People who aren’t active in the blogosphere might only be vaguely familiar with controversial Instagram influencer and blogger Caroline Calloway. Her name entered the public’s consciousness thanks to the uproar surrounding a series of ‘overpriced’ workshops she almost failed to host in 2019, which was also deemed a scam by some people.
There’s also her infamous row with a writer, Natalie Beach, who made some damning claims against Calloway and her work. Now, this online personality is coming clean.
Where It All Began
In a series of essays, Calloway detailed her side of the story to her more than 700,000 Instagram followers. However, her recent revelations only seem to confirm the accusations her ex-friend made about her.
The 28-year-old writer’s story begins with her first year studying at the prestigious University of Cambridge. Her admission to the school was a fulfillment of a long-time dream and involved her dropping out of the New York University, where she first met Beach as a student.
Finally, at her dream university, Calloway reportedly began writing about an idealized version of her life there. She often wrote long-form Instagram captions to accompany her photos, a practice that wasn’t prevalent at the time.
Building & Buying a Following
The influencer shared that she started building an organic following in 2014 regaling people with her stories of gala parties and mingling with interesting people.
However, she later on resorted to growing her audience faster by buying fake followers, an accusation Beach made against her last year. In total, she appears to have bought 50,000 followers on two separate occasions during the early years of her career to boost her online fame.
Eventually, Calloway’s popularity grew to a point where she was offered to write a memoir chronicling her life at Cambridge as an American student. The book was reportedly going to be titled, ‘And We Were Like’. The writer even received a sizable advance to write it.
The Book That Never Was
Unfortunately, Calloway had trouble bringing the book to fruition. This is where Beach reportedly stepped in. After allegedly ghostwriting some of the influencer’s popular Instagram captions, Beach was now involved in helping her then-friend work on the book.
They came up with a draft but eventually fell off as Calloway reportedly refused to submit their work. This pattern of being unable to push through with her promises would continue to pepper Calloway’s career. Today, the writer continues to post on Instagram where she also sells her own artwork.
