable people being handed fame very quickly. It your instinct sounds pretty good to me that it would have been a good idea.

Well, so they told me not to to to do that. I don't know why it was I don't know if it was because it's like okay that could look bad like a p person in power is like saying you have to see this therapist or I don't I don't really know but it it was really interesting because I did get um referred to this um therapist who works with all these famous people in Hollywood, and I remember my friend was like okay you can see him but um like you know he only works with like high-performing people, and they told me who he worked with. And I was like, "Okay, well, I want to see him." And so he knew kind of what I was doing and everything. And I remember going in there at one point where I was having a real problem with this green-haired guy, uh, where he was just very manipulative. And, um, and I could tell I was being manipulated, but it was like I was in too far deep with this whole thing. And he was the one that would um, kind of pull the strings. Like he was influencing a lot of the creators to do whatever he said. And so I went in to see the therapist, and he's like, "Okay, why don't you bring in, you know, the green-haired kid and his girlfriend." And so I brought them in, and I left or whatever. He talked to them, and then I don't know, the next time I saw the therapist, he was like, "Hey, um, I think you need to quit. Like, I think you need to shut down the house."

I was like, "What? Wow." I'm like, "I am so deep in this. What do you mean?" And he's like, "These people don't respect you. They don't care about you. You are," he was like, "you're a shining light and you have so much to offer."

And he said, "I don't know if you believe in God or a higher power, but he had he's like, "I have this weird feeling that um that if you don't walk away that that God or someone else is going to is going to take it away for you because it's it's not for you." And I was like, "Okay, well, thank you, but respectfully, like I can't I can't walk away." And typical therapy. But yeah, two weeks later, it came crashing down. Like the whole thing came crashing down.

So in August of 2020, uh a New York Times article by Taylor Loren's, a journalist there, accused me of exploiting influencers, manipulating teenagers, and financial mismanagement. And the article omitted key facts such as my rebuttals and nuanced contract details and painting a really one-sided narrative. And the reporter had a conflict of interest. Um she was uh signed to a competing agency which hadn't been disclosed. So, she was writing basically glowing articles about the other agency and then very quickly after that uh wrote an article that would destroy my reputation and my business and many of my clients signed to her agency that she was at. Wow.

Yeah. I mean, how how was it emotionally to just read that article she wrote? I mean, in a massive publication?

Well, it was devastating and I knew it was coming because well, she reached out to us like I don't know 10 hours or something before the article went live and then had a list of like 50 questions of is it true that you did this, is it true that you did that? And I remember like sitting up with my attorney uh basically pulling an all-nighter and being like, can we just give them everything to refute what they're saying? And my attorney was like, "Unfortunately, you can't because like let's say that you know XYZ brand paid late. If you give that invoice to the New York Times and XYZ brand can sue you because you're breaking the NDA." So there it was basically I was between a rock and a hard place when it came out and it said all these terrible things. There was way worse things in the article, but this one thing really hurt me the most, which was they said they put in the article um Gary Vee, she claims to know Gary Vee and tells all these influencers that she knows Gary Vee. Um but we called Gary Vee and uh his team said that she's not he's not affiliated with influences, which is a fact. He wasn't in he wasn't affiliated like he wasn't my business partner but it made it look like I was a total clout chaser named dropper and because I had so much respect and have so much respect for Gary Vee and he's my actual friend it like broke my heart. I'm like it probably they called Gary and Gary's thinking like what the heck has Ari been doing? You know that that was my initial feeling like I totally let him down. It still like makes me emotional. It's so weird cuz it's like they said way worse things about me but it was like I think what about Yeah. What about this is the I think it was because like nobody really believed in me like when I was younger and Gary always believed in me and so I'm sorry but no I it is in the article it's a very targeted the thing that hurt me you know it's just weird that that that's what hurt me because I was like I felt like I let him down.

