July 31, 2025 • 28 mins
Freelee the Banana Girl was the face of the online vegan movement in Australia. The OG wellness warrior captured mainstream attention when she claimed she ate 51 bananas.
What started out as a mission to spread awareness about veganism, quickly became a toxic crusade for online power and clout. Rather than fighting for the rights of animals, Freelee fought with other vegans and influencers. And instead of progressing the vegan movement, she instead progressed her own personal agenda.
These days, Freelee is somewhat of an internet urban legend of the 2010s. Internet whispers say she’s still living off the grid in a jungle. Despite her influence being at full power over a decade ago, her Raw Til 4 Diet is still being blamed for fueling follower’s eating disorders.
We are journalists Amy, Kate & Sophie Taeuber and we’re fascinated by the world of influencers and the psychology of cancel culture. In this series we will delve into Freelee’s biggest scandals, her fall from grace and the danger of influence.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We want to issue a trigger warning as we will
be discussing themes around eating disorders and domestic violence.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hi everyone, my name's Freely, and today I'm going to
show you how much fruit are in a day.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Freely the Banana Girl, was the face of the online
vegan movement in Australia. The og wellness warrior captured mainstream attention.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
When she claims she ate fifty one bananas.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Fifty one bananas today.
Speaker 4 (00:24):
This is finished.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm gonna I'm really fool oh.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
What started out as a mission to spread awareness about
veganism quickly became a toxic crusade.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
For online power and clout.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Rather than fighting for the rights of animals, Freely fought
with other vegans and influences, and instead of progressing the
vegan movement, she instead progressed her own personal agenda. These days,
Freely is somewhat of an Internet urban legend of the
twenty tens. Internet whispers say she's still living off the
grid inner jungle, despite her influence being at full power
(00:57):
over a decade ago.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Her rulet of.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Four is still being blamed for fueling followers eating disorders.
We are journalists Sophie and Kate Torbert and we are
fascinated by the world of influencers and the psychology of
cancel culture.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
In this series, we.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Will delve into Freeley's biggest scandals for full.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
From Grace and the danger of influence.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
When you say the name Freely the Banana Girl, it
really elicits a particular response from people our age Sophie.
She has become an Internet urban legend from the twenty tens,
and there are a lot of TikTok circulating at the
moment where people are reflecting on that time and saying
that she triggered their eating disorders with the content that
she was putting out there because it was sort of
around the guise of being healthy because all she was
(01:38):
consuming was fruit, but in very large and weird quantities.
And she was extremely powerful. So she had over seven
hundred and ninety thousand YouTube subscribers and four hundred and
twenty five thousand followers between her two Instagram accounts during
the early days of influencing. That was a massive amount. Yeah,
that was massive at the time. She is Australian as well,
which might surprise some people. An Adelaide girl actually, So
(02:01):
it was a crazy time for Adelaide because you had
Freely the Banana Girl, and also Kayla had seen us
both living in South Australia. Yeah, and Freely isn't her
real name. Her name is Leanne Radcliffe, and I mean
it doesn't quite have the same ring to it. It's
not as catchy. Yeah. And she called herself Freely the
Banana Girl because it's a combination of her first name,
Leanne so Lee and the word freedom and of course
(02:23):
her fruit of choice, which was bananas. So Freely started
her YouTube channel back in two thousand and seven as
a place to spread awareness about veganism and also to
record her progress. I didn't even know YouTube was a
thing in two thousand and seven. I'm reflecting that is
the year after we graduated from high school. And it's
quite ironic because before becoming a YouTuber, Freely worked in
a range of hospitality jobs, including working at McDonald's. Is
(02:45):
that why she turned vegan? Maybe her experience at McDonald's.
Maybe Now her diet was at the center of everything
she shared, and this was at a time when veganism
was taking off and causing a lot of debate online.
She followed what she called a fruit givorous diet, which
is a zoological term for species who thrive on a
diet consisting of fruit. Now a more accurate term to
(03:07):
describe her diet is fruitarian. Whenever I hear the word fruitarian,
I always think of the movie Nodding Hill.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Was it Alice? That was from Vicker of Dibley. Her
character was a.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Fruitarian here And what got freely a lot of attention
in the mainstream media was that she claimed that she
ate fifty one bananas in a day. That headline was
absolutely everywhere. It's how I learned of her, And I
was like, what the hell, because I actually hate bananas,
so the thought of eating fifty one is just not pleasant.
It's also a lot of calories to consume on bananas,
because most bananas have about one hundred calories. So it
(03:37):
was definitely to create a lot of shock and attention
her way. And she derived most of her daily food
intake from this style of eating that she named mono meals,
where she would eat a single fruit of vegetable but
in bold so normally she would eat perhaps twenty bananas
in a day, or she'd stick to pineapple and have
two pineapples in a day or six mangoes in a day.
(03:58):
Wouldn't you get sick of the same thing all day long?
So on this diet she ended up losing forty pounds
and that became a major promotional tool that she used
to say, I lost so much weight and you should
eat like me. Now we can't talk about Freely without
discussing her boyfriend and fellow vegan activist, Harley Johnston. So,
just like Freely, Harley had a vegan alias. So he
(04:21):
went by the name Durian Ryder, which came from his
love of the fruit Durian and also his passion for cycling.
The only thing I really know about Durians is that
they're very popular in Malaysia, and when we would holiday
there as children, there would be these big gold signs
up all over the hotel saying don't bring them in
because when you open them up, apparently they stink. Yeah.
(04:43):
That always put me off from trying ones. So I
actually don't know what they taste like when assuming they're good.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I think they're very sweet.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I think that actually tastes really nice apart from the smell.
So Freely and Harley actually met online in two thousand
and seven on a raw vegan food forum and they
instantly hit it off, bonding over veganism and their love
of training.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
That's quite rare because I feel.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Like there was still a bit of internet danger back
in two thousand and seven, Like if you met said
that you met someone online, you would think that they
were some crazed murderer or predator, Like you wouldn't be
meeting up with them.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah, So it was a.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Pretty novel thing back in two thousand and seven. So
Harley took Freely under his wing and he got it
into a strict high carb, zero stimulant diet so she
could take part in a forty plus day bike ride
across Australia with him in two thousand and eight. And
they were definitely the Internet power couple of the twenty tens,
nothing like the couple goals we've come to see on
(05:35):
Instagram though.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Instead, their power.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Came from backing each other's controversial view So, for example,
they were both very passionate about stopping the human race
from reproducing. In fact, some of the content they shared
centered around trying to convince men to get vasectomies. Now,
in two thousand and nine, Freely launched her own forum
called thirty bananas a day, and she built a very
engaged community. Forums were just massive back then, and it
(06:01):
did seem like there was almost a niche forum for everyone.
In this case, it was about raw food, veganism, gardening,
and exercise. A lot of celebrities were also creating fan
forums and then charging their fans to join it. I
remember there was a Rob Mills forum that we may
have paid money to join. We pay for that, I
think we did. I think you had to pay a
membership fee because it would be a gimmick that they
(06:23):
would then come on to the forum and chat to everyone.
