Disgraced mummy blogger faces midwifery misconduct hearing

When Clemmie Hooper, a midwife, unmasked herself as an online troll, many called for an official misconduct hearing. Now it’s happening.

A former mummy blogger who had a monumental fall from grace after admitting she was an online troll is now having her ability to practice as a midwife questioned.

Clemmie Hooper, 38, was widely criticised after revealing she led a secret double life in which she digitally attacked other influencers in November 2019 – including her own husband Simon Hooper, who runs the Father of Daughters account.

Following the controversy, the British mum-of-four deleted her Instagram account, which had over 700,000 followers, and stepped away from her online life though her husband continues to detail their family life on his account.

She’s now the subject of a midwifery misconduct hearing, though there’s no detail on what the allegations relate to just yet, Grazia reports.

Clemmie Hooper’s midwife job is currently under threat. Picture: Instagram/Mother of Daughters

After admitting to trolling fellow mumfluencers under a pseudonym Aliceinwanderlust on Tattle Life, there had been calls for her to face misconduct charges.

Rival mummy bloggers were frequent targets of the fake account including Kelechi Okafor, a Black-British actress, who labelled Mrs Hooper’s antics “frightening”.

In an opinion pieceshe penned for Grazia in 2021 titled “Clemmie Hooper Is A Midwife – That’s Why Her Trolling Really Matters”, Kelechi detailed why the one particular incident in the saga was so concerning coming from a health care professional.

She wrote the most vile things about Candice Brathwaite under the pseudonym “AliceInWanderlust”
Proper racist crap.
She brought my name into it at one point after I announced my pregnancy.

Devilish.

— Kelechi (@kelechnekoff) November 9, 2019

Noting that Mrs Hooper had invited Candice Brathwaite, a black mumfluencer, onto her podcast to “discuss the shocking statistics that black women are five times more likely to die during childbirth in comparison to white women”.

But she added she also “simultaneously” used her troll account to label Candice “aggressive” and accuse her of “weaponising race”, something Kelechi said it sent a “chill” down her spine.

Candice, the founder of Make Motherhood Diverse, described the situation as “a knock of confidence” and revealed it affected her mental health for a while.

“For this to be done by someone who has suffered it herself, not only is that sad and chilling... it’s a painful fact because again, I step into this arena as a minority,” she said.

She admitted in 2019 she had trolled rival mummy bloggers. Picture: Instagram/Father of Daughters

Mrs Hooper admitted to her secret double life as an online troll after fans started to piece together clues from her trail of destruction on Tattle Life which included speaking derogatively of other mum influencers while only leaving glowing comments about the Mother of Daughters account.

But after one of Aliceinwanderlust’s posts referenced being on holidays in the Caribbean at the same time as Mrs Hooper, she realised the gig was up and issued a lengthy statement on her now defunct Instagram account.

The then 34-year-old said she started the account after seeing thousands of negative comments about herself and her family on the website.

“Reading them made me feel extremely paranoid and affected me much more than I knew at the time,” Mrs Hooper said.

“I decided without telling anyone else that I would make an anonymous account so that this group of people would believe I was one of them, or that I could maybe change their opinions from the inside to defend my family and I.”

She even took aim at her husband in a bid to cover her tracks. Picture: Supplied

Mrs Hooper said the “situation escalated” when she began writing negative comments about other bloggers in a bid to cover her tracks.

“When the users started to suspect it was me, I made the mistake of commenting about others. I regret it all and am deeply sorry – I know this has caused a lot of pain,” she said.

“Undoubtedly I got lost in this online world and the more I became engrossed in the negative commentary, the more the situation escalated.

“Engaging in this was a huge mistake. I will take responsibility for what happened and I am just so sorry for the hurt I have caused everyone involved including my family and friends.”

Mrs Hooper’s husband has since issued his own statement on Instagram, writing that he was “in a cr*p position” as he could only “stay silent” to protect his wife or “comment on something I had no knowledge of”.

The 38-year-old midwife is now facing a misconduct hearing at work. Picture: Instagram/Mother of Daughters

She deleted her social media accounts in 2019 following the scandal. Picture: Instagram/Mother of Daughters

Mrs Hooper had built her large following documenting her life as a midwife and mother to daughters Anya Rose, Marnie, Ottilie and Delilah.

She ran a blog titled Gas & Air, before releasing two books and had amassed an Instagram following of almost 700,000.

During the height of her fame, Mrs Hooper also appeared on a British morning TV show where she shared her pregnancy and labour advice with viewers, Mail Onlinereports.