The good thing is that he called me and he was or he texted me. Okay. Yeah. He said like, "Are you okay?" And um and he I don't remember what he said. He's like, "You know, just don't let it get you." And and I remember like some of the influencers had moved out, the green-haired kid, and one one of the ones that was like the videographer, he had written on my door at the house cuz by that point I ended up just like moving into that place because um it was like 20 grand a month and this whole thing had been falling like about a month before I knew that it was going to fall apart. And anyway, he this kid wrote kid. He's over 18, but I call them kids, which is probably part of the thing which makes it sound like worse, but no, I mean anyway, he wrote on the door. Yeah, he wrote on the door like we love you or we believe in you or keep your head up. I don't remember what it was. And you know, those things like helped me push through.

And then I remember one of my mentors who's a really big Hollywood um you know this guy has like eight Emmys. He was my my mentor and he called me and he was like, "Welcome to the big leagues, Ari." And I'm like, "Did you read the article?" And he's like, "Yeah, I read it." He's like, "Well, are you going to just lay down and die or you going to get up because you didn't do any of these things? I know you. I was there. So, you have to fight back and you have to be resilient because nobody gets a target like that on their back unless they're important and unless people are threatened by them. And he's like, you know, so so it was devastating. That's so [ __ ] up. And also, it was this feeling of I don't know if it's my ADHD or if this is just my personality, but I'm very hard on myself. Like when something happens, I think that I immediately think of like every like I get so mad at myself. I talk so mean to myself. Well, I don't know what that is. Do we all have that? Like in some of us are worse.

You clearly have really high standards for yourself and I'm sure there's a huge element that's cultural, too.

Yeah. I mean, coming coming from Mexico and I don't know how much of of your Mexican life or family impacts you or influences you, but I mean, Mexicans hold themselves to a very very high working standard.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, and my relationship with my dad is good now. And it it just he's my stepdad essentially, but he's not my stepdad. He's my adopted dad. I call him my dad. Um, and he wasn't hard on me like he was hard on me like a like you might imagine like a a male like a like a dad being to his son in business. I don't know why it was like that, but it's honestly probably part of the reason why I've been so like ambitious in my life, but it's also tough when you're not like daddy's little princess, you know, and and like I never felt like I had that type of support. So, I always just was like, okay, I have to like be good and I have to like impress him in some way. And that was always what drove me. Um, and so yeah, when when I kind and and also he was somebody that was like, "Hey, you're doing something different like maybe why don't you just get, you know, a regular job where you could be, you know, the head of marketing at a company?" And I just didn't go that route. And so it was all this like I told you so starting to come into my mind. It was a dark place for sure. And and especially when you get cancelled, it's very isolating. Um because can we let's explain that. Like people don't know what it means to be cancelled.

No. Like I kind of feel like if I were to get cancelled that means I finally made it. Like if I if you're cancelable Yes. And I think we all do need to look at it that way in a way because Yeah. There's so many different pieces of advice that you get though too. It's like some people are like, "Oh, just change your name and keep representing people." And then, you know, cuz there's two ways of being canceled. One is like you could do something that gets you cancelled. And then two, you could, you know, things can be twisted to make it look like you were cancelled. One of the reasons why it was so isolating is because I have a very bubbly personality and I kind of got through life like just being bubbly and friendly to a lot of people and then people liking that type of energy and wanting to work with me or wanting to do stuff with me. And there was this level also of kind of like being um self-deprecating or not just like kind of maybe oversharing like people knew that I was bootstrapped and they knew I didn't have like a big investor behind me and I I liked that about me. I like the fact that I was like hey this is my own money I'm putting into this. This is my own time. And so, but when this happened, it was like if I entered a room and said something, I felt like, oh, everybody thinks I'm full of it. Like, everybody thinks I'm just doing this to um you know, it was like my my real personality got dulled because I'm like, "Oh, maybe if I say this, people will think I'm a bad person." Or I don't know if that makes sense. I don't know how to articulate it.

