The Horrifying Facelessness of Jessalyn's Mother

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]In March of 2025, a former YouTube child star who went by Jasine Grace, released a video to explain that her very online childhood had not been as charmed as it seemed. This is how my mom exploited me for money as a child and simultaneously subjected me to years of verbal, financial, and of course, physical abuse.

[00:00:17]>> Today, she refers to herself as Jessa, so I'm going to do the same. Jessa's mother, Kelly Anne, started a YouTube channel for her at age nine, and Jessa quickly amassed millions of subscribers.

[00:00:28]By age 14, she had a record deal, a collaboration with a kids makeup line called Petite and Pretty because why not get that body dysmorphia cooking ahead of schedule.

[00:00:39]>> Perfect to wear to school, too, because it's like minimalistic and you won't really see that much of a difference.

[00:00:47]So, it's good because then no teachers would suspect that you're wearing makeup anyways. And it also worked with major brands like Justice, which is a clothing brand that was all the rage for tween girls in the early 2000s. So, if you watch my videos regularly, you know that I always censor images of minors. Jessa is an adult and she has chosen to put out a YouTube video that features some clips of herself as a child. Now, obviously, if an adult wants to show us pictures of themselves a as a kid, I don't think that that's controversial. I don't think that there's any issue there. But then for my video, when I'm choosing clips and videos of Jessa and her sister when they were younger, I'm still going to censor those images. So, I know it'll it might look a little inconsistent, but that that makes sense to me, and hopefully it makes sense uh to you, too. In 2016, I finally had permission to make a YouTube channel called Jesseline Grace. I posted consistently thanks to the help of my mom and reached 1.5 million subscribers in 2018, which is when I hit my peak.

[00:01:53]Behind the scenes, Kelly Anne allegedly screamed and cursed at her daughter to get her lines right.

[00:01:58]>> In doing YouTube, I had to deal with years of verbal abuse and sometimes physical abuse whenever I would make a video. My mom controlled what I posted and what I would say on camera.

[00:02:07]Everything had to be perfect and fake.

[00:02:09]If I misspoke, said the wrong line, or made the wrong face, she would scream and shout at me. And I was 11 getting called a [ __ ] [ __ ] because I wasn't able to say things correctly on camera after being fed lines of words 2 minutes before the camera would roll. But it didn't matter because my mom wanted the money. We needed the money. And at the time, I wanted to help my family out as much as possible. There was no room for a failed performance with money and fame on the line. I've watched a few of Jess's videos from her heyday, and it does come off as very coached and uncomfortably cutesy. Like, she and her sister are imitating an adult's impression of little girls.

[00:02:47]>> I'm super excited to do this. And I also have a little sister to help me.

[00:02:51]>> Yay! I can't wait to dress up. I love dressing up.

[00:02:54]>> Today, Jessa is reclaiming her identity online while attending UC Berkeley and plans to pay her tuition with a return to YouTube. She should be able to pay for college with her social media earnings, but her mom allegedly squandered most of the money on luxury handbags, an expensive wedding, and lab boooos. I honestly had no concept of the money I was earning, how much things I showed on camera costs, and the random designer goods that would appear in the closet. I also didn't know that only a fraction of it was going towards my savings, my college fund. My mom's a spender. I'm sure most of my income went into her extensive handbag collection, as you can see here. The account is now private, but these screenshots are from that account. Again, very extensive collection. Now, she spends her time purchasing laboo and handbags for her laboo. Laboos are made in factories that an NGO recently alleged employs underage laborers.

[00:03:48]>> No, >> Kelly just can't get enough of that teen labor. Jess's situation is a case study on why we can't assume that the children of family vloggers are treated well and why we also can't assume that the material benefit afforded by social media fame is worth the pain and suffering associated with commodifying childhood. On a recent video on Bella and Don, I kept seeing the comment, "Their kids have great lives. Leave this beautiful family alone." But how can you tell that they have great lives? Is it just because they're dressed nicely and go on expensive vacations? As Jessa has explained, those trappings do not necessarily make for a happy childhood.