I don't think we ever paid a Mum would never
allowed us to do that.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
We did pay it.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I think we put our birthday pocket money or something
to it.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Oh God, that is so sad.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Moving on swiftly, I think the anonymous nature of forums
like this made it the perfect place for people to
be able to connect without judgment.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
And it's funny.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Because I remember you'd have more clout on forums based
on your avatar or signature, how many posts you'd made.
It was also a very dangerous place as well, because
the anonymous nature of people meant that.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
They would share their deepest, darkest thoughts.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Which in this case, when you're bonding over something extreme
is eating fifty bananas a day, or really restricting your calories.
This sort of place just bread eating disorders. Now, when
it came to Freely's diet, it wasn't just about getting
people to eat vegan. She really wanted people to follow
exactly what she was eating, and in a bid to
(07:18):
get people to follow her vegan diet, she created diet
ebooks promising this lure of weight loss with her as
a bit of a hook because she had lost so
much weight, and the most well known of her ebooks
was called the Raw till four Diet. And this phrase
just sends a shit of down my spine. I remember
at the time a lot of our friends doing it,
and it was seen as doing something that you're being
(07:38):
quite You'll be obviously restrictive, but it was seen as
being very vigil and I'm doing this before I have
a special event on The name is quite ingenious because
you don't really need to know that much about it
other than the fact that you can't eat cooked foods
until four o'clock, so your options are pretty limited. You're
eating raw fruit or vegetables until four pm, and I
mean and I mean, that's just not good for you. Well,
(08:00):
it did specify in the book that after four pm
you could indulge in Freely's cooked mono meals. Yeah, and
one extreme example of one of these mono meals was
eight pounds of cooked potatoes for dinner. Now, this is
where things got quite confusing, because despite Freely promoting her
ebooks under the guise of weight loss, a lot of
people actually started coming out and saying that the diet
(08:21):
made them gain weight, and it forced Freely to defend
the diet, saying it wasn't about instant results and could
take up to two years to get results. She also
explained that she initially gained twenty kilos on the diet
and it took her a while to lose the weight.
What an interesting diet plan because you never hear people going, oh,
it actually takes two years, like it used to be
back in the day, You'll get to this in like
(08:41):
thirty day. Well you think about Kayla had seen this
as ebook which was around it a similar time, and
it was called The Bikini Body Guide, and it was
about instant results. It was an eight I think an
eight week program, and it was basically get fit for
summer so you can go out in a bikini. But
this is saying, Okay, it takes you two years, you're
probably going to put on a bit of weight in
the interim. To me, it kind of makes sense as
(09:03):
to why people were putting on weight though, because even
when you crunch the numbers, if you were eating an
extreme of anything, particularly like fruit, which has a lot
of natural sugars in it, of course you're going to
put on a lot of weight. Yeah. And her example
of eating eight kilograms worth of potatoes, like, you're not
really going to be dropping kilos. Well, it's all about
eating in abundance, isn't it, Because it's I ate fifty
(09:24):
one bananas like yeah, that's still five one hundred calories
in a day. But that's how she hooked people in
because they thought, okay, well I can lose weight and
look really good, but actually eat a lot of food. Now,
the raw till four diet was slammed for being incredibly restrictive, unbalanced,
and nutritionally deficient, and experts warned it could lead to
disordered eating. Now, many people have come out and said
(09:46):
that Freeley's content, as you said at the start of
this episode, fueled their eating disorders and had a really
negative impact on their health. And I think the saddest
thing is that many of Freeley's followers were very well
meaning and interested in veganism for animal rights and ethical reasons,
and many of them were really vulnerable and they were
searching for a way to become healthy and lose weight.
And it's really hard to look back at that time
(10:08):
because she really did promote such a toxic and disordered
way of eating that harms so many people. I think
veganism really became coded for going on a diet. There
were so many YouTubers who would say, Oh, I'm testing
out a vegan diet for a couple of weeks so
I can try and lose weight. It didn't necessarily have
anything to do with them wanting to, you know, help
animals or an ethical approach to it. And a lot
(10:31):
of people who actually had eating disorders prior to discovering
veganism used it as a cover.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
So there are a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
That ended up having authorex here from adopting the vegan
diet well, because it automatically cuts out butter meal well,
so many groups, so many food groups, and instead of
saying I'm doing this because I want to get skinny,
you're saying, no, I want to do this for all
the ethical reasons.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah, don't question me about it.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Well, it's pretty interesting because Freely hit her peak fame
between two thousand and fourteen and twenty sixteen, and that's
when she began calling out non vegan YouTubers, so the
concept wasn't new at the time. The vegan YouTube community
was absolutely riddled with drama, and other big vegan YouTubers
were finding a lot of notoriety by attacking non vegan
(11:17):
creators for their diet. So for instance, in twenty fourteen,
a vegan YouTube bodybuilder known as Vegan Gains viciously attacked
another YouTube body builder called Furious Pete over his non
vegan diet. So Vegan Gains when as far to say
that Furious Pete's testicular cancer diagnosis was caused by eating
non vegan There was also another big fight between Jury
(11:40):
and Ryder and another vegan influencer called the d Man
about the number of avocados he was eating each day. God,
you have to have a stupid YouTube handle, a nickname
in order to be a vegan influencer like these just
sound ridiculous. Yeah. On another local front, popular vegan YouTuber
Asena O'Neil. She infamously quit social media in twenty fifteen
after she became a target for takedown videos from smaller
(12:04):
vegan content creators. Now, a video Freely created in twenty
fourteen slamming Jenna Marbles drastically changed the game for Freely.
So for those not familiar with Jenna Marbles, she is
an American YouTuber who, at the peak of her fame
had over twenty million subscribers. Now she announced her indefinite
hiatus from YouTube in twenty twenty after followers dug up
(12:25):
old racist content from her channel. Anyway before all that,
in a bid to gain attention, Freely uploaded a video
to YouTube called why has Jenna Marbles Gained Weight? And,
in the video that has now been viewed over three
point four million times, Freely claimed that Jenna had gained
weight since stopping eating a vegan diet.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Let's throw to a snippet of what she said.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But move on a couple of years or a year
or so, and Jenna is really starting to put on weight.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
It's this one.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Okay, she's not fat.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Lady means, but she is definitely gaining weight. So the
people out there saying, oh.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
You're fat shaming, freely, you're fat shaming, blah bl blah,
but no, get over it. Clearly just making an observation.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
She is gaining weight.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So why is she Because she has.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Gone off her vegan her predominantly vegan plant and she's
smashing in the junk food. She makes videos a bit
the way she basically makes fun of herself smashing in
junk food food, and you know, in an attempt to
kind of relate to most of the population who smashes
in the junk food.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
During the almost eight minute video freely through to clips
of Jenna eating junk food, as well as showing clips
of how Jenna's body had changed. She then had this
advice for her.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Okay, so that's the beauty of her plant food's lifestyle.
