After All That Drama, Charli D’Amelio Made TikTok History

Grand high priestess of TikTok Charli D’Amelio has truly shown the strength of her power. The Dunkin' connoisseur is a brand ambassador, soon-to-be-published author, and now the 16-year-old has officially become the first person to gain 100 million followers on TikTok. She hit the big milestone on November 22, a little over a year and a half after joining the platform. 

It’s already impressive enough that D’Amelio got to this point, and so quickly at that. What’s even more surprising is that she did so even as she faced arguably the biggest backlash of her social media stardom to date.

The internet criticized D'Amelio and her sister Dixie's for what they deemed as rude and overly privileged behaviour towards their family's private chef, Aaron May, in a recent YouTube video. It was the first installment of the D'Amelio's YouTube series called "Dinner With the D'Amelios," in which they invited the girls' close friend James Charles over to share a meal. However, Dixie gagged and literally threw up in front of Chef May when he served the table a traditional Valencia paella with snails. Charli notably asked if they could eat dino nuggets, and then went on to complain that she didn't think she was on track to get 100 million followers before the anniversary of her 1 million. As a result of the video, D'Amelio lost over 500,000 followers, effectively hindering her progress towards her goal.

Dixie has since responded to the backlash, saying that the incident was "ridiculously blown out of proportion" and insisted that she and Chef May have a good relationship. May himself spoke publicly, agreeing with Dixie, adding that he and the family were "all good." Charli spoke up about the online hate she was receiving and shared mental health resources on her social media.

However, Charli still cleared the 100 million threshold just a few days later, and has been lauded for it — even by Charles, who was present for that fateful dinner and, though he's had his fair share of controversy, was widely regarded as the only person who had it together that night. Some may have assumed that this blow would prove too difficult for Charli to bounce back from (and many are still mad), but maybe they forgot she's a trained dancer — bouncing back is her speciality.