[00:04:32]After Jessa posted her original milder video critiquing her experience as a child social media star, her mother responded by deleting all of her old videos. Today, Jessa has changed her password and started fresh with a much more incisive video. Yeah, I wasn't going to talk about this again, but um due to my unfortunate luck and my lack of cyber security, my own mother decided to log into this account using my brother's iPad, which used to be mine, which is why the account was on there, and decided to wipe every single video that I had on this channel, including the ones that weren't related to this topic or hers. So, I'm talking about this yet again and filling you guys in on everything without the sugar-coded, what I thought was respectful language that I used in the last video that got taken down. Kellyanne responded via a lengthy and pretty unreadable post on Facebook that her daughter was ungrateful for all the hours that she had spent editing and doing the behindthe-scenes work that went into various brand deals. This effort, her mother points out, took away from time she had to focus on her own YouTube channel.

[00:05:40]>> Seriously, >> don't laugh. You haven't seen her. I thought she was going to say on focus on her own daughter.

[00:05:46]>> After the backlash from Jess's video, I thought to myself, there's no way I'll still be able to see Kellyanne's channel. To my shock and delight and horror, it's still up. The channel itself is not terribly interesting to me. Kelly Anne is an enthusiastic scrapbooker. But if you've ever wondered to yourself, who is it? Who are the people that fetishize the Eiffel Tower to the point that miscellaneous Eiffel Tower crap could be its own section of HomeGoods? It's this lady. She did it.

[00:06:17]Creative Kelly is a straightforward crafting channel. And before Kellyanne introduced her daughter to the platform, her videos usually got less than 10,000 views. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm a small channel. Some of my favorite YouTube channels are on the smaller side. Meanwhile, you couldn't pay me to watch a Mr. beast video. Big number does not always equal better, except when it does. If you're ever injured in an accident, you may want to work with this video sponsor, Morgan and Morgan. Morgan and Morgan is the nation's largest injury law firm with more than a thousand lawyers and over a hundred offices nationwide. Even more importantly, Morgan and Morgan attorneys have recovered over $30 billion for their clients. Not all law firms are the same, and many firms don't have nearly as much experience with personal injury cases. If you're injured by someone else's negligence, you deserve to be paid. Morgan and Morgan is committed to treating their clients with compassion and do not charge any upfront fees. In fact, you won't pay for their services unless they win your case. If you're injured, you can visit forthepeople.com/timber.

[00:07:22]The link will be in the description and in the pinned comment. And if you're not injured, remember that it's always a great day to avoid injury by staying home and not sprinting to the latest Laboo drop. It's not what Kellian includes in her videos that caught my attention, but rather what they don't feature, her face. None of her videos that I watched, and I watched a few, feature any footage of her face. The only time we see her face is in her scrapbooks in carefully posed photographs. Her Facebook profile is still public and she posted several rambling and poorly punctuated responses to her daughter's videos. Along with these, she posted a picture of herself gazing out over the beautiful Pacific coastline with her face turned away from the camera. She's like a ghost. I find it extremely telling that Jessa appeared in videos without her mom. Even in videos where she's taking her little sister to get her ears pierced, it appears to be just Jessa and her sister.

[00:08:21]>> She's always wanted her ears pierced and she's always wanted to wear earrings.

[00:08:24]So, are you ready?

[00:08:26]>> Yeah.

[00:08:27]>> Before Jess's YouTube fame, Kelly Anne posted a selfie with a caption, "I don't usually take selfies anymore because I don't have time to get all dalled up." I get the sense that she only wants to appear in front of the camera when she has absolute control. Her camera shy nature makes it all the more appalling that she decided that her daughter should perform her childhood for an audience of millions. Does it ever occur to the Kellyans of the world that her children might one day share her reluctance for a public display? In response to my critiques of family vloggers, I commonly hear the refrain, "They only put videos of their kids online because the kids want to do it."

[00:09:08]According to Jessa, she did want to start a channel as a kid, but when she wanted to stop, her mom held possessions over her head. Didn't she want a new car, a new house? Didn't she want to help out the family while they were struggling financially? This is in keeping with what we know of other YouTube child stars with bad mom situations. Sherry Frankie, daughter of convicted child abuser and wildly successful family vlogger Ruby Frankie, told Congress that while she did receive some compensation for her time on YouTube, the money was often a bribe in exchange for cooperation with filming.

