← The Brett Cooper Show
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- [00:01]
Narrator/Host
Plan B is a backup birth control option that's there for you when things don't go according to plan. It specifically works after unprotected sex and before pregnancy occurs by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is available nationwide at all major retailers and through delivery apps like DoorDash, no ID, prescription or age requirement. It's the number one OBGYN recommended brand of emergency contraception and it won't impact your future fertility. That's freedom to be use as directed. Well, the TikTok famous D' Amelio family is currently in the spotlight due to accusations that the parents, Mark and Heidi d', Amelio, were stealing money from their daughter Charlie. Now Charlie is cutting ties with her family and their businesses and Mark is running defense, very intentionally trying to protect the family brand versus trying to just be a dad to his daughter, who is obviously very hurt and very angry. Now, I do not know. I have no concrete information about whether money was actually stolen from Charli, but these two teenage girls, Charli and Dixie, being exploited is the least shocking thing of the century. And we all watched it happen. For those of you who are not renegating and making fluffy coffees back on TikTok in 2020, let me give you a rundown on the D' Amelio family. So Charli, the youngest daughter, she started her TikTok back in 2020 when she was just 15 years old. Now, over the first couple of weeks, maybe, maybe months of her account, she racked up millions of followers, was going viral. She went on to be the most followed and Highest paid a TikTok star coming out of COVID Like you might remember, you know, there was Charli, there was Addison Rae, but like Charli d', Amelio, she was that girl. And she was earning more than $10 million a year by 2021. Now, after she started blowing up, thanks to all of her dance videos on TikTok, her older sister Dixie also made an account on TikTok. She became famous. And for most of their careers up until relatively recently, they were in pretty much every video together. They kind of became this package deal. Before they got famous, their dad, Mark, was working as a salesman. He was in marketing for clothing brands. And then their mom, he was pursuing modeling and she was doing personal training. But as soon as the girls blew up on TikTok, Heidi redirected her career and she launched a YouTube channel that was purely dedicated to being Charli and Dixie's mom. Totally normal, totally normal behavior. Now, around that time, they also packed up their things Mark quit his job. They moved from their Connecticut suburb to Los Angeles into a multimillion dollar home as they launched the d' Amelio family brand. And at this point, things were moving really fast. And within a year, a of the girls starting their TikToks, the whole family signed to UTA, which is one of the biggest agencies out there. And in an interview, Heidi the mom said, quote, these agents saw more than just two young girls posting on TikTok. They saw a full plan of our family and what could be, and they sort of painted that picture for us. So that's why they moved to la. That is why they signed with this huge agency. Not to direct the careers of their young daughters who were dancing online, who were getting super famous. No, they signed with the agency who said, we're gonna make your entire family famous. And so I'm saying all of this to show you that from the jump, it was not just about Charli. It was not just about Charli and her virality and her love of dance and wanting to share that to people. It was about the family and how the family could benefit from those hundreds of millions of followers. Anyway, moving on from there, this plan for the family started to take shape, and they went on to launch multiple brands. They started a popcorn line. They created a women's shoe line. They did three seasons of a reality show with Hulu, and Charli's net worth alone ended up being more than 40,000 million. But that reality show that they did with Hulu, all about their family being a TikTok family, could have been the worst decision that they made because it pulled back the curtains on this family and what they were driving these girls to do. And so when Daily Mail posted an expose on the d' Amelios back in February, no one was really surprised. So the headline read, quote, they treated her like a cash cow. Why? TikTok star Charli D' Amelio has cut her parents and sister out of her life. As insiders tell Molly Clayton, that's the writer, how she was, quote, aggressively sexualized and exploited by her family. And one part of the article reads, they seemed really toxic and they pushed her to work so much. One source tells me her parents treated her like a cash cow. This is a teenager who was taken advantage of for money by her already rich parents, leaving her aggressively sexualized and massively hated online for having the maturity of a teenager. And that if you missed the whole Covid era, TikTok like Rise of Charlie, that was always a big deal in her life because she was this fiction 15 year old girl that accidentally blew up. She was a competitive dancer, doing jazz, ballet, that sort of thing. She was lip syncing to songs and making videos with her friends. She blew up like crazy. She started having this massive career and people would criticize her for being a teenager. And obviously you can argue that now if you were in the spotlight, if you have this big career, the standards are higher. You need to be a bit more mature. But the argument on the other side is that did she ever really want that? Maybe she just wanted to make videos with her friends and just be a 15, 