The life of a social media star is believed to be full of luxuries and fame, but that’s not exactly the case with the TikToker known as Jenny Popach. Jenny gained fame at an early age, not only for her eyebrow-raising content, but also for breaking into other people’s houses, being banned from social media several times, and switching on alarms about the safety of kids on the internet.
Jenny is still young but the debates she and her family have ignited on social media are comparable to those of more famous and veteran social media stars, leaving us with lots of questions about her life and what’s going on behind cameras.
So how did Jenny Popach become famous and why has that been controversial? How were her beginnings on TikTok and other social media, and where is she now? Keep reading to find out.
Who Is Jenny Popach?
Jenny Popach, whose real name is Roselie Arritola, is a TikToker and YouTuber who rose to fame for her dancing videos and scandals. She was born on 15 November 2006 in Miami, Florida.
Her parents are named Jorge Aritola and Maria Ulacia, and she has three younger brothers of names unknown. Jenny has also been known for her old usernames That Girl Maria and Depophatesyou, though these accounts were deleted from TikTok. Jenny’s earliest platform was YouTube, on which she started sharing videos in 2017 before making TikTok her biggest platform. Jenny has also found success on Instagram, on which she now has over 270,000 followers.
Although it’s not rare for minors to rise to fame on social media, the controversy surrounding Jenny has to do with her content, which has gained her the nickname of TikTok’s ‘problem child’ for being deemed inappropriate for a minor, according to Bloomberg. The platform also reported that by the age of 15, Jenny had been expelled from at least one high school after cussing out one of her teachers online.
Besides Jenny, her mom Maria found fame online on TikTok and Instagram, for posting videos alongside her children. However, Maria’s accounts in the short video app are no longer active.
Banning From TikTok
Jenny Popach was banned from TikTok for the first time in January 2022 – as reported by the Daily Mail, her content appeared to violate the platform’s guidelines about minors wearing revealing clothing and engaging in suggestive topics. By the time Jenny’s TikTok was initially banned she already had over five million followers on the platform, on which most of her videos consisted of dancing, lip-synching, and modeling revealing clothing.
Her account was reinstated in the following weeks, only to be banned again in May of that year, making her lose $8,000 in sponsorships, according to her family. Though her account was eventually revived, in September it was shut down again. These days, her account no longer exists, as the situation ignited alarms about censorship on social media, and the nature of the content which is produced and consumed on TikTok.
News sites such as Bloomberg have reported about the situation since December 2022, stating how the controversy regarding Jenny’s videos is no longer a mere online debate, but also raised the concern of TikTok’s executives. Nonetheless, Jenny’s videos are filmed with the supervision and approval of her parents, with her mom Maria labeling them as ‘shock value’, and accusing the critics of being ‘jealous’ of the attention.
Exploitation Claims
Following the banning of Jenny Popach’s TikTok account, fans on social media started raising alarms about the alleged exploitation of Jenny by her parents. As reported by Daily Dot, the TikTok hashtag #JusticeforJenny was filled with fans’ claims that Jenny was being pushed by her mother to share suggestive videos on social media.
TikTok wasn’t the only place where the nature of Jenny’s videos has generated criticism, with internet users from X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube making content against it.
Jenny Popach is one of TikTok’s most controversial teen stars, with 7 million followers. Her sometimes hypersexualized videos are testing the platform's own guidelines.
Full documentary: https://t.co/EklBoFxlVO pic.twitter.com/XZYZPkHbKZ
— Bloomberg (@business) December 15, 2022
Jenny and her mother are no strangers to the accusation of exploitation. As the Daily Mail reported in 2022, Jenny and Maria were taken out of a hotel in Orlando, after her followers called the police alleging that the teen had been ‘sex trafficked’. Maria finds these claims laughable and told Bloomberg that ‘she loved the attention’ caused by these scandals.
Hype House Controversy
Being banned from TikTok hasn’t been the only event which has raised eyebrows towards Jenny and her mom Maria. Back in June 2020, a 13-year-old Jenny, a couple of her friends and her mom filmed videos at the Los Angeles-based Hype House, a famous social media collective which allowed very successful influencers to film content together.
However, neither Jenny, Maria nor the other girls were part of the collective, which at that point didn’t have any of its members living in the house, even if they still kept some of their belongings stored in there. Besides dancing in a variety of spaces inside the house, Jenny and her friends filmed themselves trying-on clothes which belonged to the Hype House member Chase Hudson.
Jenny and the other girls’ videos didn’t take long to attract the attention of the Hype House founder and leader Thomas Petrou and other members of the collective. On his part, Hudson described the situation as ‘weird’, while Petrou affirmed that they were still legally tenants of the property.
According to a report by Insider, the Hype House members accused Jenny, Maria, and the other girls of vandalism and theft, though they denied all of the claims. In the end, no charges were pressed against any of the intruders; Jenny announced that she would create a social media collective named The Blok, but the project didn’t go too far.
Personal Life
No information about Jenny Popach’s possible romantic partners is known. Details about her hobbies outside of creating videos for social media are also unclear.
Even though Jenny and Maria seem to work as a team to build their social media presence, the pair have also had public fallouts. In a 2020 TikTok video, Maria accused Jenny of poor treatment, allegedly being demanding towards her and the family. The issue eventually faded after the pair seemingly fixed their issues.
Physical Appearance & Net Worth
Jenny Popach is a girl of mixed ethnicity; she has brown eyes and hair. Although some reports affirm that she’s 5ft 1in (1.54m) tall, it’s fair to assume that Jenny will grow taller as she becomes older.
Jenny’s net worth is estimated at $350,000, as of early 2024, which comes from her career as a social media content creator, including earnings from views and brand sponsorships.
