[7] In 2018, they[a] accused Vanity of child sexual abuse and rape in a post on social media site Tumblr during their alleged relationship, when Leonhardt was 10 years old.
[9] Leonhardt began making YouTube videos when they were 10 years old, discussing "fashion, clothes and local drama that was happening within the party scene" which were uploaded on their friend's webcam.
[10] Leonhardt posted their first popular video just before their twelfth birthday in response to two claims made on StickyDrama and MySpace: the first being that they were a victim of rape, and the second being that they were coerced into a sexual relationship with the lead singer of the electronic band Blood on the Dance Floor, a man by the name of Dahvie Vanity (real name Jesus David Torres).
The video was eventually linked to by users of 4chan, who then found and distributed Leonhardt's real name, phone number and address.
You lying bunch of pricks!The video, which was titled "You Dun Goofed Up", received over 1 million views on YouTube in one week.
[4] Gene was later arrested in March 2011 for abusing Leonhardt in an argument when he punched them, causing them to have bloody and swollen lips, according to a police report.
[1] In a subsequent Good Morning America interview, the family revealed that they had received harassment, including death threats.
[11] After the Good Morning America interview, the television audience was advised on how to handle cyberbullying (online bullying and harassment) from internet privacy expert Parry Aftab.
[2] Aftab was subsequently subjected to harassment attributed to 4chan users in the forms of Google bombing false accusations of child sexual assault, the distribution of personal information, threatening telephone calls, and DoS attacks against her websites wiredsafety.org and aftab.com.
[15] In France, L'Express described the harassment as "ruining the life" of "an American in the midst of an adolescent crisis",[16] and France24 noted that some were using the controversy to claim that 4chan should be censored.