You can smash in the calories every single meal. You
can eat abundantly. You can eat your heart, your brain,
your bellies content every single time and only get beneficial results.
You get slimmer and slimmer and slimmer.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
The mold calories you eat over time of plant foods,
which is I mean high powered plant foods, let's get
that right, not high fat vegan foods.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
So you have to make sure eat high car beingan foods. So, Jenna,
this is a message to you girl, come back over
to the good side. You know this works, you know
the vegan lifestyle works. You set yourself.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
At the end of the video, Freeley claimed that she
had created the video because she cared about Jenna so
much that she asked her followers to contact Jenna and
share the video with her and sorry, if you cared
about Jenna, you would have a quiet word to her
about it in a sensitive and tactful way. This was
far from sensitive and tactful. I just can't even imagine
someone creating a video like this in twenty twenty five
(14:34):
and thinking it's appropriate one to point out that someone
has gained weight and to think that you have control
over their diet and what they have to eat. It
just shows how far we've actually come. Because when I
was listening to this, I was like, I cannot believe
that this was put out and not slammed. Disturbingly, Freeley's
plan seemed to work because Jenna ended up commenting on
(14:54):
Freeley's Facebook page, saying, I just watched your video and
I wanted to thank you for always supporting me through
my vegan journey. It's been years on and off for me,
and I really appreciate you holding me personally accountable. It
actually helps me, and I never find what you do
offensive a lot of other people do. I think you're
wonderful and it's so admirable how passionate you are about veganism.
(15:16):
You have a wonderful message in heart, and I hope
people can see that. I know a lot of people
whose lives. You've changed so many people's lives. I have
made it to a point to really make myself ethically
driven because of you and other vegan YouTubers, and I
feel much more confident that this is something I can
have my whole life. Thank you for your relentless effort
to make veganism visible and approachable and not an extreme
(15:38):
way of living, but a loving and caring, maintainable life.
So I mean, I would call eating fifty one bananas
not very maintainable and quite extreme. She finished by saying
You're wonderful and I'm sending all positive fruit vibes your way.
Fucking hell Wow, it is crazy to think that Jenna
Marble's actually thanks Freely for calling her out and fact
shaming her. And it's interesting the use of the term
(16:00):
ethically driven, the fact that Freeley would say, oh, I'm
only fat shaming people because you know, ethically they shouldn't
be eating meat like it's actually insane. Off the back
of the Jenna Marbles call out video, Freely started to
change up her YouTube channel and move more in that direction.
She ramped up the call out videos of non vegan
YouTubers and no one was safe and at the time,
(16:21):
she did wield a lot of power and an interesting
part of Freely's strategy was actually weaponizing her followers. So
after taking aim at an influencer, she would then issue
a call out to her followers to essentially attack the person. However,
she packaged it up a lot nicer. So Freely called
her followers her fruit bats, and she asked them to
(16:41):
go spread their fruit seeds, aka troll her latest target.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
And they did this in the.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Form of leaving banana emojis in the comment section of
the latest target's YouTube videos.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
That is just wild to me.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I know that the Internet isn't a perfect place in
twenty twenty four But my god, it was a disgusting.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Place to be in the two Ends.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Well, it actually reminds me when Kim Kardashian sent her
fans to go troll Taylor Swift and leave snake emojis.
Maybe that's where she got the idea from the bananas
Yeah Now. Freely next set her sights on YouTuber Casey
Hoe of bloggilates now. In late twenty fourteen, she was
accused of bullying the popular influencer and Freely claimed in
a YouTube video the Casey wasn't eating enough and alleged
(17:23):
that she promoted eating disorders, which is a bit rich now.
The video ended up getting removed from YouTube after Casey
reported the video for copyright, and this started and all out.
Boar So Freely claimed that Casey was using corporate lawyers
to take her down, and she went on to allege
that she had received legal documents from Casey. However, when
(17:45):
she was asked to provide receipts, all she could show
was the copyright emails that she received from YouTube Now.
Casey denied the claims that she was trying to sue
Freely and ended up detracting the copyright claim against the videos.
Now in early twenty fifteen, Freely met her match with
fellow Adelaidian and fitness guru Kayla had seen us so
(18:09):
at the time, Kayla was big competition for Freely. So
her bikini Bodyguide was all the rage, as you spoke
about earlier. So literally everyone I know was doing it.
I think it was more popular in my friendship group
than Freeley's diet.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Oh definitely.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I think that Freely's diet was very extreme and she
really tapped into a niche group of people.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
So, just as Freely had done with other big influences,
she took aim at Kayla's fitness program in a YouTube
video so Freely claimed that Kayla's guide stave people and
that her then boyfriend and business partner Toby Pierce used steroids.
Freeley's then boyfriend Durian Ryder also.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Got in on the action, making similar claims.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
And Kayla was very quick to hit back, labeling the
pair's actions as wrong and illegal in a Facebook post,
and she went on to file an injunction with the
Supreme Court to have the videos removed from YouTube the
comments as defamatory. Now unperturbed, Freely and Jurian Writer responded with,
of course, a follow up video stating that they were
just sharing their nutritional opinion and should not be sued
(19:11):
for speaking up. I remember at the time that this
story was massive, particularly in Adelaide. I was working at
Channel seven at the time. It was leading news, it
was front page news as well. Now, this case was
heard in the Supreme Court of South Australia in March
twenty fifteen, and Freely and Jurian Rider turned the event
into a complete circus. So more than one hundred of
(19:32):
their fans lined up outside the Supreme Court chanting the
duet's catchphrase carb the fuck up. Now. Only fifteen of
those fans were actually allowed inside the court, while the
rest were told to wait outside, and several fans shouted
good luck, Harley and Freely as they entered into the building.
Kayla did not attend court, however, her partner at the time,
Toby Pierce, was in attendance while Kayla wasn't there, though
(19:54):
she let her sentiments be known so in court documents
obtained by the media, she and Hope labeled Freely and
Jurian Rider as foul mouth parasites who are claiming victim
status and trying to encourage cyber vigilante action against them.
