UPDATE: According to Pop Crave, legal reps for Ballinger reached out and said she did not upload the song to iTunes or Apple Music. Though the song was attached to her music profile, it is now removed.
Colleen Ballinger's legal reps tell Pop Crave that Ballinger did not upload her 10-minute ukelele song “Toxic Gossip Train” to iTunes and Apple Music.
The song, which was attached to her official profile, has now been removed. pic.twitter.com/OJcy4CBmGW
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 11, 2023
Colleen Ballinger — perhaps better known as the YouTube influencer Miranda Sings — has been embroiled in controversy over the past several weeks after it was revealed that she’d apparently sent inappropriate messages to minors. Since then, her brand has suffered — her upcoming tour dates have been canceled on Ticketmaster and her podcast, Oversharing with Trisha Paytas, has also been canceled after only three episodes — but it seems that so has her ability to read the room.
Ballinger, who tried to defend herself with a song titled “Toxic Gossip Train,” is now allegedly selling the tone-deaf single on iTunes for the absurd price point of $10, via a Pop Crave tweet. Twitter users learning about her audacious maneuver via the PopCrave account are utterly flummoxed, wondering who would actually spend that much on the song and speculating that she’s planning to take the money and disappear. As one user pointed out, “that’s a dollar a minute just to hear you dance around serious allegations.”
https://twitter.com/PopCrave/status/1678849318097424384
Really want to see a lineup of the people that make this purchase https://t.co/K6e7WUpBBn
— 🌽 Daddy Jake 🇵🇸 (@ActualCorn) July 11, 2023
she’s realized the hole is far too deep to get out of it now. she’s taking all the money she can from the attention.
in 4 years she will come back and want to “leave the past in the past” like all the others do. https://t.co/favMB671gv pic.twitter.com/YAgPfwhyRo
— Cassie Webb 🕸️🕷️ (@M0NK3Y_G1RL) July 11, 2023
https://twitter.com/liv_liv_liv__/status/1678855041808060418?s=20
https://twitter.com/bobfaget__/status/1678852165970935808
Those allegations in question include mentioning sex in conversations with teens as young as 14 years old, naming a private group chat “Colleeny’s Weenies,” and activating the participants against an ex-boyfriend. For her part, Ballinger has seemingly denied the allegations all along, including in the “Toxic Gossip Train” video on YouTube, in which she strums a guitar while insisting that the allegations against her were fabricated or exaggerated. “Doesn’t matter if it’s true, though, just as long as it’s entertaining to you,” she intoned in the video. “You guys having fun? All aboard! The toxic gossip train, chugging down the tracks of misinformation.”