Yeah, it's a it's a harsh climate to be a young woman in. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

One of the things I remember um this happening is that uh it seemed like there was people that had been talking to the journalist and were trying to like bait me into doing something or saying something. Uh, and and that's probably because the journalist called them and was like, "Have you ever noticed Ari being XYZ, like erratic or, you know, staying up till 3:00 in the morning?" Or who knows what she asked them, right? But I know she did call people and be like, "Have you ever noticed that she did this?" And I remember one of my clients that stayed with me, um, he was like, "No, I never, you know, I never noticed her doing that." And then I guess the journalist like got mad at him and was like, "I'm really disappointed in you." She said that to a 16-year-old kid who she called to try to get like bad information about me and he stood strong. But most 16-year-olds are going to be like, "Oh, I don't know. I guess maybe like maybe I've seen her be like this." And so um one of the things was that initially I I would sometimes stay up really late and answer um emails cuz these influencers were getting emails like there so many emails. they're getting fan emails and then maybe a brand email would come in there and a lot of the managers were like letting those emails go and they were going unanswered. Um, and the reason why I felt like I have to be on this like I cannot let one email go through that doesn't get answered. And so I sometimes would be like, you know, answering emails at like 3:00 in the morning or 4 in the morning or something like that. But I knew a lot of the uh companies were in New York, so I was like, it's fine if they get an email. you know, they want to get an email right away if they want to do a brand deal with some of these people. And I remember one of the um influencers that like was a source for the story was saying like, "Yeah, you just like you're just cracked out like on aderall and you just stay up at all hours of the night like texting and answering emails like basically calling me crazy." And I remember like thinking about it. I'm like, "Well, maybe I maybe that's bad. Like maybe I shouldn't be doing this, you know?" And I started to kind of believe everything. And then I think at one point I was like, I need to stop this because this is unhealthy. Like I'm not a bad person. Like I make mistakes, but none of what they were saying if I did anything it it surely wasn't intentional. And second of all, like I know for a fact these things are not true, you know? So yeah, the article is written in a way where after every paragraph, it almost forces the reader to have an emotional reaction and it forces credibility to how the paragraph was written. So it doesn't leave you thinking, I should question this. It leaves you thinking, oh [ __ ] she [ __ ] up.

The world just believes what they see. Oh yeah. Yeah. They just they you see the word journalist and you believe it. You see actor, you believe them. That's why they have so many actors promoting so many things that they probably don't have any understanding of the science behind it. So like what advice would you give to people to not just take what they're fed, right? And not just eat it, right?

Well, you know, I think I I wrote a a Twitter thread about this and I I feel like one of the things is pay attention to the words being used. Uh because oftent times a a word that will be used that is like more dramatic or more like incendiary, but it could be just uh describing something that wasn't that. So, uh, for example, um, in the article, the the worst thing that she wrote, and I ended up suing the New York Times over this, uh, but the worst thing that the journalist wrote, which the judge in the in my case against the New York Times said, "This statement can move forward, uh, was she wrote that I leaked nude images of a client for revenge." That was what they were talking about. That was apparently the New York Times reviewed that conversation and said that that was me leaking nudes was for me to send it to my attorney and to the to the influencer himself who was in the in the in the tiny little pictures. So that's an example of like, okay, she leaked news. Like it's hard though to distinguish, right? Like how would you even know that? And the problem is that I couldn't get ahead of it. like okay so how did it conclude so I the legal so it took four years and this is what people also don't understand about um just getting into a legal fight with somebody as big as the New York Times is that it took forever. So the the article came out in 2020 and in 2024 the judge had thrown out basically like 50 so initially was like 50 claims that we said that were untrue. Then it was like narrowed down to five that we said we could go forward with. So my or that my attorneys would have to like rewrite the um the complaint and then we submitted like the five or six that we said okay these are these can stay and then the judge I think that's really important. I think that's important for people to know though is you know that initial complaint where there's like 85,000 things slapped onto it.

Yeah. Is literally the attorney throwing everything they've got and it's going to get it'll get taken down to just a few relevant things. And that happens over years. Yes. And you know what's crazy too is that at one point I I did utilize social media. So every time that this journalist would do something like being a bad actor towards somebody else, I would call it out on Twitter. And I think like that gave it and this is all during Johnny Depp. So I was very aware of what I was doing in 2024. The judge said one statement can move forward. And that statement was the the nude photos. And the reason the only reason it could move forward was because Taylor had written in pre-publication emails to me. Nobody's alleging that you leaked nude photos publicly. So that was So when you file for defamation, you have to prove malice. And that means that like you wrote something knowing it was false. And so that one the the one word that everything hinged on was leaked. So they were trying to say like well what does leaked mean? Can you leak something privately or can you leak something publicly? So that was basically the whole thing. the judge, most of the time these cases get thrown out because it's so difficult. But the judge said, "Your case can move forward." And after he said it could move forward, the New York Times filed what's called a uh motion to reconsider, which I've was told that most attorneys don't do that cuz that's like telling the judge he's wrong. They filed that and the judge a second time said no, it can move forward. So that was like a huge victory.