She is an absolute class act, and Kayla and her
team would have been aware that if she had turned
up to the court and they had got vision and
(20:16):
photographs of her, it would have been pumped up even
more to be portrayed as this catfight between these two
popular fitness influences.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Also just being dragged down onto their level.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Well, I wouldn't really feel comfortable physically appearing at this
court case when there's hundreds of Freely's fans there who
were chanting and being aggressive.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Now.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Kayla and Toby were represented by QC Andrew Harris, while
Freely was being defended by lawyer Greg Griffin. Jurian Rider,
on the other hand, represented himself, and with so much
mayhem going on outside the court, Kayla and Toby's lawyer
urged the judge to explain the rules of the court
to the public gallery because he was concerned that Freely
(20:56):
supporters would film the proceedings and upload them to YouTube. Now,
the main issue addressed during the hearing was the status
of the offending YouTube videos. So Kayla's injunction had ordered
Freely and Durian Rider to remove the videos, but that
had only partially occurred. While Freely had removed the video
from her YouTube channel, Durian Ryder had set his video
(21:17):
to private now. He claimed that he had done so
in case he needed the video or the comments posted
on them as evidence, and he went on to say
in court I was just sharing my honest opinion in
the name of public interest on YouTube. Yeah, and Kayla
and Toby's lawyer hit back, saying, we can agree to
disagree whether this is a matter of free speech or
rather a cynical attempt at ambush marketing. Our principal goal
(21:40):
is to have the material taken off the Internet. After
hearing the evidence, the judge said that the matter should
proceed immediately to trial. However, Kayla and Toby's lawyer asked
for a seven day adjournment to pursue negotiations. NA Kayla
and Toby's lawyer said that there was a prospect of
amicable resolution between Kayla, Toby and Freely, meaning I don't
think he thought Durian Ryder was going to settle. It's
(22:02):
very clear that Kayla and her team wanted to avoid
a trial because this would have turned into an even
bigger media circus. I mean, Freely and Duran were already
showing them by having hundreds of their fans appear in court.
It's also very costly exercise for something like this to
go to trial. Also their road comments, because if they're
trying to defend what they said, the fact that they
said that Toby PSU steroids, which is completely defamatory, like
(22:25):
you probably don't want them spurning out more lies about it.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
It appell it form.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And that's the thing, like things get very nasty when
they go to trial, and sometimes there's no winners out
of it.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Well, outside the court, Freely told reporters that she couldn't
discuss the case based on legal advice, while Durian Ryder
said he wanted the matter to proceed to trial because
you can see that their attention seekers out of this.
Their whole goal has been to call out bigger creators
just so that they can gain more and more followers.
So Jurian ryders said, we were just talking about eating
disorders on YouTube. We were just sharing our views openly
(22:57):
based on public interest. I would like to go to
try and get as much exposure as possible on eating
disorders and Instagram diets, the keyword being exposure I think
for himself.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Well, that weekend, Freely told her followers in a YouTube video,
I'm not stressed.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I know good will prevail now.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
A week later, Kayla and Toby's lawyers told the South
Australian Supreme Court that the parties had successfully reached a deal.
Under the terms of the agreement, Freely and Durian Rider
were barred from making disparaging statements about Kayla and Toby
in social print or electronic media. It was decided that
the matter would conclude without financial penalty or the payment
(23:32):
of court costs, which is quite interesting, A pretty good
deal I think for Freely and Jurian Now. While Freely's
lawyer was in agreement with Kayla and Toby's lawyer, it
was clear Durian Writer wasn't happy about the decision. When
he was asked by the judge if he consented to
the settlement.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
He replied mm hm.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
The judge also made formal orders that the settlement be
carried out. He also listed the matter for a final
hearing in May to ensure the settlement had been complied
by all the parties. Obviously, he wasn't really that trusting
of Durian writer. I mean, it kind of makes sense
for Kaylor and Toby not to necessarily ask for any
money from them, because I think that that could have
been negatively portrayed in the media that they were out
to destroy fellow fitness influencer when they just wanted them
(24:13):
to shut the fuck up and stop talking about them.
So Durian Ryder told reporters outside of court that he
was not too clear on what the settlement entailed other
than basically keep your opinion to yourself. While Kayler chose
not to attend court again, Toby Pierce was there and
he told reporters I'm glad some smart decisions were made
and we've been able to come to an amicable agreement
between the parties. Freely also fronted the media outside court
(24:36):
and said, recalling every detail of it, the settlement is
a little difficult, but I understand it and I will
follow it. This really demonstrated that Kayla and Toby were
forced not to be reckoned with. They're extremely professional in
shutting this down. It does show what money and power
can do, and also having the right brains behind it. Definitely, now,
despite the court hearing, Freely didn't stop her pursuit of
(24:59):
other YouTubers. This one really surprises me because in October
twenty fifteen, she called out UK YouTube royalty Zoela So
in a video entitled is Zoela a Hypocrite? Nala Pug
Verse Pig, Freely questioned how Zoela can love her pug
Nala so much but then eat other animals which are
equally as smart and beautiful. Now, Freely decided to demonstrate
(25:21):
this by juxtapositioning vision of Zoella playing with her black
pug to vision of her eating bacon, eggs and.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Sausages for breakfast. This a stretch, really.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Now. Zoela didn't respond, but it did come out that
she had blocked Freely, which was a good decision. I
actually really liked that from her because she didn't weigh
into the drama.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
She didn't give Freely what she wanted. She simply just
blocked her.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Because that is what Freely and Adrian Ryder have wanted
out of this whole thing is attention. They want the
larger creator to come back at them so that then
their fans become aware of who they are.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah, it didn't stop there.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
In May twenty sixteen, Freely also took aim at US
YouTuber Tanna Mojo, and she critics a video Tanner made
entitled how I Stay Skinny, which is just.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Wild to me.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I cannot see a creator getting away with creating a
video about how they say skinny. No, I mean ma
giving tips and tricks. It's just under the guise of
other things. Now, it's like what I to day, It's
true now, Freely basically said that Tanner Mojo was full
of crap, and Tana ended up doing a big call
out video in response to Freely, so Freely got what
(26:25):
she wanted. Freely, of course, then hit back, seemingly debunking
what Tanner had said, and the hashtag Tanna lies started
trending on the internet. Now, this came at a time
where Tana really cared about her image, and it just
was a back and forth of insults.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Between the pair.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I find it so ironic that Freely made a name
for herself by calling out other YouTubers when her own
behavior was so questionable and problematic. Yeah, she was constantly
causing controversy and also making very outlandish and dangerous claims.
One of those had to do with her a manner.
Rhea so she continued to bush medical misinformation when she
stated that a menna rhea, which is the absence of
(27:02):
your period, was a sign of health. So she shared
that she had a menoreea for nine months, and she
explained that it meant her body was healthy and had
fewer toxins to.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Flush out via menstruation.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
In reality, it is actually a result of low body weight,
poor nutrition, disordered eating, and other illnesses. Additionally, it can
lead to infertility and osteoporosis. Is that why they were
trying to push it so much because they were trying
to stamp out.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
People from wanting children.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yeah, they were trying to stop reproduction with their love
of vasectomes. Now, to make matters worse, Freely was also
fat phobic, so she regularly criticized the appearance of other
YouTubers and overweight people in general, and she also claimed
that there were more deaths caused in the nine eleven
terrorist attack because of obese people blocking the doors and
not allowing fit people to pass through.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
God, what the hell?
Speaker 1 (27:53):
That is just disgusting. It gets worse because after the
tragic death of teenage makeup guru Talia Castinello, no owners
Tarlia Joy eighteen on YouTube, Freely uploaded a video claiming
that Talia's death could have been prevented had she forgote
chemotherapy in favor of a raw vegan diet. Oh my gosh.
She also claimed that chemotherapy was dangerous, poisonous, and an
(28:15):
ineffective treatment for cancer. That makes me so bad now.
