TikTok gave Addison Rae’s family Hollywood fame. Now he exposes their secrets.

One of TikToks’ biggest families is now being destroyed by the very platform that made them famous.

Videos posted to TikTok in recent weeks have sparked a media storm surrounding the family of 21-year-old Addison Rae Easterling, who has become one of the internet’s most recognizable stars and has more than 88 million followers on the platform. The videos appear to show Raes penman Monty Lopez, 46, flirting with young women on FaceTime and touching a woman’s back in a bar. Lopez did not address the videos and did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Since then, every movement of the family on social media has sparked new cycles of speculation and led to new allegations about Lopez, including allegations of infidelity. Rae and her mother, Sheri Easterling, 42, ditched Lopez on Instagram. Easterling changed her Instagram bio to single mom and released a statement that read in part: Everything will be fine. My greatest concern is – and always will be – my children and their fragile hearts and minds.

The Raes family are part of a new generation of influencers and scene parents who are capitalizing on the viral success of their children. And while many of them follow worn-out reality TV tropes, the drama isn’t always entirely in their control. It can take on a life of its own on TikTok.

Lopez has sought to build on her daughters’ fame, launching her own agency to represent TikTok stars and comparing himself to Kris Jenner, the Kardashian family matriarch who negotiated numerous business and media deals with her children and trademarked the word momager. But three people close to Lopez who spoke with NBC News said Lopez was not responsible for Raes’ offers and opportunities and was looking to cash in on his success.

He just kind of went off the rails and fame got to him, a person from Lopez’s professional network said.

Celebrity families have become a mainstay of Hollywood and reality TV, with the most famous example being Keeping Up With the Kardashians, former E! series and vast media and commercial empire.

Social media has since brought together the dynamics of reality TV and viral fame to produce even more salient cultural icons and non-stop entertainment revolving around their lives or at least what has been portrayed of their lives online. .

When the Raes TikTok account catapulted her to stardom in late 2019, she and her family moved to Los Angeles. Rae, who dropped out of her freshman year at Louisiana State University to achieve fame, has starred alongside her family on their YouTube channel and TikToks. Her family joined her in Addison Rae Goes Home, a 10-episode reality series produced by Snapchat. Social media content with this kind of reach can bring in millions of dollars in sponsorships and ad revenue, and Rae is estimated to have won over $8.5 million from TikTok alone in 2021.

As Raes’ star rose on TikTok and grew in music, movies and modeling, the rest of her family also grew their profiles. Raes’ mother has a Spotify-produced podcast with her daughter, and both parents were signed to digital talent agency WME alongside Rae in 2020.

Rae and Easterling did not respond to requests for comment.

On social media, Lopez has played the role of a loyal husband to Easterling, posting couple dances together on TikTok and complimenting her in posts. Until the alleged cheating scandal unfolded, Lopez and Easterling tagged each other and wrote husband and wife in their bios (both deleted those tags and terms from their bios in early July).

Rae previously said her parents were divorced and dated when she was young. They remarried in 2017, but updates to their social media profiles have since been grabbed by tabloids and celebrity media websites that they once again went their separate ways. Three people who know Lopez and spoke to NBC News said they also believe the couple had separated based on what he told them. This speculation added to the early July media circus that had begun to surround the family and stood in stark contrast to the image of the family that was portrayed on TikTok in front of millions of fans.

Young women have posted on social media about Lopez’s advances towards them, including Rene Ash, who told NBC News that he misled her about his intentions to be her long-term partner and l involved in their professional activities. NBC News has not corroborated these accounts.

Ash, 25, said she broke up with Lopez in July after dating for five months. She spoke to NBC News and shared more than 150 screenshots of texts exchanged between her and Lopez during their relationship. The texts appear to show that Lopez wooed Ash with promises of a long-term commitment, as well as money and fame tied to Raes’ success.

He would tell me how he was going to have a family, the second his divorce was finalized was going to be at the altar, Ash said. Were going to have babies, and if they’re boys, it’s her name, and if they’re girls, it’s my name.

On July 5, Ash revealed her five-month relationship with Lopez through posts on her Instagram Story. Ash shared photos on Instagram of her and Lopez as a couple at red carpet events, during a trip to France and at the VidCon influencer convention, where hundreds of influencers, journalists and of industry insiders mingled. The texts showed that Lopez asked Ash not to post about their relationship online.

In the texts, Lopez told Ash that he was speaking with a producer from the Raes Snapchat show and hoped he and Ash could appear on the show as a couple. A person close to Lopez said they spoke of plans to write her into the story. The texts show that Lopez told Ash The producer of our snap has been messaging all morning and then we can get paid to run.

Since Ash went public, millions of people have watched TikToks featuring photos of Ash with Lopez, their texts, and videos purporting to show Lopez chasing young women. Gossip pages and even other influencers created content about the scandal. A representative for WME said he no longer represents Lopez, but did not say when the relationship with Lopez ended.

The two original videos were deleted from TikTok but have been uploaded by other users and viewed millions of times. The same platform that supported the Rae family shifted gears seamlessly to humiliate them.

In a podcast, YouTubers Jeff Wittek and Tana Mongeau talked about seeing Lopez at Hollywood parties without his daughter, impersonating the cameras.

I would hate for my parents to try to show up in all those paparazzi videos and be influential,” Wittek said.

Bryce Hall, a TikTok star who dated Rae early in her career, reacted to TikToks about Lopez on her podcast with influencer Josh Richards. Hall performed a comedy bit where he impersonated Lopez introducing himself to women as Addison Raes’ father.

I’m sure Addison and Addison’s mom are going through it, Richards said. It would just suck; I can’t even imagine having your dad all over the internet for that.