[00:09:45]>> There is no such thing as a moral or ethical family vlogger. At first, family vlogging is an alluring business that can bring high revenue. For my family, it became the primary source of income, as is often the case with most full-time family bloggers. Many child influencers are paid for their work, as I was, and this money has helped me in my adult life. However, this payment was usually a bribe. For example, we'd be rewarded $100 or shopping trip if we filmed a particularly embarrassing moment or an exciting event in our lives. or other times simply going on vacation was expected to be payment enough because most kids don't get to go on regular and expensive trips. Never mind the fact that the child's labor is actually what paid for the vacation. There was some money left over from her time on YouTube and Jessa did have a Kugan account set up. In California, parents of children who perform in movies and TV shows are required to deposit 15% of their income in a Kugan account. Kougan accounts take their name from Jackie Kugan, a child star whose mother and stepfather spent all of his earnings. His mother claimed no promises were ever made to give Jackie anything and stated that Jackie was in fact a bad boy. In 2024, California expanded the Kugan Act to include children of social media influencers. It seems Jess's parents were only required to put aside money from professional shoots, but in the end, there was not nearly enough to cover her college tuition. I think it's fair to estimate that Jessa probably made millions of dollars over the course of her career. I believe that there should have been at least six figures in her cougan account. And it's great that California requires 15% be put aside, but in my opinion, that's not nearly enough. I think the majority of the money child stars generate should be put into Kugan accounts to discourage parents from exclusively relying on their kids to pay their big mommy and daddy bills. In a Facebook statement, Jess's mom had a dismissive attitude toward Jess's earnings, stating, "Let's be real, your girl was not Macau Kulkin." Okay. She also claims that Jessa was not the family's only source of income, but does not elaborate.

[00:12:01]Jessica collaborated with another child star with a questionable digital footprint, Piper Raquel. She just turned 18 and just as recently started posting adult content on Only Fam.

[00:12:16]>> Everyone is now apparently. I mean, we're the only ones.

[00:12:19]>> Are you?

[00:12:20]>> I mean, we don't we probably should.

[00:12:23]>> Oh my god.

[00:12:23]>> I don't think anyone wants to see my feet, though. Hey everybody, join our Patreon or Andrew's gonna >> or I'll show you a feet.

[00:12:32]>> And that's a threat. Piper's mother stage managed her online career and recently settled a lawsuit for $1.8 million after 11 YouTube child stars alleged that she failed to fairly compensate them for their appearances in videos alongside her daughter, among other disturbing allegations. I wonder if the suit will inspire Jessa to pursue any kind of civil action against her mom. I'm guessing it's not worth her time since the money is mostly gone.

[00:13:00]Like she'd be suing just to make a point and probably wouldn't be able to recoup any money. If she ended up with anything, it would probably just be a box full of Laboos and matching Leoooo handbags. In a Facebook post from 2022, Helenne had the gall to brag about providing her own financial means.

[00:13:19]Buckle up. We have another chunk of Kellyanne. She's got things to say.

[00:13:24]>> Some won't believe this, but I'm proud to say that I worked hard for all that I have given my kids alone. Alone is in quotes. I guess because alone means exclusively because of my daughter's online exploitation, right?

[00:13:37]>> Such a clever use of quotation marks.

[00:13:40]Each year, I save to fund Christmas for my kids. I still can't believe I was that determined. People don't realize being a stay-at-home mom, we still have the ability to provide our own financial means. We hold it down, too. When there's a will, there's a way. Oh, what a will it was. Because where there's a tween, there's free labor. I added that last part, but that's what she means.

[00:14:03]Jessa has shared that what her mother portrayed on social media as far as material benefit did not match reality.

[00:14:09]For instance, she boasted about buying her daughter a BMW. But Jessa clarifies that she was not actually allowed to drive this car and typically had to rely on friends for rides. Why did you take down the post of me in front of a beamer that you bought with my earnings and pretend that you got it for me? You literally wrote on the caption, "Because she deserves it." And yet I was never allowed to drive. I had to ask friends and classmates for rides back home from school. Once again, her mom came in hot on Facebook to explain to us that all is not what it seems. She clarified that she had to take the car away because she walked in on Jessa and her boyfriend when she was 16 and he was 18, which she alleges was a crime. Just to summarize, Jessa said, "You took my car." And Kellyanne said, "Yeah, well, you had a boyfriend." No matter their ages, we can all agree that it is strange and unacceptable to talk about your daughter like this. And it also underlines the fact that she just does not care about her daughter's privacy or respect her as an individual. The minute Kelly Anne thought it benefited her, she threw her daughter under the bus, which is in keeping with her willingness to put her child in front of the camera while she hid behind stockpiles of doilies and glitter spray and these weird big-headed sticker children. And here's another red flag. Jess's mom chose to homeschool. I believe this happened before high school. Obviously, we needed to go to high school for the prom photos, but we routinely see families who put their children to work in the social media coal mines opting to homeschool. While I believe parents should be free to educate children however they want, there is an obvious conflict of interest here. Are they homeschooling because it's the best option for their kids or because they want their children to be available to fulfill briefs for brand deals?

