Being an “influencer” is a balancing act.
I don’t have a huge number of followers, but I have a decent number of people who subscribe.
You want to be relatable—but not so relatable that people think, Why should I listen to you?
For years, I thought I’d nailed it.
My Instagram was a curated masterpiece, my captions inspiring without being over the top, and my few small local partnerships were things that truly aligned with me.
Then all of the sudden, I was a target.
One morning, I woke up to chaos. My notifications were exploding with tags, DMs, and comments, all pointing to an anonymous account that was designed to “expose” me.
The account had leaked candid photos of me… all unflattering ones.
There I was, tripping over my heels at an event, mid-bite at a dinner party, and looking like I’d rolled out of bed at the gym.
And, it didn’t take long to figure out who was behind it.
Lila.
The Rivalry That Never Was
The funny thing about Lila is that we’ve never really spoken. Not directly, anyway.
But, for some reason, she hated me.
She’s the type of person who is loud, flashy, and always surrounded by a group of people either laughing too hard at her jokes or angling for a tag.
I wasn’t her competition. At least, I didn’t think I was.
My content was different: calm, curated, polished.
I wasn’t about viral stunts or shock value. My followers came for a sense of ease, of achievable inspiration.
I thought we were playing different games. Apparently, Lila didn’t agree.
And then, there was the fake account.
When the Internet Turns
The account popped up out of nowhere.
It had only a handful of followers at first, but its posts were loud enough to get noticed. The photos were unpolished, unfiltered versions of me that no one was supposed to see.
There I was, laughing mid-bite at a brand dinner, my mouth wide open, crumbs on my lips.
Another showed me tripping over my heels at an event, arms flailing.
The captions were cruel: “This is the ‘inspiration’ you look up to?” or “When you pretend your life is perfect, but this is reality.”
I felt exposed. Embarrassed. The photos weren’t staged disasters—they were just real, human moments.
She had apparently followed me and taken pictures of me when I wasn’t aware.
Worse, they were working.
People started tagging me in comments, asking why I wasn’t “being real” if I was supposed to be authentic.
For the first 24 hours, I stayed silent. I didn’t know what to say.
I scrolled through the comments, equal parts horrified and mesmerized.
Then I noticed something.
Between the nasty remarks, there were other voices.
“She’s literally just eating pizza. Who cares?”
“Honestly, this makes me like her more.”
“We all trip in heels—Sophia’s just brave enough to show it.”
A shift was happening. People were defending me. Laughing with me, not at me.
And as I sat there, staring at a photo of me in mismatched gym clothes with a ridiculous look on my face, I realized something: they were right.
This was me. Real, unfiltered me.
And maybe it was time I stopped being embarrassed and started owning it.
I opened Instagram and posted the first photo from the fake account—the one of me mid-bite with pizza crumbs on my lips.
“When you’re supposed to be the picture of elegance but carbs are life,” I captioned it, adding a winking emoji.
Then I made a TikTok, stringing together the leaked photos to a trending audio clip about “living your messiest life.”
In one scene, I added text that read: Exposed? Nah, just human.
My followers loved it. The comments poured in: “Omg this is gold!”
“I’ve never loved you more.”
“This is the most relatable thing I’ve seen all week.”
My DMs flooded with messages from people thanking me for being vulnerable and real.
What Lila had meant as a takedown had become free publicity.
The Sophia my followers were meeting now wasn’t the perfectly polished version they’d come to know—it was the real me.
And they loved her.
The Mask Slips
By the third day, my Instagram and TikTok were more active than ever.
The photos from the fake account had gone from being a potential PR disaster to a content goldmine. I turned each one into a new post, poking fun at myself in captions and telling the stories behind the snapshots.
My engagement numbers steadily grew.
Meanwhile, the fake account had gone quiet. I wasn’t sure if they were regrouping or if they’d realized their plan had backfired.
But then, something happened that made everything even better.
I was scrolling through comments on one of my latest posts—a video of me tripping over my heels at an event, with the caption: “When you’re too confident in 4-inch stilettos”—when a new comment popped up.
It was under the fake account’s original post, the one that started it all.
The comment read: “This is nothing compared to the stuff she’s hiding. #FakeInfluencer.”
The problem? It wasn’t posted by the fake account.
It was posted by Lila’s verified account.
For a second, I stared at the screen, unsure if my eyes were playing tricks on me. Then I clicked the account to double-check.
Yup, it was her.
The loud, drama-loving influencer with a massive follower count and a blue checkmark.
She’d forgotten to switch accounts.
Screenshots of the comment spread almost immediately. Within minutes, my DMs were full of messages: “Did you see this?”
“She’s behind the fake account!”
“I always knew she was shady.”
The best part? Lila had no idea how to fix it.
She deleted the comment within an hour, but it was too late. Screenshots had been saved, posted, and reposted.
By the time she tried to address it, the narrative was already out of her control.
Revenge Through Realness
Lila’s downfall was swift and brutal.
Within a day, brands began dropping her. One even posted a statement: “We do not condone bullying or harassment and have terminated our partnership with Lila effective immediately.”
Her followers, already tiring of her constant stunts, started unfollowing in droves.
I could’ve said something. I could’ve commented on the drama, called her out, or even gloated.
But I didn’t. I didn’t have to. Lila was doing all the work herself.
Meanwhile, my world was exploding in the best way.
My followers had doubled, and every post I made was flooded with support and laughter.
And the irony wasn’t lost on me.
Lila had tried to destroy me with fake authenticity, but in doing so, she’d helped me discover my real self.
And that? That was a story worth posting.