She's one of the most popular PetTubers of all time, but her journey to YouTube stardom
has a seriously dark side.
Although she's been extremely open about it with her fans, there's still a lot to learn
about this streaming star.
Here are some things you may not know about Taylor Nicole Dean.
Although she seems incredibly outgoing and entertaining at first glance in her YouTube
videos, Dean actually grew up in a completely contrasting setting.
In a Vice documentary about her life, the YouTube personality revealed that she never
went to dances or parties throughout high school, and wasn't exposed to alcohol.
In addition to having grown up in a sheltered household, the PetTuber also suffers from
some mental health issues, too.
In a YouTube video celebrating her 100,000th subscriber, she admitted that she lives with
anxiety and depression.
"Every little thing in the world freaks me out."
It looks like throughout it all, Dean formed a lifelong love for animals and has translated
that into pet care - and she told her fans in 2016 that it all started with cats.
Her father, Matthew Dean, shed a bit more insight into his daughter's hobby during her
Vice interview.
According to him, Dean's mother would regularly take her places where she could be around
animals.
It only seemed natural that Dean would find a way to monetize her passion.
Dean's YouTube success is a bit of a happy accident.
In fact, she has her hedgehog, Nala , whose photo went viral in 2014, to thank for those
initial days.
The PetTuber told the San Antonio Express-News in 2016,
"[Nala] had really connected with people, and I want to continue to do that."
Years later, in 2020, Dean told Vice about the process that led her to YouTube stardom,
admitting that it all started with Nala.
She decided to upload a video to connect with other people who claimed she had inspired
them to get hedgehogs of their own.
However, Dean also set out to warn the masses about the dangers that come with adopting
exotic pets.
Speaking to New York Magazine, she dished,
"About six months into doing YouTube, Finding Dory was coming out.
[...] It made me very nervous because I knew a bunch of kids were going to want to buy
a blue tang which is what Dory was.
[...] They're extremely hard [to take care of]."
After making her instructional video, it blew up, and Dean got 200,000 views.
She added,
"Then I started making more than I was making at my job.
[...] So then I was like, 'Okay, I'm young enough to where I can quit my job at a pet
store and I won't be ruined.'"
Dean's troubles started when she attended her very first party - thanks to YouTube.
As she told Vice, someone at that party offered her, quote, "a tiny bump of cocaine."
She said:
"Everyone was doing it and acting fine so I was like, 'Alright, okay, whatever, I'll
try it,' and the next day, I was just obsessing about it.
And my brain just was like, 'You need it again, you need it again.'"
While the PetTuber definitely doesn't deny dipping her toes into the realm of drug use
on her own, she credits her now-ex boyfriend, Jonny Craig, as the man who allegedly led
her down a really destructive path.
Speaking about meeting Craig, who is more than ten years older than her, Dean told the
outlet that he's someone who also deals with addiction.
She claimed he would bring opiates with him when they spent time together - and get her
to try them.
As Dean told Vice, one particular day was especially poignant in her downfall.
She allegedly found a spoon in the bathroom with its back burnt - causing her to break
down immediately.
According to Dean, Craig then begged her to try heroin with him for the first time before
they got sober together.
Of course, this was only the beginning.
Dean eventually left Craig after realizing the severity of her situation and after failing
to produce YouTube content for six months.
She explained:
"I was losing all contacts to everyone, and all I had was this dude that just kept shooting
me up."
In the YouTube video where she revealed she was a heroin addict, Dean explained her time
leading towards the breakup a bit better.
"My addiction was full-blown, and I was sick.
I was still trying to put videos on, and I was still trying to entertain people."
Unfortunately for Dean, the days of Nala the viral hedgehog were long gone.
Eventually, it was Dean's assistant who pleaded with her boss to stop, and in the end, took
photos of the starlet's needle-ridden bathroom and sent them to her mother.
Dean's mother then allegedly told Craig,
"You need to leave and go somewhere while Taylor gets clean."
Craig left, and after a final relapse, Dean's mom drove her to rehab.
By December of 2019, and after being sober for over half a year, Dean finally released
a video titled, "My Experience Dating Jonny Craig."
Claiming she wanted to, quote, "leave Jonny Craig in 2019," the starlet shared all the
alleged grim aspects of her previous relationship before finally declaring in the comments that
she wouldn't utter his name anymore.
Of course, there are always trolls that come with being a popular online personality.
While Dean may be one of the most subscribed-to PetTubers out there, she also regularly runs
into naysayers who claim she's an animal hoarder.
The starlet finally decided to set the record straight on Twitter in light of all the publicity
from her Vice documentary.
Admitting that some of the critics were accurate, she declared, in part,
"I know I impulse bought animals when I was being abused.
[...] Animals became the only thing that made me feel like I was important and served a
purpose which is NOT right and NOT okay and is one of the reasons I rehomed 12 of them
when I got to rehab."
Considering her love of animals goes back to the days when she was a young girl, it
makes sense she would cling on to her one hobby she loves the most.