[00:16:00]I think we can all have our suspicions.

[00:16:02]It's not surprising that after homeschooling, Kelly Anne did not want Jessa to go to an expensive top tier college, but wanted her to stay near home and focus on a degree that would make money.

[00:16:15]>> My mom did not want me to go to college so far away. In fact, during the application process, she repeatedly expressed her belief that I wouldn't get into a good college, that I would be struggling in college in terms of finances, and that I should just stay in Fresno or go to Fresno State or community college and become a nurse, something that makes money. After using her daughter as a source of income, it seems like Kellyanne had difficulty wrapping her mind around the money draining prospect of a 4-year university. When Jessa asked her mom to write a recommendation letter, Kelly an allegedly told her that she had nothing to write. During the application process, I had her write me a letter addressed to my counselor so that she could write me a letter of recommendation. My mom ultimately told me that she had nothing to write because she didn't know what good qualities I had. Kelly Anne once again says this version of events isn't true and produced the letter that she wrote to the counselor. Here's the thing, Kelly.

[00:17:05]Jessa didn't say you never wrote the letter. She said that when she asked, you said something hurtful in response.

[00:17:12]These versions don't necessarily contradict each other. Similarly, Kellyanne tried to challenge Jess's version of events regarding the day that she left her mom's house. It's pretty convoluted and believe it or not mentions Leoooos. Kellyanne also really focuses on how her crown broke the day Jessa left home and how inconvenient it was because she wanted Jessa to watch her younger brother. her crown >> like her like on her on your tooth. You have a crown.

[00:17:40]>> How tooth?

[00:17:42]>> I think she was eating popcorn from what I >> So, it's not like her daughter's fault or like it has nothing to do with her.

[00:17:48]>> No, no, she was just snacking snacking hard. I think she's really telling on herself with her inability to see beyond her own day-to-day comfort. Another red flag I want to touch on, Jess's mom wasn't just a YouTube mamaager, she was also a pageant mom. Before Jessa removed herself from her parents' home, tension simmerred following Jess's participation in the Miss Louse pageant in San Diego.

[00:18:13]When I was bedridden for two weeks, I couldn't stand up without fainting. I had a persistent fever. I couldn't eat on my own, and I couldn't function and get out of bed. You were angry at me the whole time, and I thought it was because I was sick and unable to take care of my siblings. I thought maybe you were just mad at me for being sick in general, and being sick was just a burden to you. and turns out you were mad at this Instagram post. I wrote this caption and I want you guys to read it and see if you can find anything wrong with it. The thing wrong with this caption is I didn't thank my mom. I didn't mention her in this caption where the director or the person making this post asked me for my experience on competing.

[00:18:50]That is why I was sick for so long, dehydrated, couldn't walk or stand up and my mom refused to help me because of this Instagram post. Kelly Anne also shared news of Jess's pageant win on Facebook and she takes a moment to reminisce about her own win in the Miss Laauo Fresno competition in 1999. She doesn't share any photos of her pageant win and I couldn't find any record of a Miss Laauo competition ever taking place in Fresno. The only one I could find is the San Diego competition. I don't doubt that she could have won a pageant.

[00:19:23]Obviously, she's a very pretty lady, but I also think she's a liar. This is an opinion and this video is for entertainment and viewers can do their own research. But I looked pretty hard for a Miss Laauo Fresno competition. I signed up for a newspapers.com subscription and looked at old copies of the Fresno B and got nowhere. I also emailed the Lao Community Cultural Center Fresno chapter, got no response.

[00:19:48]I probably spent too much time on this part. Okay. You really contacted all those people with like your >> what? Where was this pageant? What had happened? Who won? Tell me everything.