The mental health of the people, especially the ones you talk about with millions of followers, losing that platform. Uh, that scared me. That scared me to think about how these young, you know, teenagers, 20-year-olds who are just fully in this and then losing it suddenly, and they may still lose it in the future. I I just immediately I just thought they're going to end their lives. It's like they don't have the skills to cope with this.

It got too big too fast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of I mean what I saw uh what I've seen at social media I mean that's a whole another conversation but it's like I think it was like a perfect storm with the pandemic and everything where people really do have their identities like you know built on whatever they post on social media or if there's like bullies attacking them and they feel like they can't get out of it. Like it's just after all this happened like I remember after filing the lawsuit like after going on Tucker I had I had feelings of that like when it was in a dark place I was like I I I didn't think about actually doing it but I I just thought like I don't know how I can move forward like I I don't know how to and I remember after but after I I sued and after I went on Tucker and after I I started to get support I was like I can't believe that I ever considered that as an option because it's Like I just needed to believe it was possible. Like hold my beer. I'm going to sue the New York Times. Like I'm so proud of that. I know people are like, "I'm so sorry that happened to you." I'm like, "I'm not. I sued the New York Times. I like got my reputation back and I have a bigger platform now than I ever did."

Um, and to be honest with you, like I don't I'm glad I don't represent social media stars anymore. I think I would have gone completely insane even if I would have made a lot of money. It's like it wasn't good for me mentally. Like now I get to help like boomers with their social media, you know, like plastic surgeons and like I I work with basically business owners, small and medium-sized business owners and I help them do short-form video content for their companies. And there's like millions of those people, right? Restaurants and you know, Botox places or whatever. I mean like spas. I mean there's like an unlimited amount of people that actually appreciate me and my what I know. And so it was but it was a shift of that like okay just because it's not this thing that I want doesn't mean it's the thing I'm meant for.

Yeah. I like to I like to end each episode with kind of a something that really resonates with the world. And I think that's it is we can't just be one entity or one presence. If it's Tik Tok or Instagram that's still social media, right? We have to be grounded in in reality and know our worth so that we're not putting all our eggs in into one basket.

Right. Right. Especially the youth. One thing I do hope that if anybody is listening out there that it's like a young person, don't do this. Um there's a a trend called like that's like a victimhood mentality and it's like everybody else it's everybody else's fault, right? It's like TikTok's closing down and like I'm just going to like, you know, or or somebody rubs you the wrong way and then you're going to just say something about them. I I don't know. It's I don't like that victim mentality. I've been there where you're where I'm like I'm a victim. Like this happened to me. I can't. But it's like try to snap out of it because the moment you snap out of it and you take accountability and then you believe in yourself and you go and do the things then you're going to who knows what you can accomplish. So I hope people get that out of the story.

I think that's wonderful advice and coming from somebody who who went up against, you know, one of the biggest entities that we have. It's incredible advice.

Yeah. I thank you so much for doing this with me today.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's been really nice. And uh yeah, I haven't

Really, I've never even told this story anywhere, so I'll make sure to share it everywhere. And I, um, yeah, I hope, like I said, I hope somebody gets something out of it. But I'm Little Miss Jacob everywhere. Yeah.

So, that's what I was gonna say is I'm not good at this. Okay.

How can people find you? Um, I'm Little Miss Jacob on pretty much everything. My website is littlemjacob.com. On YouTube, I'm Influences, YouTube.com/influences. And, uh, my company is Creator Genius, and we make short-form content for small businesses. So, creatorgenius.com.

Okay. I have some people I need to send your way.

Okay. Yay. I like a few plastic surgeons actually who have helped that need some help.

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I'm really grateful you're here, and thank you for listening to another episode and meeting Ari and hearing her empowering and amazing story. And hopefully, you had some glimpses onto the reality of things behind the camera. Catch you next time.

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