In fact, throughout the years, Dean has also admitted in her YouTube videos that she struggles
with codependency.
"I always think that if I don't have this something or someone that I am not worth anything."
She went on to reveal that she has an incredibly difficult time being alone and still feeling
happy.
If accusations of hoarding animals weren't enough, Dean has also been put through the
wringer with critics who claim she neglects her pets.
Dean addressed the accusations in a video titled, "My Mistakes (Involving My Pet Care)."
"I don't like being unliked, but it's something I gotta get used to if I'm in the public,
you know?"
Although the accusations seemingly died down, in the wake of the Vice piece the rumors rose
up again.
This caused Dean to take to her Twitter and write, in part,
"I'll just say once again, I haven't had any reptiles die except the one time I had a horrible
heat malfunction.
And that was absolutely disgusting, and a horrible mistake of mine that made me consider
rehoming all my animals.
[...] I haven't had a single animal pass, not even from old age.
[...] I'll continue to always be honest when an animal dies, but I truly know they have
never died from neglect and if I did, I'd rehome them because that's the last thing
I'd ever be able to live with is watching an animal suffer."
After months of speculation, Dean came clean about her addiction in the aptly-titled August
2019 video, "I'm a Heroin Addict (The Truth About Everything)."
Early in the video, Dean said she wanted to set the record straight with her fans who
had been observing "noticeable changes in [her] personality" over the past two years.
As of early 2020, the video has nearly 3 million views and is continuing to grow.
The biggest shocker?
The outpour of positivity from her fans.
In fact, in a pinned comment on the video, the PetTuber wrote,
"I never could've predicted such an amazing outpour of support in which I am receiving.
[...] I truly cannot thank you all for being so open-minded and kind enough, I love you
guys so much, thank you for being a part of my healing."
In her Vice documentary, Dean shed a bit more insight, saying that she had expected to lose
around 100,000 subscribers - but she ended up gaining many more.
One reaction that stood out to her was from a girl who claimed she was going through a
similar situation with her fiance and found the strength to leave him because of Dean's
video.
As she explained in her confession video, it was Dean's mom that initially drove her
to rehab, but she had planned only to stay and complete the "detox" period for ten days.
Luckily, she found herself repeatedly extending her stay at the facility.
Since leaving rehab, the PetTuber has tried to remain strong and isn't afraid to admit
that she sometimes needs help when she gets close to relapsing.
Now, instead of just focusing on pet care, Dean also opened up another YouTube channel
called Taylor Dean Vlogs, where she tries to help others understand the truth about
addiction, as well as assist others with their drug recovery process, using insight she gained
from her own experience.
In one video, the vlogger dispelled her own misconceptions about rehab.
"I thought it was going to be basically like a psych ward, and it wasn't."
A tremendous step in Dean's recovery from her tragic few years was moving back into
her parents' home.
Taking to Twitter at the end of July 2019, Dean wrote,
"Officially off the lease August 1st.
Sadly this place became a pit of misery.
I was no longer safe returning after the things that went down there.
This is motivation for me to get back on my feet, because if I could accomplish that at
my worst, imagine what I can do at my best."
As of early 2020, Dean is still at home with her parents but is eventually planning on
moving again.
She explained in her August 2019 addiction confession video,
"I no longer live there sadly, but I could not go back there."
It's hard to blame her for wanting to leave that chapter behind.
By October, Dean decided to make a vlog detailing her life as a recovering addict in hopes of
educating her viewers, saying,
"Recovery is a slow process and whatever you gotta focus on in your personal recovery you
gotta focus on.
For me, it's just rewarding myself for doing simple things like showering and making sure
me and my animals are fed."
In January 2020, Dean gave her fans an exciting update on Instagram, declaring she had been
7 months sober.
Unfortunately, by the start of February, she took to the platform again to admit to her
followers that she had relapsed, and planned to go to "a 10-day inpatient program" in March.
She wrote in the caption, in part,
"Decided to share this.
Was extremely hard because I know I’m inviting criticism into my life from those who don’t
understand addiction or think they could’ve done better personally.
But the thought of continuing to celebrate my sobriety when I knew I had messed up, would’ve
eaten me alive and eventually lead to a much worse relapse."
In the same Instagram post, Dean maintains that her animals are her "one of [her] biggest
passions in life," meaning fans of the starlet can still hope she'll come back to regularly
posting on her YouTube channel someday.
She told Vice:
"The fun stuff I do online and stuff, I love it, I love connecting with people and entertaining
people.
When I have these emotional connections with people, it's just crazy."
As for what Dean thinks of her YouTube channel after everything she's been through?
She explained to Vice,
"I don't know what my channel is now.
I know it's definitely still going to be my animals and all of that, but I have this whole
new part of it.
[...] Deep down, I kind of always thought they're there for the cute animals and that's
it, so it's just kind of weird now to have this whole part that's really just about my
own experience and my own life and actually, me."
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