[00:19:59]>> Oh my god.

[00:20:00]>> And there's like they're like mark they marked it as spam >> unread and deleted.

[00:20:06]>> Yeah.

[00:20:07]>> Maybe she won a pageant somewhere at some point. It's easy to think that with pageant moms like maybe they're envious of their child's time in the spotlight.

[00:20:16]Like it should have been me with that crown.

[00:20:19]>> That's obviously what it is. It seems obvious that that's what it is, but at the same time, Kellyanne definitely shies away from the camera. So, so I'm not sure. Like, does she want the spotlight? Kind of don't think so.

[00:20:31]>> I have a theory, but you're not going to like it.

[00:20:33]>> I guess I just don't know what goes on inside the twisted minds of stage moms.

[00:20:38]What What's your theory?

[00:20:39]>> I don't I think she doesn't trust anyone to do the camera work. She doesn't She didn't have anyone to do it. That's why nobody sees me. I'm over here all the time.

[00:20:50]Hello. But like it's not that I don't like I don't want the spotlight. I'm just operating the camera. Here's what you got to give her the benefit of the doubt of the just the production side of things.

[00:21:02]>> No, I know that you always want to like bring attention to the productions plate. Boohoo.

[00:21:07]>> The poor crew.

[00:21:08]>> The poor crew. You tell that he works on a TV crew. We should really make a YouTube video about the exploitation of YouTube husbands. I'm going to make my own show about your own I'm going to make my own channel and it's going to be about me only. Me and I'm going to win the pageant and wear the crown.

[00:21:26]>> I'm just saying that you're old enough to be exploited.

[00:21:28]>> I think it'd be nicer to say I'm young enough to be exploited.

[00:21:30]>> You're young enough to be exploited and that's how to look at it. Now, I know there will be people in the comments of this video who want to talk about narcissistic collapse. I will say I'm pretty unimpressed by online discussions of narcissism. Obviously, there are narcissistic traits at work here, but it's impossible to know if someone has full-blown narcissistic personality disorder without having met them and without having the relevant psychology background. So, this area of discussion doesn't really interest me. Have at it in the comments, but it's just not my thing. Kellyanne showcases pictures of her daughter in her scrapbook and shows her beautifully dressed and enshrined by many layers of lacy shabby chic decorations. And if you stumbled on these crafting videos, you would assume, "Oh, this is a doting parent who is crafting these elaborate scrapbook pages as a way to preserve the deep love and affection they felt for their small children." And what a beautiful thing for their children to discover after they've grown up. But based on what Jessa has told us, what Kellyanne really loves most of all is the friery and the embellishments. The photos might as well be of boooos, which is heartbreaking.

[00:22:42]And I feel the need to underline just because a child is apparently materially well- cared for does not preclude other forms of abuse. I was just talking to a friend of mine who's a new mom about the guilt of not doing an amazing job of journaling and scrapbooking and filling out all the baby books, but it's just like who has the time for arts and crafts when you have a tiny little baby or even when you have a slightly less tiny toddler. I want to dedicate this videos to all the moms out there who want to scrapbook and do all the cute photo shoots but just can't find the time. Let this serve as a reminder that if you're spending all your time caring for your kids and going to work so that they don't have to help you out financially as children, maybe you don't need a photo collage as proof of your love. Maybe you'll have beautiful memories with your children and and that'll be all the proof that you need.

[00:23:35]Thanks for watching and subscribe if you want to know more about the unrelenting horror of the influencer economy. And subscribe to our Patreon for extra videos and if you don't want to have to look at Andrew's feet. Thanks again and good night. And don't worry, there aren't a bunch of Laboos hiding under your bed. I already checked.

[00:23:53]>> You look kind of a Candace Owens like with your chicken neck now. Oh, now do Erica Kirk where you're just glaring and glaring. Now be a little boo. Be round. Be be tiny. Be big. I don't know.

[00:24:07]Be furry.

[00:24:08]>> Back by popular demand. It's my Gen Z middle part. Our last video uh did pretty well, I think, because of all the comments >> on my middle part. Because I asked for part feedback. Ask people, "Do they believe in God?" They're like, "I don't know. Who cares?" They're like, "Do you believe in my middle part?" And they're like, "Yes.