An Internet 'celebrity' Carter Reynolds has come under fire following the alleged leak of a sex tape featuring both himself and fellow Internet 'star' and long time girlfriends Maddie Lindemann.
The tape was apparently leaked after Reynolds' iCloud account was hacked. The tape showed an intoxicated Lindemann being pressured to perform oral sex on Reynolds whilst being filmed. Lindemann, who was under the legal age of consent at the time, refuses. She states on camera that she feels uncomfortable doing it. Reynolds can be heard telling her to 'just do it' several times, even after she once again tells him that she does not want to.
Reynolds has since released an apology to his fans, stating;
'Some of you guys have a HUGE misunderstanding. First of all, Maggie and I were dating at the time..it's not like she was a random girl or a fan. Couples do stuff like that all the time...and no I'm not saying that it's the right thing to do but it's the truth. It was supposed to be a private video for no one to see and i had no intention of posting it at all. I shouldn't have recorded anything to begin with and I should've just deleted it right after I took it.
'This video was taken a long time ago and unfortunately someone illegally hacked into my iCloud recently and ended up leaking that specific video. Yes, saying 'do it' a couple of times and 'come on' was wrong on so many levels...I should've just stopped asking when she said 'no' the first time...and for that I'm very sorry to everyone that I offended and especially Maggie.
'After that night, Maggie and I were completely fine and just moved on with our relationship. Some people are blowing things WAY our of proportion and making up all these false accusations about me saying that I raped her or forced her into doing something that she didn't want to do...well all of that is a lie. You can believe whoever and whatever you want but at the end of the day I know everything that I just old you are straight up facts.
'This wasn't my statement by the way...I wish a lot of you guys knew everything I just said earlier but I just couldn't think of what to say because I was so overwhelmed by all of the hate and negativity towards me. Thank you for hearing what I have to say and once again I am very sorry about all of this. Love you guys.'
Reynolds also attempted to start the hash tag #WeLoveYouCarter as a way of his fans being able to show that they support him and wish him all the best during his hard time being blamed for what he did wrong.
Reynolds was met with some severe criticism following his apology, with people both accusing him of lying about the iCloud hack in order to 'play the victim' and gain sympathy, as well as trying to manipulate his fans in order to gain support and sympathy. Whilst this tactic worked with many fans who tweeted supportive messages, many people tweeted their displeasure at what he had done.
The controversy over what Reynolds tried to make his underage girlfriend do has been reignited today. Whilst in the middle of a live web chat with his fans where he verbally abused Maggie Lindemann and threatened to reveal her sexual exploits for not reciprocating his attempts to repair their relationship, Reynolds received a telephone call from Lindemann informing him that if he did not cease she would telephone the police.
Unphased by the threat Reynolds continued to spout abuse about the young girl before he was interpreted a second time by another telephone call informing him that Linemann had been taken into hospital. It was at this point that he ended his web chat.
Reynolds claimed that after ending the chat he immediately visited Lindemann and that the two of them were 'now okay'. Things quickly turned sour, however, when Reynolds tweeted that Linemann had told him that she was in hospital due to him. His reaction to this was pretty poor.
His attempt to attack Lindemann and hold her responsible backfired spectacularly, however, and he received a torrent of abuse for abusing a hospitalised teenager. In a series of tweets Reynolds claimed that he had been pushed to breaking point by the people throwing abuse at him and has threatened to kill himself. The last activity on his Twitter account was 10 hours ago in which he tweeted the single word 'bye'. there is currently no indication whether Reynolds has actually attempted to harm himself or not.
The problem with this whole situation though isn't a young man potentially trying to kill himself, it's the massively negative effect his actions up to now have had. And I'm not just talking about what has happened to Maggie Lindemann. Whether you hold any stock in Internet 'celebrities' like Reynolds or not the scary fact is that he has literally millions of followers and subscribers. People listen to him, particularly young people.
The danger with having a manipulative young man like Reynolds being someone young girls look up to has become apparent just from the reactions he is getting from his fans. When his video 'leaked' thousand of teenage girls came to his defence, and not only that, but they were placing the blame at the feet of Maggie Lindemann. That's right, teenage girls who should have viewed that video as warning of the dangers of sexual abuse were instead engaging in victim blaming.
Yes, Lindemann was drinking underage, and she did tell him to take his pants off in the video, she instigated the event, but most importantly she changed her mind. Just because someone is drunk, just because someone starts out wanting to engage in sexual acts doesn't mean that if that consent is removed then it's okay to carry on. Yet that's the message he is teaching these impressionable young women. He is making rape culture okay. He is making victim blaming okay, and these young people are helping him.
He went on to harass and humiliate his ex-girlfriend in such a public away that she ended up in the hospital, yet even then failed to stop. His attacks were relentless and without any form of human compassion. The only person he cared about was himself and getting more media attention.
I can only hope that not only will Maggie Lindemann make a full recovery but that Carter Reynolds fans come to their senses and see that his actions are wrong. I hope that they see that his actions are not 'love', that love is not harassment, that it is not forcing your partner into sex acts they don't wish to do, it's not bullying and abusing them because they want to leave you and won't take you back. Carter Reynolds is an abuser, plain and simple, and should be used as an example of the kind of actions that are not acceptable and the kind of men that young women should avoid at all costs.
Amy.
xx
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