16 year old girl and, and not have this massive weight on her shoulders. Now, another quote in the article reads, ironically, they thought that the reality show was the right thing to do, but it showed a lot of issues that the families had. And their parents are extremely fame hungry. One insider tells me they were constantly trying to force Charlie to do things that she didn't wanna do simply because it would bring in more money and fame. They honestly seemed way more desperate for fame and attention than Charlie ever was. And it was them trying to push themselves as the next Kardashians. And all of this is very ironic because now we're kind of seeing the second iteration of this with Alix Earle and her family's reality show. But the difference is that Alex Hurle drove her entire career. She was a college student, she started making videos, kind of like Charlie accidentally blew up. Her sister then also got involved and was making videos. But her family, for the most part stayed on the outside. You know, her dad, when she would ask for business advice, would step in, but he was not clamoring to be on camera. Her mom and her stepmom were not going like, let me into the TikTok. They were kind of these side characters. And as her brand has grown, as has theirs, interest and intrigue into her blended family grew. Then they created this reality show and it has felt really genuine because the, the star of the show has continued to be Alex and she has been driving the entire thing. Not the parents going, go do this, go do this. I don't care if you're tired, you have to do it because we are going to make money. And because of that kind of bringing this back to this quote about them being the next Kardashians, the d' Amelios now are falling out of relevancy. Like this is the one thing that's keeping them relevant. And the Earls are being called the next Kardashians. So food for thought there. Anyway, fast forward to last month, just a couple weeks ago, and a source leaked to Deuxmoi, and that is the big famous Hollywood gossip site that the rift is in. Their family was allegedly allegedly because Heidi and Mark were stealing money from Charlie. And this is what that post said. Sources alleged that TikTok and Broadway star Charli d' Amelio discovered millions of dollars had been transferred out of accounts that were established during the years her career was managed by her parents. Insiders claimed that the transfers allegedly occurred over an extended period and involved funds that were intended for Charli's savings. According to sources, Charli became aware of the situation after her parents were allegedly supposed to be removed from certain accounts. The matter is now reportedly in the hands of attorneys. Sources further allege that the dispute has caused a major rift within the family with Charli's sister Dixie d' Amelio reportedly siding with their parents. All allegations remain unverified. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly is what they're trying to say here. But that one post back in May blew the entire story open. Now, almost immediately, Marc d', Amelio, the father, the self proclaimed CEO of the d' Amelio family, rushed in to protect the brand. This episode is brought to you by Prime Obsession is in session. And this summer, prime originals have everything you steamy romances, irresistible love stories and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice off campus, Elle every year after the love Hypothesis, Sterling Point and more, slow burns, second chances chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. And he commented this. He said, no one called me for an interview. This is not true. We love Charlie, but she is being manipulated and I have the receipts. Over the last six years, we have remained silent and never addressed gossip. But the time has come to set the record straight. Now, before we move on to his next comment, I just have to say that could possibly be the funniest thing I have ever heard. Oh, he stayed silent. He wasn't addressing things like, sir, you had your family star in a reality show. You were doing interviews constantly about being their dadager. You started a women's high heel shoe line and a popcorn brand with your daughters. It's weird, but sure, you're just in the background. You're just staying silent. Now, I personally am not going to stay silent about Angel Studios. And for America's 250th birthday, you need to know about their new film, Young Washington. Now, Angel Studios and the Wonder Project, which is partnered with Amazon prime, have joined forces to tell the story of George Washington before the presidency, when he was just a young man facing failure and war and near death experiences that all shaped him into the man that we know and now revere. 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Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Anyway, back to Marc d' Amelio and his response to all of this. He went on in another comment and said she has always had a team in place. Lawyers, business managers, manager, agent. We purposefully set it up that way. Not sure if you know anything about our family doing fine before TikTok so essentially saying we didn't need her money, we were doing fine. But the thing is you might not have needed her money or the fame, but you certainly wanted it. And those are two very different things. Now from there, just a couple of days after, Mark decided to double down on a livestream which was possibly the most defensive guilty livestream I have ever seen. And he said that everything he did as their dadager was so that they could have a better future, be set up for life. And he wanted to be clear that he did not make them do anything that they didn't want to do. Just watch.