One of the biggest controversies to rock Freeley's image centered
around her boyfriend and partner in crime, Durian Rider. Next week,
we will dive into the drama that unfolded at Freely's
tie Fruit Festival and explore her breakup with Durian Ryder
and her move to the jungle. This episode was recorded
(28:38):
on the traditional land of the Ghana people of the
Adelaide Planes. We pay respect to Elder's past and present
We want to issue a trigger warning as we will
be discussing themes around eating disorders and domestic violence.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hi everyone, my name's Freely, and today I'm going to
show you how much fruit are in a day.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Freely the Banana Girl, was the face of the online
vegan movement in Australia. The og wellness warrior captured mainstream attention.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
When she claims she ate fifty one bananas.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Fifty one bananas today.
Speaker 4 (00:24):
This is finished.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm gonna I'm really fool oh.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
What started out as a mission to spread awareness about
veganism quickly became a toxic crusade.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
For online power and clout.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Rather than fighting for the rights of animals, Freely fought
with other vegans and influences, and instead of progressing the
vegan movement, she instead progressed her own personal agenda. These days,
Freely is somewhat of an Internet urban legend of the
twenty tens. Internet whispers say she's still living off the
grid inner jungle, despite her influence being at full power
(00:57):
over a decade ago.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Her rulet of.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Four is still being blamed for fueling followers eating disorders.
We are journalists Sophie and Kate Torbert and we are
fascinated by the world of influencers and the psychology of
cancel culture.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
In this series, we.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Will delve into Freeley's biggest scandals for full.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
From Grace and the danger of influence.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
When you say the name Freely the Banana Girl, it
really elicits a particular response from people our age Sophie.
She has become an Internet urban legend from the twenty tens,
and there are a lot of TikTok circulating at the
moment where people are reflecting on that time and saying
that she triggered their eating disorders with the content that
she was putting out there because it was sort of
around the guise of being healthy because all she was
(01:38):
consuming was fruit, but in very large and weird quantities.
And she was extremely powerful. So she had over seven
hundred and ninety thousand YouTube subscribers and four hundred and
twenty five thousand followers between her two Instagram accounts during
the early days of influencing. That was a massive amount. Yeah,
that was massive at the time. She is Australian as well,
which might surprise some people. An Adelaide girl actually, So
(02:01):
it was a crazy time for Adelaide because you had
Freely the Banana Girl, and also Kayla had seen us
both living in South Australia. Yeah, and Freely isn't her
real name. Her name is Leanne Radcliffe, and I mean
it doesn't quite have the same ring to it. It's
not as catchy. Yeah. And she called herself Freely the
Banana Girl because it's a combination of her first name,
Leanne so Lee and the word freedom and of course
(02:23):
her fruit of choice, which was bananas. So Freely started
her YouTube channel back in two thousand and seven as
a place to spread awareness about veganism and also to
record her progress. I didn't even know YouTube was a
thing in two thousand and seven. I'm reflecting that is
the year after we graduated from high school. And it's
quite ironic because before becoming a YouTuber, Freely worked in
a range of hospitality jobs, including working at McDonald's. Is
(02:45):
that why she turned vegan? Maybe her experience at McDonald's.
Maybe Now her diet was at the center of everything
she shared, and this was at a time when veganism
was taking off and causing a lot of debate online.
She followed what she called a fruit givorous diet, which
is a zoological term for species who thrive on a
diet consisting of fruit. Now a more accurate term to
(03:07):
describe her diet is fruitarian. Whenever I hear the word fruitarian,
I always think of the movie Nodding Hill.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Was it Alice? That was from Vicker of Dibley. Her
character was a.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Fruitarian here And what got freely a lot of attention
in the mainstream media was that she claimed that she
ate fifty one bananas in a day. That headline was
absolutely everywhere. It's how I learned of her, And I
was like, what the hell, because I actually hate bananas,
so the thought of eating fifty one is just not pleasant.
It's also a lot of calories to consume on bananas,
because most bananas have about one hundred calories. So it
(03:37):
was definitely to create a lot of shock and attention
her way. And she derived most of her daily food
intake from this style of eating that she named mono meals,
where she would eat a single fruit of vegetable but
in bold so normally she would eat perhaps twenty bananas
in a day, or she'd stick to pineapple and have
two pineapples in a day or six mangoes in a day.
(03:58):
Wouldn't you get sick of the same thing all day long?
So on this diet she ended up losing forty pounds
and that became a major promotional tool that she used
to say, I lost so much weight and you should
eat like me. Now we can't talk about Freely without
discussing her boyfriend and fellow vegan activist, Harley Johnston. So,
just like Freely, Harley had a vegan alias. So he
(04:21):
went by the name Durian Ryder, which came from his
love of the fruit Durian and also his passion for cycling.
The only thing I really know about Durians is that
they're very popular in Malaysia, and when we would holiday
there as children, there would be these big gold signs
up all over the hotel saying don't bring them in
because when you open them up, apparently they stink. Yeah.
(04:43):
That always put me off from trying ones. So I
actually don't know what they taste like when assuming they're good.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I think they're very sweet.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I think that actually tastes really nice apart from the smell.
So Freely and Harley actually met online in two thousand
and seven on a raw vegan food forum and they
instantly hit it off, bonding over veganism and their love
of training.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
That's quite rare because I feel.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Like there was still a bit of internet danger back
in two thousand and seven, Like if you met said
that you met someone online, you would think that they
were some crazed murderer or predator, Like you wouldn't be
meeting up with them.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah, So it was a.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Pretty novel thing back in two thousand and seven. So
Harley took Freely under his wing and he got it
into a strict high carb, zero stimulant diet so she
could take part in a forty plus day bike ride
across Australia with him in two thousand and eight. And
they were definitely the Internet power couple of the twenty tens,
nothing like the couple goals we've come to see on
(05:35):
Instagram though.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Instead, their power.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Came from backing each other's controversial view So, for example,
they were both very passionate about stopping the human race
from reproducing. In fact, some of the content they shared
centered around trying to convince men to get vasectomies. Now,
in two thousand and nine, Freely launched her own forum
called thirty bananas a day, and she built a very
engaged community. Forums were just massive back then, and it
(06:01):
did seem like there was almost a niche forum for everyone.
In this case, it was about raw food, veganism, gardening,
and exercise. A lot of celebrities were also creating fan
forums and then charging their fans to join it. I
remember there was a Rob Mills forum that we may
have paid money to join. We pay for that, I
think we did. I think you had to pay a
membership fee because it would be a gimmick that they
(06:23):
would then come on to the forum and chat to everyone.
I don't think we ever paid a Mum would never
allowed us to do that.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
We did pay it.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I think we put our birthday pocket money or something
to it.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Oh God, that is so sad.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Moving on swiftly, I think the anonymous nature of forums
like this made it the perfect place for people to
be able to connect without judgment.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
And it's funny.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Because I remember you'd have more clout on forums based
on your avatar or signature, how many posts you'd made.
