High-profile TikTok QLD mother accused of drugging daughter to fake an illness

As police investigate claims a high-profile Queensland mum drugged her baby, a social media expert weighs in on the ethics of parent influencers.

Police have confirmed the one-year-old is no longer in hospital. Picture: TikTok

As police investigate claims a high-profile Queensland mum drugged her baby, a social media expert has weighed in on the ethics of parent influencers.

She lived in Queensland.

An idyllic life took a devastating turn when her one-year-old daughter was admitted to hospital earlier this year.

She received millions of video views, paid brand partnerships, unboxing gifts at the hospital, and had generous followers donate more than $60,000.

Police are investigating claims a woman drugged her own baby. Picture: TikTok

Police continue to investigate claims she drugged her own baby after nurses from the Brisbane hospital saw her online content – acting as new age “social media whistleblowers”.

In approaching the woman for comment, this publication received a response from her legal representative.

“It would be inappropriate to provide any comment in these circumstances until such time as the police have concluded their investigation and made a decision in accordance with their prosecutorial guidelines,” he said.

“Respectfully, desist from contacting our client for further comment.

“Nothing in this correspondence is an admission of any liability or allegation (however so expressed) in any manner or a waiver of our client’s rights that remain reserved in all respects.”

Social media academic weighs in

Dr Tyler Wilson of Bond University, who researches how digital media, particularly social media, is used within a society, said social media was where “this whole ordeal has taken place”.

“It seems like followers’ concerns stemming from the content they were seeing is what catalysed the whistleblowing in the first place,” he said.

A social media expert has given his view on the saga that has played out on social media over the past week.

“Scrutiny is what seems to have broken the story here in the first place.”

Speaking generally, Dr Wilson said social media was amplifying the community’s anger in an unprecedented way.

 “There are many potential harms that come from posting content featuring children online. The biggest, I think, is in robbing the child of the decision to engage online on their own terms. Children featured by family influencers or parents promoting ‘kid-fluencers’ are not necessarily thinking wholly about the digital footprint created as a result,” he said.

A social media expert says parents who feature their children in online content are robbing the child of being able to engage online on their own terms.

“The biggest ethical concern in my perspective is what comes from denying the child the right to engage how they want to online. The digital footprint created by online activity is massive – especially if a child is associated with certain brands, behaviours, and other depictions online.”

As quickly as the story gained popularity, Dr Wilson said it will be spat back out to make room for the next one.

It all pointed to a need for updated laws, Dr Wilson said.

“I think the solution here is aligned with the recent Albanese government announcement regarding a digital duty of care,” he said.

“The need then, is to likely require community standards reflect some of the discretion expected of journalists when discussing cases and stories.”

Healed by god

The high-profile mother claimed she had stage five kidney disease in 2019 and was waiting for a new kidney.

Despite the grave seriousness of the life-threatening health issue she claimed to have, she claimed she was then “healed” by a Sunshine Coast church.

The Sunshine Coast church posted a video of her testimony to Facebook on November 13, 2019. It has since been taken down.

The woman has claimed she had stage five kidney disease in 2019 and was waiting for a new kidney. Picture: TikTok

“I was a little nervous to be on stage but in the moment as (the pastor) prayed I could feel the presence of god working inside me,” she said.

“The next day I went to the doctors to get tested and was tested again in hospital the next night and my kidney function had raised from seven per cent to 33 per cent.”

SeaWorld tragedy

A video had surfaced of the high-profile Queensland woman reacting to the SeaWorld tragedy in a ‘tone-deaf’ way saying four people dying ruined her day out.

In the video, the high profile woman can be seen smiling while talking about how the SeaWorld helicopter tragedy ruined her date day.

“Our date day turned to tragedy where four people died,” she said.

In another video posted to social media, the high profile woman can be seen smiling while talking about how the SeaWorld helicopter tragedy ruined her date day. Picture: Glenn Hampson

The video, posted in January 2023, was met with comments slamming how her response to the tragedy was “tone-deaf”. The video was deleted shortly after.

