The Beauty Guru That Wasn’t
Wait, who? Unless you are an active follower of BeautyGuruChatter on Reddit,
you probably haven’t heard of Lillee Jean. Lillee Jean is a cute and bubbly self-proclaimed beauty
guru with over 1 million Instagram followers. But this story isn’t about Lillee Jean — it’s about her
mother Laura Trueman.
Laura Trueman, also known as “Laur,” is 52-year-old woman living in Queens. Laur supposedly sells,
or at least sold, antiques online. Her claim to fame is allegedly providing props for major motion
pictures such as Men In Black. Laur also says she has worked in the legal field for at least a decade.
Now, Laur owns Jeaniez Inc., a corporation dedicated to managing budding social media star Lillee
Jean.Since Summer 2019, Laur has attracted the attention of drama-lovers on Reddit, LOLCows, and
KiwiFarms due to her rabid defense of her daughter, which often comes off as less momma bear
and more as insane rantings. Laur claims online bullies have harassed Lillee Jean since 2016, and
often claims one person is behind all of the bullying. Initially, Laur stated Joshua Connor Moon, site
runner of KiwiFarms was responsible. Laur then switched her focus to other random people, such
as an unidentified man named Joe and unidentified woman named Jodi, beauty gurus Queen of
Blending and Lauren Elyse, a young pregnant woman in Texas called Sonia, and a woman named
Katie in Mississippi who has gone as far as to send a cease and desist to Laur.
Scandals in the makeup world come and go daily, and most followers quickly forget who they’ve
canceled as soon as the next rumor rises. On July 3, 2019, an anonymous user posted a thread on
a guru could have over 1 million subscribers on Instagram but be virtually unknown to the beauty
community. Users speculated Lillee Jean was buying followershttps://internetmarketingrocks.com/buy-instagram-likes/, which is quite simple and not
prohibitively expensive. Redditors also pointed out that many of the accounts commenting on Lillee
Jean’s photos seemed fake, and often portrayed somewhat offensive stereotypes of different
ethnicities. Generally, beauty gurus do not respond to drama threads on the sub, but many are known to lurk.
Laur dove right into the thread and responded to many users, calling them “eggs” and “middle-aged
and childless.” Moderators quickly locked the thread, stating Laur had threatened them and attempted
to doxx them. Soon after, threads appeared on drama websites LOLcows and KiwiFarms questioning the legitimacy
of Lillee Jean’s following. Naturally, Laur took issue with these sites, and rather than ignoring them as
most public figures would do, she started an informal online campaign to take down Joshua Connor
Moon, whom she suspected was behind all of the fake-followers speculation and so-called bullying.
Callout accounts began to appear on Twitter, asking many of the same questions the Redditors had —
was Lillee Jean faking a massive fan following to gain gratis from cosmetics company?
Was it all a scam?
Laur did not take well to the callout accounts, and attempted to find who was behind them. She went as
far as to contact beauty guru Queen of Blending’s employer, and then quickly pointed the finger at
makeup artist Lauren Elyse. This enraged the callout accounts, as Queen of Blending and Lauren Elyse
clearly had not participated in any of the online discussions of Lillee Jean.
on Instagram expressing concern for her. The callout accounts began digging deeper into Laur and
Lillee Jean, and found many problematicInstagram accounts they suspected the pair of running,
as well as a podcast produced and published by the mother-daughter team making questionably
ongoing spat between influencer Lauren Elyse and Laur/Lillee Jean.
When Laur refused to apologize for targeting Queen of Blending and Lauren Elyse, the callout accounts
upped their game and started tagging various cosmetics companies known to send Lillee Jean PR.