It was also a very dangerous place as well, because
the anonymous nature of people meant that.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
They would share their deepest, darkest thoughts.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Which in this case, when you're bonding over something extreme
is eating fifty bananas a day, or really restricting your calories.
This sort of place just bread eating disorders. Now, when
it came to Freely's diet, it wasn't just about getting
people to eat vegan. She really wanted people to follow
exactly what she was eating, and in a bid to
(07:18):
get people to follow her vegan diet, she created diet
ebooks promising this lure of weight loss with her as
a bit of a hook because she had lost so
much weight, and the most well known of her ebooks
was called the Raw till four Diet. And this phrase
just sends a shit of down my spine. I remember
at the time a lot of our friends doing it,
and it was seen as doing something that you're being
(07:38):
quite You'll be obviously restrictive, but it was seen as
being very vigil and I'm doing this before I have
a special event on The name is quite ingenious because
you don't really need to know that much about it
other than the fact that you can't eat cooked foods
until four o'clock, so your options are pretty limited. You're
eating raw fruit or vegetables until four pm, and I
mean and I mean, that's just not good for you. Well,
(08:00):
it did specify in the book that after four pm
you could indulge in Freely's cooked mono meals. Yeah, and
one extreme example of one of these mono meals was
eight pounds of cooked potatoes for dinner. Now, this is
where things got quite confusing, because despite Freely promoting her
ebooks under the guise of weight loss, a lot of
people actually started coming out and saying that the diet
(08:21):
made them gain weight, and it forced Freely to defend
the diet, saying it wasn't about instant results and could
take up to two years to get results. She also
explained that she initially gained twenty kilos on the diet
and it took her a while to lose the weight.
What an interesting diet plan because you never hear people going, oh,
it actually takes two years, like it used to be
back in the day, You'll get to this in like
(08:41):
thirty day. Well you think about Kayla had seen this
as ebook which was around it a similar time, and
it was called The Bikini Body Guide, and it was
about instant results. It was an eight I think an
eight week program, and it was basically get fit for
summer so you can go out in a bikini. But
this is saying, Okay, it takes you two years, you're
probably going to put on a bit of weight in
the interim. To me, it kind of makes sense as
(09:03):
to why people were putting on weight though, because even
when you crunch the numbers, if you were eating an
extreme of anything, particularly like fruit, which has a lot
of natural sugars in it, of course you're going to
put on a lot of weight. Yeah. And her example
of eating eight kilograms worth of potatoes, like, you're not
really going to be dropping kilos. Well, it's all about
eating in abundance, isn't it, Because it's I ate fifty
(09:24):
one bananas like yeah, that's still five one hundred calories
in a day. But that's how she hooked people in
because they thought, okay, well I can lose weight and
look really good, but actually eat a lot of food. Now,
the raw till four diet was slammed for being incredibly restrictive, unbalanced,
and nutritionally deficient, and experts warned it could lead to
disordered eating. Now, many people have come out and said
(09:46):
that Freeley's content, as you said at the start of
this episode, fueled their eating disorders and had a really
negative impact on their health. And I think the saddest
thing is that many of Freeley's followers were very well
meaning and interested in veganism for animal rights and ethical reasons,
and many of them were really vulnerable and they were
searching for a way to become healthy and lose weight.
And it's really hard to look back at that time
(10:08):
because she really did promote such a toxic and disordered
way of eating that harms so many people. I think
veganism really became coded for going on a diet. There
were so many YouTubers who would say, Oh, I'm testing
out a vegan diet for a couple of weeks so
I can try and lose weight. It didn't necessarily have
anything to do with them wanting to, you know, help
animals or an ethical approach to it. And a lot
(10:31):
of people who actually had eating disorders prior to discovering
veganism used it as a cover.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
So there are a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
That ended up having authorex here from adopting the vegan
diet well, because it automatically cuts out butter meal well,
so many groups, so many food groups, and instead of
saying I'm doing this because I want to get skinny,
you're saying, no, I want to do this for all
the ethical reasons.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah, don't question me about it.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Well, it's pretty interesting because Freely hit her peak fame
between two thousand and fourteen and twenty sixteen, and that's
when she began calling out non vegan YouTubers, so the
concept wasn't new at the time. The vegan YouTube community
was absolutely riddled with drama, and other big vegan YouTubers
were finding a lot of notoriety by attacking non vegan
(11:17):
creators for their diet. So for instance, in twenty fourteen,
a vegan YouTube bodybuilder known as Vegan Gains viciously attacked
another YouTube body builder called Furious Pete over his non
vegan diet. So Vegan Gains when as far to say
that Furious Pete's testicular cancer diagnosis was caused by eating
non vegan There was also another big fight between Jury
(11:40):
and Ryder and another vegan influencer called the d Man
about the number of avocados he was eating each day. God,
you have to have a stupid YouTube handle, a nickname
in order to be a vegan influencer like these just
sound ridiculous. Yeah. On another local front, popular vegan YouTuber
Asena O'Neil. She infamously quit social media in twenty fifteen
after she became a target for takedown videos from smaller
(12:04):
vegan content creators. Now, a video Freely created in twenty
fourteen slamming Jenna Marbles drastically changed the game for Freely.
So for those not familiar with Jenna Marbles, she is
an American YouTuber who, at the peak of her fame
had over twenty million subscribers. Now she announced her indefinite
hiatus from YouTube in twenty twenty after followers dug up
(12:25):
old racist content from her channel. Anyway before all that,
in a bid to gain attention, Freely uploaded a video
to YouTube called why has Jenna Marbles Gained Weight? And,
in the video that has now been viewed over three
point four million times, Freely claimed that Jenna had gained
weight since stopping eating a vegan diet.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Let's throw to a snippet of what she said.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But move on a couple of years or a year
or so, and Jenna is really starting to put on weight.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
It's this one.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Okay, she's not fat.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Lady means, but she is definitely gaining weight. So the
people out there saying, oh.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
You're fat shaming, freely, you're fat shaming, blah bl blah,
but no, get over it. Clearly just making an observation.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
She is gaining weight.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So why is she Because she has.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Gone off her vegan her predominantly vegan plant and she's
smashing in the junk food. She makes videos a bit
the way she basically makes fun of herself smashing in
junk food food, and you know, in an attempt to
kind of relate to most of the population who smashes
in the junk food.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
During the almost eight minute video freely through to clips
of Jenna eating junk food, as well as showing clips
of how Jenna's body had changed. She then had this
advice for her.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Okay, so that's the beauty of her plant food's lifestyle.
You can smash in the calories every single meal. You
can eat abundantly. You can eat your heart, your brain,
your bellies content every single time and only get beneficial results.