- [11:00]
Mark D'Amelio
The hard part is like you see opportunity that I never had as a kid. But I also saw the other dads like, you know, I heard about Michael Jackson's dad and these crazy dads that just push their kids. I never did that. I wanted them to create businesses and things that gave them opportunity to do whatever they wanted when down the road and, and that was it. And if I'm a bad guy for setting my kids up for success and putting them in places where they can make a lot of money, I mean, we're living the dream. That's it.
- [11:34]
Narrator/Host
We're living the dream. On the back of my, at the time, 15 year old daughter, it shouldn't be about you. This whole, you know, deflecting the blame, sue me. If I wanted them to make millions of dollars, that shouldn't matter. If she's making money in the moment, that's great, put it in her savings. But you were obviously trying to increase that wealth, increase your wealth and also your fame. And he brings up, you know, celebrity dads like Michael Jackson's dad, all of those things. I didn't make them do anything I didn't want to do. But the thing that he kind of forgot is that they had a family reality TV show and we saw exactly what was happening in your home. And the clips from that show paint an entirely different picture. Just watch tomorrow.
- [12:13]
Charli D'Amelio
I have an event that I didn't agree to, but someone agreed to it on my behalf. Now I have to go and I really just am not. Things are agreed upon without even consulting me or telling me exactly what's going about it. Let's just say I only talk about one person in therapy. I feel like it seems like I'm being bratty, but like it just adds so much extra stress. Like going into your driver's test knowing that if you fail you could get sued. Like, what is that? Had my dad not told me about the legal issues, I would have had no idea how serious it was. Greg is like, but it's a good deal. I'm like, that's not what I'm saying. I don't do the things for the money to do. Like, I want to have fun. And he makes my life so unfun. And he's like, well, if it goes bad, I'll take a dance class. And if it goes good, you do a golf lesson. Like, no, it's my life and I'm the person that has to deal with this. You're not getting sued. You're not having to take all this test. You're not having to study and do tutoring sessions. It's like, not fair, not cool. And that's my spiel.
- [13:19]
Narrator/Host
It's not fair, it's not cool. All she wants to do is just have fun. She's talking to the adults around her saying, you don't have to deal with this. You don't have to deal with the pressure. But I do. And the important thing to note is that all of the adults around her are making money off of her. The agents have an incentive to, you know, drive her like a workhorse. Her parents have an incentive because they want to make more money. They want to be able to continue living in the multimillion dollar house. Obviously, if she just stops make to TikTok, if she just went back to high school, became a normal girl, their life would totally have to change. And so she had to keep going. Now, one part of that clip was a little bit confusing to me at first. I want to give some context. Like from what I understand in that part about the driver's test, Charlie is upset that her agent Greg, it was not Mark that she was talking about, not her dad, but her agent Greg, kept signing deals for her that she did not want to do and that her parents are not stepping in help. That's why she's on FaceTime with her mom, like, ranting about it, saying, you people keep pushing me. I don't want Greg to be doing xyz. And the specific one that she was talking about was that they had signed a deal for her to do a car commercial, but she didn't even have her license. And so she had to go get her driver's test, but they had already signed the contract for that deal. So if she was not able to drive the car and do the car deal because she didn't get her license because she failed the test, they would be in breach of contract and she could have gotten sued. And her dad said that to her rather than just encouraging her and helping her with her driver's test. Because that's a normal thing to do with your 17 year old daughter anyway. So benefit of the doubt here. Truly trying to be fair. Like maybe you were not the ones every single day pushing your kids. Maybe it was the agents, but you brought in those people. You brought in the agents and managers who did, who did push her. And then you sat by in the multimillion dollar house listening to her on FaceTime, doing nothing about it. And that's still awful. And Charlie was crying on national TV on this reality show about how their entire business, their entire family was riding on her.
