Caroline Calloway As 2018 concluded,
Caroline Calloway was advertising an event she billed as a creativity
seminar. She already built a reputation as a social media influencer and many
of her followers were excited for the opportunity to learn from her.
Tickets for the four-hour conference were a whopping $165, but that wasn’t enough to deter
her ardent supporters from reserving a spot. After all, the cost of admission did
include a salad and assorted keepsakes like branded stickers and a notebook.
When dozens of women attended the seminar in Brooklyn, New York, however,
many of them noted that the event did not meet the expectations she set. The
situation quickly led to allegations of fraud against the Instagram celebrity.
Writer Kayleigh Donaldson dedicated a long Twitter thread to warning individuals
against falling for what she described as a scam. Even comedic actor Seth Rogen joined
in on the backlash. A number of critics dubbed the event “Fyre Fest 2,”
a reference to the famously fraudulent concert that made news the previous year.
Calloway tried to chalk the entire ordeal up to a lack of preparation on her part and expressed
hope that she and Rogen could one day laugh about the fact that he called her a scammer.
Influencing Not just anybody can expect folks to spend $165
on a seminar ticket, but Calloway already had a deep well of supporters to draw from. As a
student at England’s Cambridge University, she made a name for herself on Instagram.
Although her inspirational and aspirational posts might have seemed to gain an organic following,
she reportedly spent money to run ads and purchase followers
so that her audience would grow rapidly. She also recruited Natalie Beach, a former classmate
at New York University, to help her produce content for her growing Instagram account.
The two women worked closely on the project before a rift
in their friendship caused them to publicly disparage each other.
The Book Deal In her ongoing effort to chase fame wherever
she could, Calloway tried to secure a lucrative book deal. She even walked into the office of
literary agent Byrd Leavell and misrepresented herself as a client to get past his secretary.
Despite starting the professional relationship out on a lie,
she charmed her way into a lucrative book deal. She received an advance payment of $100,000
and would have added another $400,000 upon completion of the book. Of course,
the book never saw the light of day and Calloway was forced to return the six-figure advance.
She had once again called on Beach to ghostwrite the book,
but it wasn’t long before their friendship went
south. Instead of penning the contents to a book worth half a million dollars, Beach chose
to expose Calloway in a scathing tell-all essay about her one-time business partner.
Fyre Fest 2 Calloway’s plan
to get rich by putting her name on a book written by someone else didn’t work. But a
short time after that deal fell through, she began pursuing another scheme. Her
social media accounts were filled with details about a seminar supposedly designed to help her
fans develop their own personal creativity. Many of those who paid for tickets, however,
said that the so-called workshops were nothing like the programs she advertised.
In a lengthy thread on Twitter, Donaldson dug deep into the details to compile
evidence that she said proved the entire program was just a scam. For starters,
Calloway was openly looking for photographers who would be willing to provide their services
for free. Amid mounting pressure to actually pay people for their hard work, she reluctantly said
that she would pay for a professional photographer. As Donaldson pointed out,
though, it seemed out of touch for Calloway to complain about paying for
this service while she was also bragging about spending $300 at a hair salon.
From there, Calloway’s social media presence devolved further into a pity
party. She lamented the fact that she could not fit all of the giveaways – in particular,
1,200 mason jars – in her apartment prior to the launch of her seminar. Pretty soon,
she started retracting some of the perks attendees were promised. For example, she informed her fans
that she would not have enough time to provide handwritten letters to everyone as she had
previously planned. Instead, she’d be available to speak one-on-one with each ticket holder.
Then she hinted that the two initial workshops would be moved to an entirely different state.
Calloway had recruited attendees in Boston and Philadelphia, but sent out an online survey
asking if folks in those cities would be OK with traveling to New York City instead.
Making matters worse, her poll didn’t seem to give people an option to say
no. Another update asked people to pack their own lunches instead of
eating the meal that was supposed to be provided as part of the ticket price.
Despite all of these setbacks, she still seemed committed to taking her seminars around the world.
Donaldson provided screenshots of posts promoting a similar workshop in England. Another one was
reportedly planned for Scotland, though it was apparently never approved by local officials.
Canceled All of the problems Calloway
encountered during the first two dates resulted in her decision to cancel all future workshops.
Donaldson’s tweets led to a massive backlash and the Instagram influencer decided she couldn’t move
forward with events planned in other cities. Eventbrite, the platform where attendees could
purchase tickets, confirmed that everyone who reserved a seat at future seminars had received
a refund. However, that wasn’t enough to convince her critics that she was just in over her head.
Calloway spoke to the media and tried to downplay her failures. She said she was
simply inexperienced and had no idea that planning such a massive event would be so difficult. Some
of her fans were quick to give her the benefit of the doubt. At least a few of those who went
to the first two workshops said that they didn’t feel ripped off. Even though they didn’t receive
everything that had been promised, one attendee claimed that everyone seemed to have fun.
As for Eventbrite’s stance, a company spokesperson said that there was no direct
evidence that Calloway “was trying to be a fraudster or a bad actor.”
Even years after the ill-fated workshops, Calloway continues working to repair her battered public
image. She’s been involved in fundraisers for charity organizations and remains active on
social media while sitting down for interviews to share her perspective on the entire fiasco.