TikTok fame and daughter’s illness

The woman had laboriously documented hospital visits and procedures for her one-year-old daughter in a series of posts on various platforms, where she has a substantial following.

She had regularly updated followers on her daughter’s progress.

“We were just told that our daughter’s brain is covered in tumours, and what’s worse is we found this out on the day that our other daughter passed away four years ago,” she told her followers.

The woman posted regularly to social media about her daughter’s illness. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Tim Pascoe

“She had a seven-minute long seizure … she has benign tumours all over her body.

“I just thought what the hell, my baby girl is so little and she’s just riddled with tumours.”

There had not been any posts more recently since the alleged drugging is understood to have come to the attention of medical professionals.

The TikTok and Instagram accounts run by the high-profile mum had been deactivated as of Tuesday afternoon, with a “content not available” warning appearing when attempting to view the accounts.

Prior to disabling comments on her social media accounts, the high-profile woman provided exclusive family content to more than 1000 subscribers on Instagram. Subscribers paid $7.99 a month to access exclusive videos.

Police investigation

This publication revealed on Tuesday, November 19, that the woman who documented her infant daughter’s illness on social media platforms is now under investigation by police over claims she was drugging her child.

The family cannot be legally identified due to the age of their children. They are at the centre of an investigation involving Queensland Police, Queensland Health, and child protective services.

Police confirmed the Morningside CPIU is investigating the matter after a complaint was made to them by the staff at the Queensland Children’s hospital where the child was being treated.

It is understood the hospital’s referral to police includes a claim the child was being drugged for her entire admission at the hospital where she was treated.

South Brisbane District Acting Chief Superintendent Andrew Pilotto confirmed the one-year-old girl, who cannot be named, was well and no longer in hospital.

Superintendent Pilotto said the police probe was expected to be lengthy.

No charges have been laid. This publication is not suggesting the allegations are true, only that they were made and are now being investigated.

Online outrage

Various Queensland businesses rallied to raise funds for the high-profile family and their child.

Some held bake sales, donated profit from their own online sales, shared the high-profile family’s fundraiser and social media posts, and even held raffles.

Hundreds of TikTok creators have posted online saying they were blindsided by the allegations.

Fundraiser shut down

The woman has also been blocked from receiving money from a fundraiser for her family, with a “guarantee” donors will be refunded if the child’s illness was faked.

More than $62,000 was donated to the online fundraiser for the Tik Tok influencer mother after various videos of her “unwell” one-year-old went viral.

The fundraiser was started by another family member.

Police have confirmed the one-year-old is no longer in hospital. Picture: TikTok

A spokeswoman for the fundraiser platform confirmed it was also aware of the allegations.

The spokeswoman said the platform had spent more than a decade “building the teams, technologies and policies” to protect Australian generosity.

“This includes the (fundraiser name) Giving Guarantee, which guarantees a refund in the rare case something is not right,” she said.

Breaks her silence

On Wednesday, November 20, the TikTok mum broke her silence and spoke to Channel 9.

One of the journalists called her. She answered the phone and told him she was “good”.

When asked about the investigation she said very little.

“It is so unfair and like um it’s getting addressed at the moment with proper counsel,” she told the journalist.

Call for change

A growing number of parents are now calling for legislation targeting “mum vloggers”.

A petition created on Thursday, November 21, raises concerns about the safety of young children appearing in videos made by their parents.

“Children now don’t have the luxury of that privacy; innumerable strangers become ‘fans’ of their life before they even understand the concept of privacy. This reality weighs heavily on me, hence, this petition for a change in legal provisions. It is a call addressed to the Australian Government to rethink its laws concerning the online sharing of children’s lives by their parents,” the petition read.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the government would fully back a social media ban for teens under the age of 16.

The petition stated that the similar restrictions should apply to parents using their videos of their children for content on social media.

Outraged parents are also proposing adding a rule in a similar vein to Ryan’s Rule, a three-step process that supports patients, families and carers to raise concerns if the health condition of a patient isn’t improving as expected.

Originally published as High-profile TikTok QLD mother accused of drugging daughter to fake an illness