This included Makeup Geek, run by Marlena Stell. Once Stell took notice of the drama, she allegedly
dropped Lillee jean from Makeup Geek’s PR list. This infuriated Lillee Jean and Laur, who threw obvious
shade at Makeup Geek during one of Lillee Jean’s Youtube tutorials and went as far as to claim Makeup
produced videos about Laur and Lillee Jean, focusing primarily on what appeared to be Laur’s
controlling nature and uninhibited emotional outbursts on Twitter, including a blowup where Laur
threatened to call CPS on pregnant Sonia because Sonia joined the callout accounts. Laur accused the
Skynet News, as well as Sonia. Users on LOLcows and KiwiFarms speculated Laur was keeping Lillee
Jean locked up at home and not exposing her to the real world. They asked if Laur was using Lillee Jean
as a cash cow Laur could vicariously live her dreams of internet stardom through. Lillee Jean, being
homeschooled since middle school, didn’t seem to have ever held a job and never publicly posted about
any hobbies outside of the house. She didn’t seem to express an interest in college. The callout
accounts switched their focus from questioning the legitimacy of Lillee Jean’s fame to worrying that
Laur was holding Lillee Jean back.
This blog isn’t about Lillee Jean, the beauty guru that wasn’t — it’s about Laura Trueman, the vicarious
guru who wasn’t. If you are an online drama aficionado, you may recall Jessi Slaughter. Slaughter,
A post on then-gossip site StickCam accusedSlaughter of hooking of with the adult lead singer of the
Slaughter fought back in a Youtube video stating her bullies were jealous of her beauty. Slaughter’s
dad Gene Leonhardt joined in one of Slaughter’s vlogs and explosively yelled at the camera, threatening
screaming at Slaughter. Slaughter’s homelife was questioned, any many were concerned for
Slaughter’s safety, and rightfully so. Leonhardt was arrested in 2011 for hitting Slaughter in the face.
Leonhardt died in 2011 from a massive heart attack. Slaughter now lives a much more low-key life away
from internet stardom.
Laur and Lillee Jean’s situation is markedly less intense. There are thankfully no allegations of Laur
physically abusing Lillee Jean. However, much like Leonhardt was of Slaughter, Laur is extremely
overprotective of Lillee Jean. Much like Leonhardt did, Laur frequently claims she’s called the cyber
police on people and has gone as far to state she’s spoken with both the FBI and Homeland Security.
A mother should be protective of her daughter, but Lillee Jean is a legal adult, yet seems to rarely leave
the house. Lillee Jean, in recent YouTube comments, has stated she doesn’t like to
go to Sephora because of the crowds and in the past Laur has asked movie theaters to turn down the
sound because Lillee Jean is sensitive to loud noises. And although Lillee Jean frequently posts to
social media, she has never posted anything showing her with friends or at an event not related to a
beauty PR outing. In a world fueled by presenting your best life on social media, this seems quite strange.
On the surface, it appears Laur is shielding Lillee Jean from the big bad world and not pushing her to
experience what a normal 18-year-old hopes to experience: college, friends, a job, and maybe her own
apartment in the City. But dig further, and it seems Laur is often taking control of Lillee Jean’s social
media accounts and posting as if she was Lillee Jean (the dead giveaways include how Laur
abbreviates “great” — “g8” and the double spacing she uses between each sentence). Lillee Jean
often interacts with accounts on Youtube and Instagram that are highly suspicious — the callouts have
presented solid evidence showing Laur runs these accounts. For Lillee Jean to interact online and have
conversations with accounts that she knows, or at least should know, are fake is troubling. Additionally,
without a cognizable income, it is highly unlikely Lillee Jean is able to afford makeup or Instagram
followers herself, which leads one to believe Laur is somehow funding the alleged ruse.
Slaughter’s parents attempted to protect her from the online world, although Slaughter resisted as any
teenageer would. Laur attempts to protect Lillee Jean from perceived online bullies, but continues to,
at minimum, support Lillee Jean’s influencer aspirations. However, the support seems incredibly forced.
One must wonder if Lillee Jean is happy with what she’s doing, or if she simply doesn’t know any better.
It’s possible Lillee Jean knows what the world, New York City, especially, has to offer, but chooses not
to participate for whatever reason. But, considering Lillee Jean’s homeschooled upbringing, lack of
employment, and lack of interaction with people other than her mother, it’s fair to question if Lillee Jean
simply isn’t aware of the opportunity that could await her if she could just gain her own independence. https://buytruefollowers.com/instagram-likes/
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