‘I didn’t do it for clout’: ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wive’s Whitney Leavitt finally addresses infamous TikTok
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives resurfaced the most controversial TikTok to come out of MomTok, and now Whitney Leavitt is finally speaking out about it.
Leavitt is one of the eight Mormon women who comprise the influencer group called MomTok. The group of influencers went viral in 2022 over a “soft-swinging” scandal. The controversy broke out when MomTok influencer Taylor Frankie Paul announced her divorce on social media. Later, she provided details about the breakup, explaining that she and her whole friend group were involved in “swinging,” in which they would swap partners and engage in intimate acts with each others’ spouses. Her divorce occurred because she and one of the other members broke the group’s rules. Paul had only meant to diffuse infidelity rumors, but the internet became intrigued and scandalized by the swinging revelation.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives follows the influencers as they continue navigating the scandal’s aftermath. At this point, Leavitt was also dealing with a personal scandal regarding a controversial TikTok. The TikTok went viral in 2022, but only recently did she finally provide a bit more insight into the incident.
Whitney Leavitt’s controversial TikTok explained
In January 2022, Leavitt mentioned an emergency hospital visit on social media. One of her followers commented, questioning what happened, and Leavitt decided to respond to the comment in video form. However, instead of doing a sit-down video explaining the scary situation, she did a dancing video … next to her baby son’s hospital bed. In the video, she dances to Kendrick Lamar’s “Love,” doing a heart shape with her hands, punching the air, and ending with a pose while pointing at her son. As she dances, captions on the screen explain that her son was rushed to the hospital due to low oxygen and diagnosed with the respiratory virus RSV. She filmed the video while waiting for him to “breathe better on his own.”
The TikTok instantly went viral as users expressed shock and anger that a mother would film TikTok dances next to her child’s hospital bed as he struggled with his breathing. At the time, Leavitt deleted the TikTok and spoke out about receiving harassment and death threats. She explained that people had simply seen the video out of context and that it was customary for her to respond to comments dancing. However, if she thought people would forget about the infamous video, she was wrong.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives resurfaces Leavitt’s infamous TikTok
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives resurfaced Leavitt’s TikTok video, renewing discussion of it on social media and sparking a wave of hilarious parodies.
Ironically, Leavitt’s discussion of the video in the show was to express her discomfort that it wasn’t forgotten already. She pointed out the unfairness of how Paul’s swinging reveal scandal was largely swept under the rug, but she struggled to recover from her infamous TikTok.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives only sparked more outrage over the video when Demi Engemann claimed that Leavitt admitted to posting the video for clout. After feeling like she was portrayed as the “villain” in the show, Leavitt appeared on The Squeeze podcast hosted by Tay and Taylor Lautner to finally clear the air on the controversial TikTok. She adamantly denied doing it for clout, stating, “I didn’t do it for clout. If you had been following me ahead of time, that was something I already did. I would respond to a comment and do a little dance.”
Leavitt continued to explain that social media had tried to make the video sound worse than it was by accusing her of “twerking” next to her ill child. According to her, she simply did a dance at a time when her son was getting better. “I was in my happy space,” she said of the video. As for Engemann’s allegation, Leavitt admitted to having confessed to some things she hadn’t meant to simply because she was going through a dark time. Both women confirmed that the confession came during ketamine therapy, which may have further influenced her words.
The MomTok influencer explained, “I’m on ketamine, and I’m going through that, and I’m remembering reading such hurtful and hateful messages about myself, and I’m sitting in that space, and I’m believing it. I’m coming out of (the ketamine therapy) saying all of these things like, ‘I’m a horrible person, I did do this for clout.’ I don’t believe everything I said; it was so dark. I do believe that when you read so much hate about yourself, you can believe it.” Leavitt insists that she never had an ulterior motive in posting the video and that it was only in the aftermath that she realized it could be perceived as “insensitive.”
Leavitt may be correct that there’s a double standard between her and Paul, just not in the exact way she thinks. While the swinging scandal and TikTok video scandal may not be equivalent, Paul was actually arrested for aggravated assault, domestic violence in front of a child, and child abuse during a domestic dispute. Yet, her arrest and charges largely took a backseat on the show and within social media discussions. It doesn’t mean Leavitt’s video was appropriate, but it does mean she may have a point that there has been some unfairness in how the public reacted to various influencers’ controversies.
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