Where is Piper Rockelle now? Inside Netflix’s ‘Bad Influence’ doc

Hot on the heels of Hulu’s Ruby Franke documentary comes another tale of YouTube exploitation and alleged acts of off-camera abuse in Netflix’s Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing.

The three-episode docuseries unpacks the story of Piper Rockelle, a teen content creator whose various platforms each count millions of followers. Rockelle found early success with lip syncs, dance tutorials, and prank videos before linking up with a group of other adolescent content creators. Together, they were dubbed “the Squad,” and raked in millions of dollars in ad revenue and brand partnerships each year.

Bad Influence, however, finds that former Squad members previously alleged in a now-settled lawsuit that Tiffany Smith, Rockelle’s mother and the architect of her daughter’s online empire, exploited them financially while subjecting them to emotional, physical, and even sexual abuse. (As noted in the series, Smith denies the allegations and refused to participate in the documentary.)

So, what happened to Piper Rockelle, and where is she now? What does the Squad say happened behind the scenes? Read on for these answers and more.

Who is Piper Rockelle?

Piper Rockelle is an online content creator with nearly 15 million TikTok followers, 12 million YouTube followers, and 6 million Instagram followers.

As detailed in Bad Influence, Rockelle began performing in pageants at age 3. As she got older, she found popularity on Musical.ly, a lip-sync app popular amongst children that merged with TikTok in 2018. At age 8, Rockelle and her mom started uploading content to YouTube, which featured music videos, dances, skits, and more.

Her fame grew after she was cast on the Lifetime reality series Dance Twins, as well as the kids’ series Mani on Brat TV, an online network of scripted shows that stream on YouTube.

Rockelle’s popularity exploded when she linked up with several other tween content creators and formed the Squad, a friend group of sorts featured heavily in her posts.

According to the documentary, Rockelle was making between $300,000 and $500,000 a month at her peak.

Who are Tiffany Smith and Hunter Hill?

Tiffany Smith is Rockelle’s mother, “momager,” and an onscreen presence in many of her daughter’s videos, often speaking in a silly voice and parading around a pug, Frank.

Smith’s sister, Patience, recounts in the documentary that Smith grew up in Canton, Ga., and raised Rockelle as a single mother. According to Patience, school wasn’t a priority for Rockelle as “[Smith’s] main focus was on Piper advancing socially [so] she could excel in performing and hold a conversation with an adult and do these auditions.”

Patience adds, “From a young age, Piper wanted to please her mother, making sure that she’s constantly striving to be the best, that she’s the top performer in the South.”

Hunter Hill, another content creator who worked as an editor on Rockelle’s videos, linked up with Smith and her daughter at a conference in Los Angeles, according to Patience in the documentary. Later, he became versed in optimizing the Squad’s content for maximum engagement.

Behind the scenes, Patience says, he and Smith became an item, despite Smith being much older. Patience calls Hill her sister’s “very much younger boyfriend,” saying that he was 19 or 20 when he moved into her Los Angeles home.

What happened to the Squad?

In January 2022, 11 teenage members of the Squad filed a $22 million civil lawsuit against Smith, Hill, and their company, Piper Rockelle Inc., alleging “emotional, verbal, physical, and at times, sexual abuse” by Smith.

Furthermore, the complaint alleges, the members of the Squad were never compensated for their contributions to the channel, despite its massive success. It also claims that, after leaving the Squad, the teens were subject to “sabotage” efforts by Smith and Hill that involved driving down the traffic and revenue of their individual YouTube channels via nefarious means, including collaboration with “an inside contact at YouTube.”

The plaintiffs also claimed that they were subject to “inappropriate, offensive and abusive treatment,” including “wildly offensive and sexually explicit comments” from Smith. The complaint also includes several descriptions of inappropriate touching.

Several of these instances, including one where Smith allegedly kissed an underage friend of Rockelle’s while intoxicated during a livestream, are discussed in the docuseries. The former Squad members also detail how Smith would pit them against each other, sow discord on social media, and use them to enact her own personal vendettas.

Each of the teens in the lawsuit asked for roughly $2 million in damages.

Per Business Insider, Smith and Rockelle countersued the plaintiffs of the previous lawsuit for $30 million in July 2022, claiming that the mothers of the former Squad members fabricated the allegations to extort money from Smith and Rockelle.

In 2024, a $1.85 million settlement was reached. According to PEOPLE, it was entered “without any admission of liability or the validity or lack thereof of any claims or defenses.”

In the documentary, a mother of one of the plaintiffs says, “This lawsuit was never about money — it was to make sure she couldn’t do what she did to me to another kid.”

Where are Tiffany Smith and Hunter Hill now?

Smith and Hill both appear to still be collaborating with Rockelle. Hill, however, hasn’t posted to his own YouTube since May 2024.

Smith shared a statement with PEOPLE ahead of Bad Influence‘s premiere in which she touched on the lawsuit. “Obviously we didn’t do anything that was alleged,” it reads, “but sadly, money is a big motivator for certain personalities in this world.”

She continued, “We made the decision to put this behind us because honestly, prolonged litigation would be even more harmful and painful to everyone involved — which includes kids. Piper is a minor, and has already been through a great deal of unnecessary and harmful scrutiny. So we prioritized mental health, and made the decision to put this behind us and focus on the next phase of her career.”

Where is Piper Rockelle now?

Rockelle, now 17, continues to regularly share content via Instagram and TikTok, though as of April 2025, she hasn’t posted to her YouTube channel in three months.

That may be due to YouTube demonetizing Rockelle’s channel in 2022 following the allegations against her mother. “We have indefinitely suspended monetization on Piper Rockelle’s channel for violating our Creator Responsibility policy by engaging in off-platform behavior that harms the YouTube community and have removed them from the YouTube Partner Program,” a YouTube spokesperson told Business Insider at the time. “In this case, Piper’s mother Tiffany Smith, who administers the earnings on this channel, is facing multiple allegations of child abuse and exploitation.”

In February, Rockelle received blowback for visiting TikTok’s Bop House, which is home to several creators on OnlyFans, which specializes in adults-only content. Since Rockelle is still a minor, this became a source of controversy.

She responded with a video making light of the criticism. “How many times are they going to cry [about] me being in the bop house,” a caption reads. As PEOPLE notes, she later commented on a separate Bop House video with, “I remember I’m 17 [don’t worry].”

Like Smith, Rockelle also shared a statement to PEOPLE ahead of the documentary. In it, the 17-year-old called the allegations “ridiculous” and described the “whole experience” as “extremely painful and, honestly, hard to understand.”

She added, “It’s been incredibly hard because the media and social media have been relentless and so hurtful, without understanding or even trying to understand the truth. It’s become impossible to even look at my phone or do normal, day-to-day things. It’s been so incredibly painful. Thank goodness for my family. And thank goodness this is finally behind us.”

Where can I watch Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing?

All three episodes of Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing is currently streaming on Netflix.

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