Despite her rehabilitation efforts, however, it’s clear that internet users remain interested in
the details about the workshop. With well over 2 million search engine results for her name,
many of the posts and articles that show up on Google are at least in part
about this low point in her online career.
The Russian Oligarch It wasn’t only the workshops
that led to Calloway’s downfall. Beach spoke out publicly about her
role in helping to craft her former friend’s Instagram persona. In fact,
Calloway said she had been offered a major payday to craft her response to Beach’s
allegations. When the pandemic disrupted life for everyone, however, she pulled out of that deal.
Instead, she sought to raise money for various organizations,
including roughly $50,000 for the group Direct Relief to provide healthcare services.
Not everyone saw her plan as a selfless act, though. Many skeptics believed it was just
the latest in a series of scams. Some even thought she pocketed the money she raised on social media.
She didn’t make things any better by telling a reporter that she planned to celebrate
the fundraising success by eating copious amounts of caviar “like a Russian oligarch.”
Un-Canceled Prior to COVID-19 shutdowns,
Calloway decided to give her seminar tour one last shot. In early 2019, a series of
Instagram posts highlighted her intention to find new venues for her workshops. She claimed
that 95% of the people who attended the early seminars were satisfied with the experience.
As for why she canceled the remaining dates, she said that it was done out of fear that
people would read negative things about her on the internet and believe that they were true.
After giving it some thought, Calloway said she realized that the best way to combat the criticism
would be by relaunching her tour in the spring of that year. She described her critics as people who
wouldn’t have bought tickets to her event in the first place. Instead of focusing on those people,
she claimed to be interested only in providing the best experience possible for her fans.
In the end, she said it had been a learning experience for her and indicated a desire to
grow and mature as she dealt with the aftermath. When the revised dates were announced, however,
the new name was quite a shocker. Apparently, she tried to capitalize
on the negative press she’d already received and decided to call her workshop “The Scam.”
One reporter wanted to find out what this new five-hour format was all about and bought a
ticket. Anna Iovine wrote about her experience in a Vice article, including the warning she received
from Eventbrite that the seminar could be, as its name suggested, a scam. From there,
a representative for Calloway contacted Iovine to tell her that reporters weren’t invited to
the event. A short time later, Calloway shared a post about the situation, insisting that members
of the press wouldn’t be allowed at the workshop and that Iovine would be receiving a refund.
This only fueled Iovine’s determination to shed light on “The Scam.”
She wrote that her husband bought a ticket on her behalf and she was able
to attend after all. Although the space was nice,
Iovine noted that no one who arrived for the 11 a.m. start time seemed to know what to expect.
Some called it a meet-and-greet event, but Calloway didn’t even show up until noon.
One of the infamous influencer’s friends said it was more like a networking event.
As the day progressed, Iovine said attendees read poems, decorated notebooks, and heard from
Calloway about the process that goes into crafting an Instagram caption. At the end,
the two women posed for a photo and Iovine left with a gift bag filled with items like a candle
and a face mask. Although the reporter said she felt bad about attending under false pretenses,
she noted that it had become clear to her that Calloway was trying to
cash in on a facade of success that she had built for herself online.
Coming Back Even though she
lost a few thousands followers in the process, Calloway was determined not to let the negative
coverage of her workshops completely derail her ambitions as an influencer. Part of that plan,
however, involved focusing more on racy content instead of the
gourmet meals and high-end fashion that had previously adorned her Instagram account.
She dubbed herself the “Queen of Quarniness,” We’ll let you figure out what that means. People
might not have been looking to her for advice anymore, but she figured they would still tune
in to check out pictures of her wearing revealing clothes – or nothing at all.
Calloway also formed a plan to make $80,000 in 2020 by posting such images on the subscription
site OnlyFans. It’s unclear whether she met that goal, but there’s no doubt that
her public image was much different after the workshop scandal than it was before.
Rental Issues Calloway clearly wants to
live the life of the rich and famous. Although she has arguably achieved some of the fame she
so desperately chased, it’s pretty clear that she’s not as rich as she wants people to believe.
In addition to chronicling her experience at “The Scam,” Iovine used part of her article to present
evidence that Calloway has had a hard time paying her rent. Between 2017 and 2019, records show she
was taken to court four times for non-payment in connection with her posh New York apartment.
As one lawyer who saw the documents explained, Calloway could have been evicted as a result
of these proceedings. Since she was served with court papers on four different occasions, however,
it seems that her landlord was being generous by not kicking her out of the apartment.
Aftermath Her apparent
financial problems didn’t end in 2019. In early 2022,
Calloway confirmed that she had moved from New York to Florida. She said, at the time,
that her intention was to live a quieter life and resume work on her memoir. Still, there’s a
long line of unpaid bills that followed her out of the Big Apple. A court complaint claimed that she
hadn’t paid rent for the property since 2020 and moved out with several months left in her lease.
Although a couple moved into her vacated New York studio,
her landlord said that the new tenants hadn’t been approved and Calloway was still on the
hook for the rest of her lease – totaling about $40,000. An eviction moratorium put
in place during COVID-19 prevented her from being kicked out during this time,
but she’s still facing a hefty penalty for choosing to break her lease agreement.
At this point, it’s not clear where she will get the money to settle this debt.
If history is any indication, she’s probably working on a new scheme right now.
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