- [15:05]
Charli D'Amelio
I just want you guys there as like proud parents, you know, instead of you guys only coming if you are working too. Whoa, that thing is huge. I feel like I do a lot, and I do a lot for a lot of people too. No one gives me any credit for that. I'm not 16 anymore and I feel like everyone should feel like their voice is being heard, especially in business when it revolves in my name, my likeness, my career. And I think I'm getting taken advantage of within the business. It's getting to the point where I'm like so fed up. It's for the family. We have to do it anyways.
- [15:54]
Narrator/Host
So what she really wanted, and this is not me speculating, this is her speaking directly to camera on TV about her life. What she really wanted was for her parents to just be there as mom and dad to show up for her even when they were not having to be on camera when they were not working as the d' Amelio family. And for her to be, be able to just love what she did and have fun. Obviously, because she's a teenager and teenagers want to be able to enjoy their lives and walk around without cameras being shoved in their faces and do the things that make them happy without having to carry the weight of an entire family business on their back.
- [16:27]
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- [17:26]
Narrator/Host
While as all of that was happening, as she was saying it on live TV and that was being put out into the world, her dad seemed to blow the entire thing off. Just watch.
- [17:35]
Mark D'Amelio
I have a tough job because everyone thinks like I'm the dad that's pushing my kids to be in this, but I actually do the opposite. I actually have to go do, do both. Like sometimes I'm like, dude, this is a really good opportunity and I gotta, I have to be a dad and wonder whether they're just being a kid who like, is in college and doesn't want to get up for an early class or whether there's really something emotional going on. But I also, I have to, I have to look them and everybody else in the face 20 years from now, make sure that your money was protected and that you guys are in a great place with all the opportunity you have and that you made the most of the opportunity. So Charlie and I will get into battles about that and you have to know when to push. And when is it? Is this just, hey, I don't want to get up for school in the morning kind of a moment, or is this a true mental health situation? And, and I know they're going to look back on this ride as it being incredible.
- [18:34]
Narrator/Host
Well, Mark, based on what I'm seeing, I don't know if they're gonna look back on this ride as being incredible considering they were crying on television about the entire thing. And it's so insane to be sitting in interviews and spending the majority of your time talking about being this dadager and then going, oh yeah, but sometimes I do have to step in and be dad. No, it should be the opposite. You should be dad 99% of the time if you're in a situation like this. And the other obvious thing that we need to point out here is that the biggest anxiety driver in your daughter' life was not getting up to go to school and make it to an 8am class on time, you dingbat. It was supporting your entire family and being the face of a multi million dollar brand that would fall apart if she just decided to stop and feeling like she couldn't just be Charlie with her mom and dad again. She said all of that direct to camera on your television show. She was saying that she was crying about it. And you looked at that, you were proud of that TV show, you aired it. And then you went and did interviews and dismissed her concerns, Dismissed it as, oh, her being a normal teenager, not wanting to get up for school. I think going to a high school class, maybe being a little lazy on a foggy, rainy Wednesday morning is different than carrying the entire multimillion dollar brand for your family. And what's even more ironic is that Mark made a big snafu in interviews all the time. Remember, he was staying silent, though. He was staying silent the entire time. But he made a big snafu in interviews about how they, Heidi and he made an effort to separate home and work. Like in this interview, he said the d' Amelio parents brought in a team to help them manage Charlie and Dixie's careers and let them be mom and dad. They've also rented an office space to make clear delineations between work and home. Quote, it's hard because we're all on our phones. We could be sharing videos or talking about videos, and the next thing you know, it's a work conversation that comes out of nowhere. And so we have to respect those boundaries of, yeah, we're not talking about work right now. At the end of the day, however, both Heidi and Mark help steer Charlie and Dixie to make good decisions and for their careers. But clearly, you know, drawing that line in the sand, having the clear delineations, renting the office space, it didn't really work. Clearly, they were more focused on driving the business and on building their own brands. Like when Charli went on Dancing with the stars in 2022, which should have been the most perfect moment for her because again, she blew up dancing. This is all about her. Dancing is her one true love. And then her mom, Heidi, said, hey, I wanna do Dancing with the Stars