You get slimmer and slimmer and slimmer.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
The mold calories you eat over time of plant foods,
which is I mean high powered plant foods, let's get
that right, not high fat vegan foods.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
So you have to make sure eat high car beingan foods. So, Jenna,
this is a message to you girl, come back over
to the good side. You know this works, you know
the vegan lifestyle works. You set yourself.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
At the end of the video, Freeley claimed that she
had created the video because she cared about Jenna so
much that she asked her followers to contact Jenna and
share the video with her and sorry, if you cared
about Jenna, you would have a quiet word to her
about it in a sensitive and tactful way. This was
far from sensitive and tactful. I just can't even imagine
someone creating a video like this in twenty twenty five
(14:34):
and thinking it's appropriate one to point out that someone
has gained weight and to think that you have control
over their diet and what they have to eat. It
just shows how far we've actually come. Because when I
was listening to this, I was like, I cannot believe
that this was put out and not slammed. Disturbingly, Freeley's
plan seemed to work because Jenna ended up commenting on
(14:54):
Freeley's Facebook page, saying, I just watched your video and
I wanted to thank you for always supporting me through
my vegan journey. It's been years on and off for me,
and I really appreciate you holding me personally accountable. It
actually helps me, and I never find what you do
offensive a lot of other people do. I think you're
wonderful and it's so admirable how passionate you are about veganism.
(15:16):
You have a wonderful message in heart, and I hope
people can see that. I know a lot of people
whose lives. You've changed so many people's lives. I have
made it to a point to really make myself ethically
driven because of you and other vegan YouTubers, and I
feel much more confident that this is something I can
have my whole life. Thank you for your relentless effort
to make veganism visible and approachable and not an extreme
(15:38):
way of living, but a loving and caring, maintainable life.
So I mean, I would call eating fifty one bananas
not very maintainable and quite extreme. She finished by saying
You're wonderful and I'm sending all positive fruit vibes your way.
Fucking hell Wow, it is crazy to think that Jenna
Marble's actually thanks Freely for calling her out and fact
shaming her. And it's interesting the use of the term
(16:00):
ethically driven, the fact that Freeley would say, oh, I'm
only fat shaming people because you know, ethically they shouldn't
be eating meat like it's actually insane. Off the back
of the Jenna Marbles call out video, Freely started to
change up her YouTube channel and move more in that direction.
She ramped up the call out videos of non vegan
YouTubers and no one was safe and at the time,
(16:21):
she did wield a lot of power and an interesting
part of Freely's strategy was actually weaponizing her followers. So
after taking aim at an influencer, she would then issue
a call out to her followers to essentially attack the person. However,
she packaged it up a lot nicer. So Freely called
her followers her fruit bats, and she asked them to
(16:41):
go spread their fruit seeds, aka troll her latest target.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
And they did this in the.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Form of leaving banana emojis in the comment section of
the latest target's YouTube videos.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
That is just wild to me.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I know that the Internet isn't a perfect place in
twenty twenty four But my god, it was a disgusting.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Place to be in the two Ends.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Well, it actually reminds me when Kim Kardashian sent her
fans to go troll Taylor Swift and leave snake emojis.
Maybe that's where she got the idea from the bananas
Yeah Now. Freely next set her sights on YouTuber Casey
Hoe of bloggilates now. In late twenty fourteen, she was
accused of bullying the popular influencer and Freely claimed in
a YouTube video the Casey wasn't eating enough and alleged
(17:23):
that she promoted eating disorders, which is a bit rich now.
The video ended up getting removed from YouTube after Casey
reported the video for copyright, and this started and all out.
Boar So Freely claimed that Casey was using corporate lawyers
to take her down, and she went on to allege
that she had received legal documents from Casey. However, when
(17:45):
she was asked to provide receipts, all she could show
was the copyright emails that she received from YouTube Now.
Casey denied the claims that she was trying to sue
Freely and ended up detracting the copyright claim against the videos.
Now in early twenty fifteen, Freely met her match with
fellow Adelaidian and fitness guru Kayla had seen us so
(18:09):
at the time, Kayla was big competition for Freely. So
her bikini Bodyguide was all the rage, as you spoke
about earlier. So literally everyone I know was doing it.
I think it was more popular in my friendship group
than Freeley's diet.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Oh definitely.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I think that Freely's diet was very extreme and she
really tapped into a niche group of people.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
So, just as Freely had done with other big influences,
she took aim at Kayla's fitness program in a YouTube
video so Freely claimed that Kayla's guide stave people and
that her then boyfriend and business partner Toby Pierce used steroids.
Freeley's then boyfriend Durian Ryder also.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Got in on the action, making similar claims.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
And Kayla was very quick to hit back, labeling the
pair's actions as wrong and illegal in a Facebook post,
and she went on to file an injunction with the
Supreme Court to have the videos removed from YouTube the
comments as defamatory. Now unperturbed, Freely and Jurian Writer responded with,
of course, a follow up video stating that they were
just sharing their nutritional opinion and should not be sued
(19:11):
for speaking up. I remember at the time that this
story was massive, particularly in Adelaide. I was working at
Channel seven at the time. It was leading news, it
was front page news as well. Now, this case was
heard in the Supreme Court of South Australia in March
twenty fifteen, and Freely and Jurian Rider turned the event
into a complete circus. So more than one hundred of
(19:32):
their fans lined up outside the Supreme Court chanting the
duet's catchphrase carb the fuck up. Now. Only fifteen of
those fans were actually allowed inside the court, while the
rest were told to wait outside, and several fans shouted
good luck, Harley and Freely as they entered into the building.
Kayla did not attend court, however, her partner at the time,
Toby Pierce, was in attendance while Kayla wasn't there, though
(19:54):
she let her sentiments be known so in court documents
obtained by the media, she and Hope labeled Freely and
Jurian Rider as foul mouth parasites who are claiming victim
status and trying to encourage cyber vigilante action against them.
She is an absolute class act, and Kayla and her
team would have been aware that if she had turned
up to the court and they had got vision and
(20:16):
photographs of her, it would have been pumped up even
more to be portrayed as this catfight between these two
popular fitness influences.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Also just being dragged down onto their level.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Well, I wouldn't really feel comfortable physically appearing at this
court case when there's hundreds of Freely's fans there who
were chanting and being aggressive.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Now.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Kayla and Toby were represented by QC Andrew Harris, while
Freely was being defended by lawyer Greg Griffin. Jurian Rider,
on the other hand, represented himself, and with so much
mayhem going on outside the court, Kayla and Toby's lawyer
urged the judge to explain the rules of the court
to the public gallery because he was concerned that Freely
(20:56):
supporters would film the proceedings and upload them to YouTube. Now,
the main issue addressed during the hearing was the status
of the offending YouTube videos. So Kayla's injunction had ordered
Freely and Durian Rider to remove the videos, but that
had only partially occurred. While Freely had removed the video
from her YouTube channel, Durian Ryder had set his video
(21:17):
to private now. He claimed that he had done so
in case he needed the video or the comments posted
on them as evidence, and he went on to say
in court I was just sharing my honest opinion in
the name of public interest on YouTube. Yeah, and Kayla
and Toby's lawyer hit back, saying, we can agree to
disagree whether this is a matter of free speech or
rather a cynical attempt at ambush marketing. Our principal goal
(21:40):
is to have the material taken off the Internet. After
hearing the evidence, the judge said that the matter should
proceed immediately to trial. However, Kayla and Toby's lawyer asked
for a seven day adjournment to pursue negotiations. NA Kayla
and Toby's lawyer said that there was a prospect of
amicable resolution between Kayla, Toby and Freely, meaning I don't
think he thought Durian Ryder was going to settle. It's
(22:02):
very clear that Kayla and her team wanted to avoid
a trial because this would have turned into an even
bigger media circus. I mean, Freely and Duran were already
showing them by having hundreds of their fans appear in court.
