A British influencer has apologized for lying to her friends about having cancer years ago, and said she was in a “dark place” at the time.
Brittany Miller, 29, admitted to the lie in a video posted to TikTok on Monday, one week after U.K. tabloid the Sun published an article claiming to “reveal” the “dark truth” behind Miller claiming she had Stage 3 gastric cancer in 2017 with a fundraising page set up for her.
A person close to Miller told the publication that many of her followers “will have family members living with cancer, but little do they know that every time they watch one of her videos, they are giving money to a fraud.”
Now, Miller has broken her silence about her past in her apology video, which has more than 10 million views as of Wednesday.
“Back in 2017, I had extremely bad mental health and at the time, I didn’t realize how bad, but it was bad,” Miller said to her 3.5 million TikTok followers.
“I was depressed, I was suicidal, I was lost, I was confused, I’d lost my partner, I’d lost my job, and there was lots of things in that year that led me to be mentally ill.”
“I said something to someone within my immediate circle, in confidence, one stupid sentence that I deeply regret,” Miller continued. “I said I had an illness, which was cancer.”
The mom of two said she “didn’t do this for malicious intent, or to scam people.”
“I did this out of desperation. I did it to keep the people close to me, to keep the people in my life close to me,” she said. “I don’t condone it. I understand why I did it and I’ve learnt from my mistakes.”
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Miller said that it was not “a long-running scam or a manipulative story like it’s been made out to be.”
“The people that I told then told a couple of others and there was a fundraiser page made on behalf of me, which I knew about. As soon as I saw those donations — there was two donations — I had the page immediately shut down and I didn’t take a penny from it,” she explained.
“I forgive myself because I was mentally ill and I am so deeply sorry to anyone that I’ve upset or triggered from saying what I said,” she said.
Miller wanted to make it clear to her followers that the incident took place years before she was on social media, so she didn’t just do this “for likes or followers.”
“I know how horrible this disease is, and I know how much it affects people, so for that I am so, so sorry,” Miller said.
Miller assured her followers that she is “mentally well again” and she is proud of how far she’s come.
“If I could go back and change what I did, I would do it in a heartbeat. It was one stupid sentence that I said almost a decade ago, and I’ve learnt so much from it,” Miller said.
She credited her fiancé, Ash Griffiths, for helping her get to a better place and called him the “light at the end of the tunnel.”
“He helped me be well again and forgive myself…. I’m here because I want to be an advocate for mental health,” Miller said. “I want to help people, because I know what it’s like to be in a dark, dark place.”
Miller concluded her video by saying how grateful she is for all of the people who support her and added, “I really, really love you so, so much.”
Miller isn’t the first influencer who has lied about having cancer.
Belle Gibson, an Australian cookbook author, built a public profile in 2013 around her claim through her book, Instagram and Facebook accounts that she was diagnosed with brain cancer as a 20-year-old and was given four months to live.
She claimed to have rejected conventional cancer treatments in favour of a quest to heal herself naturally and falsely said she beat cancer through healthy eating.
With media questioning many of her claims, she admitted in 2015 that she never had cancer.
Gibson was fined by a court in 2017 for misleading consumers by lying about her charitable donations.
The judge had ruled in March 2017 that Gibson’s deceptive claims of donating the proceeds from the sales of The Whole Pantry and a related app constituted unconscionable conduct under Australian consumer law. The book and app were withdrawn.
Federal Court Justice Debra Mortimer ordered Gibson to pay a total of AU$410,000 (about C$375,600) for five contraventions of the law relating to false claims that the proceeds would go to various charities.
— With files from The Associated Press
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