too. And so she joined and she also could competed on the same exact season with her daughter. Again, that is not normal. None of this is normal. It is not normal for a child not to have anything of her own and to have the pressure of supporting her entire family. But as you guys probably know, if you have, you know, followed any of these celebrities, the child stars, if you've watched, you know, the growth of young Hollywood, she is far from the only kid who has Gone through this. Like, I did a comment section video on this way back when. But when Jojo Siwa went on Call Her Daddy back in 2024, she talked about learning as a young person that she was the breadwinner for her family. And, you know, she'd grown up doing dance moms and then they moved to LA and she was doing the reality show and she was doing the beaus and going on tour and singing about a boomerang, all of those things. And then it was when she was a teenager that she learned that, you know, their home and their entire life was paid for because of what she was doing. And I think that, that, I mean, it's still so crazy to think about, but I do think it's a good thing that her parents didn't tell her until she was older, that she was able to just fully enjoy the moment, enjoy dancing, perform whatever it was, you know, as an 11 year old without having that pressure on her back. But in the interview, she talked about how Once she turned 18, her mom thanked her for not turning around and leaving her parents high and dry. So she said. My mom actually said something to me today that was really sweet. Siwa said during her Call Her Daddy podcast appearance, Quote, when you were a kid, 15% of every penny that you earn goes into a Coogan account to protect children's earnings. My parents thought that when I turned 18, I was gonna get my Coogan account money, take all my money and have it just be mine. I was like, I can give you so much reassurance that I will never do that. But that has always been a fear of theirs, and it always has been. Just because the opportunity of me leaving them high and dry was right there. People have done it before. Child stars have done it before, but I would never do that to my family. She continued on, and she said today, my mom was like, I just want to say thank you for never basically kicking us to the curb. Thank you for buying us this new house, thank you for letting us remodel it, thank you for keeping us in your bubble. And now. This is a little bit complex, I know. And while I think it is totally, totally out of line, totally inappropriate for a parent to ask that of a child to even remotely put that fear on them, to have that fear in the first place, because it is not your child's responsibility to pay for your life at 20 years old. But on the flip side of that, I do want to say that JoJo's response does speak volumes about the type of family that she was raised in like her mom. Even though she was on dance moms with Jojo, her mom and dad did not become reality stars. Her older brother did not parlay her fame into his fame like he lives a normal life in Florida now with his fiance working a normal job. Her chiropractor dad did not start doing TikTok dances and go on tour with her. They left their home in Omaha. He sold his chiropractic business, moved into the home that they were able to afford thanks to what she was earning, so that she could pursue her dreams and keep the family together. Because before that, she and her mom were going to la, her brother and her dad were staying at home, so they were all able to come to LA, but her parents stayed on the sideline. And JoJo is obviously incredibly grateful for their sacrifices and their support for this entire time. And so she has chosen to take care of them. And obviously you could say that, you know, she was encouraged to or she was guilted into, but her appreciation for them and the fact that they are now not reality stars, I think does speak volumes. Now in an alternate reality, that could be what happened with the d' Amelio family. That could be the situation for Mark and Heidi, had they taken that kind of approach instead of trying to become stars in their own right. But now that Charlie's grown and she's pursuing her dreams of dancing and being on Broadway, arguably making a lot less money for her parents with that dream, not slinging their crappy cheapo popcorn in Walmart, I think she's woken up to the fact that she. She doesn't need them and she actually gets to focus on what makes her happy without that pressure of supporting their entire family. And obviously, I never want to advocate for a family being ripped apart and having this whole schism between parents and a child, but maybe this is the break that she needs as a young adult after carrying this family and having this completely overwhelming, confusing relationship where your parents are not really your parents, they're, you know, your business managers, but they're acting like your parents on a reality TV show. Like, obviously that is going to war warp her mind. She probably needs to have some time away to grow in her own right, to let them try to salvage the family brand without her, and then maybe, hopefully in an ideal world, down the line, they will find each other again. But right now, where she is, I do not blame her at all for drawing a line in the sand.