It's also very costly exercise for something like this to
go to trial. Also their road comments, because if they're
trying to defend what they said, the fact that they
said that Toby PSU steroids, which is completely defamatory, like
(22:25):
you probably don't want them spurning out more lies about it.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
It appell it form.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And that's the thing, like things get very nasty when
they go to trial, and sometimes there's no winners out
of it.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Well, outside the court, Freely told reporters that she couldn't
discuss the case based on legal advice, while Durian Ryder
said he wanted the matter to proceed to trial because
you can see that their attention seekers out of this.
Their whole goal has been to call out bigger creators
just so that they can gain more and more followers.
So Jurian ryders said, we were just talking about eating
disorders on YouTube. We were just sharing our views openly
(22:57):
based on public interest. I would like to go to
try and get as much exposure as possible on eating
disorders and Instagram diets, the keyword being exposure I think
for himself.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Well, that weekend, Freely told her followers in a YouTube video,
I'm not stressed.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I know good will prevail now.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
A week later, Kayla and Toby's lawyers told the South
Australian Supreme Court that the parties had successfully reached a deal.
Under the terms of the agreement, Freely and Durian Rider
were barred from making disparaging statements about Kayla and Toby
in social print or electronic media. It was decided that
the matter would conclude without financial penalty or the payment
(23:32):
of court costs, which is quite interesting, A pretty good
deal I think for Freely and Jurian Now. While Freely's
lawyer was in agreement with Kayla and Toby's lawyer, it
was clear Durian Writer wasn't happy about the decision. When
he was asked by the judge if he consented to
the settlement.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
He replied mm hm.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
The judge also made formal orders that the settlement be
carried out. He also listed the matter for a final
hearing in May to ensure the settlement had been complied
by all the parties. Obviously, he wasn't really that trusting
of Durian writer. I mean, it kind of makes sense
for Kaylor and Toby not to necessarily ask for any
money from them, because I think that that could have
been negatively portrayed in the media that they were out
to destroy fellow fitness influencer when they just wanted them
(24:13):
to shut the fuck up and stop talking about them.
So Durian Ryder told reporters outside of court that he
was not too clear on what the settlement entailed other
than basically keep your opinion to yourself. While Kayler chose
not to attend court again, Toby Pierce was there and
he told reporters I'm glad some smart decisions were made
and we've been able to come to an amicable agreement
between the parties. Freely also fronted the media outside court
(24:36):
and said, recalling every detail of it, the settlement is
a little difficult, but I understand it and I will
follow it. This really demonstrated that Kayla and Toby were
forced not to be reckoned with. They're extremely professional in
shutting this down. It does show what money and power
can do, and also having the right brains behind it. Definitely, now,
despite the court hearing, Freely didn't stop her pursuit of
(24:59):
other YouTubers. This one really surprises me because in October
twenty fifteen, she called out UK YouTube royalty Zoela So
in a video entitled is Zoela a Hypocrite? Nala Pug
Verse Pig, Freely questioned how Zoela can love her pug
Nala so much but then eat other animals which are
equally as smart and beautiful. Now, Freely decided to demonstrate
(25:21):
this by juxtapositioning vision of Zoella playing with her black
pug to vision of her eating bacon, eggs and.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Sausages for breakfast. This a stretch, really.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Now. Zoela didn't respond, but it did come out that
she had blocked Freely, which was a good decision. I
actually really liked that from her because she didn't weigh
into the drama.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
She didn't give Freely what she wanted. She simply just
blocked her.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Because that is what Freely and Adrian Ryder have wanted
out of this whole thing is attention. They want the
larger creator to come back at them so that then
their fans become aware of who they are.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah, it didn't stop there.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
In May twenty sixteen, Freely also took aim at US
YouTuber Tanna Mojo, and she critics a video Tanner made
entitled how I Stay Skinny, which is just.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Wild to me.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I cannot see a creator getting away with creating a
video about how they say skinny. No, I mean ma
giving tips and tricks. It's just under the guise of
other things. Now, it's like what I to day, It's
true now, Freely basically said that Tanner Mojo was full
of crap, and Tana ended up doing a big call
out video in response to Freely, so Freely got what
(26:25):
she wanted. Freely, of course, then hit back, seemingly debunking
what Tanner had said, and the hashtag Tanna lies started
trending on the internet. Now, this came at a time
where Tana really cared about her image, and it just
was a back and forth of insults.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Between the pair.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I find it so ironic that Freely made a name
for herself by calling out other YouTubers when her own
behavior was so questionable and problematic. Yeah, she was constantly
causing controversy and also making very outlandish and dangerous claims.
One of those had to do with her a manner.
Rhea so she continued to bush medical misinformation when she
stated that a menna rhea, which is the absence of
(27:02):
your period, was a sign of health. So she shared
that she had a menoreea for nine months, and she
explained that it meant her body was healthy and had
fewer toxins to.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Flush out via menstruation.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
In reality, it is actually a result of low body weight,
poor nutrition, disordered eating, and other illnesses. Additionally, it can
lead to infertility and osteoporosis. Is that why they were
trying to push it so much because they were trying
to stamp out.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
People from wanting children.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yeah, they were trying to stop reproduction with their love
of vasectomes. Now, to make matters worse, Freely was also
fat phobic, so she regularly criticized the appearance of other
YouTubers and overweight people in general, and she also claimed
that there were more deaths caused in the nine eleven
terrorist attack because of obese people blocking the doors and
not allowing fit people to pass through.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
God, what the hell?
Speaker 1 (27:53):
That is just disgusting. It gets worse because after the
tragic death of teenage makeup guru Talia Castinello, no owners
Tarlia Joy eighteen on YouTube, Freely uploaded a video claiming
that Talia's death could have been prevented had she forgote
chemotherapy in favor of a raw vegan diet. Oh my gosh.
She also claimed that chemotherapy was dangerous, poisonous, and an
(28:15):
ineffective treatment for cancer. That makes me so bad now.
One of the biggest controversies to rock Freeley's image centered
around her boyfriend and partner in crime, Durian Rider. Next week,
we will dive into the drama that unfolded at Freely's
tie Fruit Festival and explore her breakup with Durian Ryder
and her move to the jungle. This episode was recorded
(28:38):
on the traditional land of the Ghana people of the
Adelaide Planes. We pay respect to Elder's past and present
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