Photo: Instagram
She's received "hundreds" of death threats.
By Sarah Gangraw — Written on Feb 17, 2019
A Dallas fitness influencer is under fire after clients claim she scammed them. Brittany Dawn built a fitness business through social media by creating personalized diets and workout plans — but she was recently accused of ripping off her clients.
In just a few short years, Dawn, whose real name is Brittany Davis, gained over 555,000 followers on Instagram and more than 287,000 subscribers on YouTube thanks to her workout tips and diet tricks. But her business grew too quickly for her, she said, and she was unable to keep up with the number of clients. She's received "hundreds" of death threats over the last two weeks, Dawn said. Now, she says she is "done hiding" and wants to make things right.
"I have started the process of making things good with the help of strong-minded business advisers," Dawn posted on Facebook Wednesday night. "There are no longer any NDAs, no blocking, deleting comments, nothing of that nature. No excuses. I'm done hiding."
So who is Brittany Dawn? Here's everything you need to know about her and the claims she scammed tons of clients.
RELATED: Who Is Brandon Calvillo? New Details About The YouTuber Who Is Accused Of Dating An Underaged Girl
1. Clients claim they paid for personalized plans but never got them.
According to the Dallas Morning News, clients are claiming they paid for Dawn's personalized diet and fitness plans, which often cost upward of $200, but never received anything following their purchase.
Those who did get their custom plans say they were generic at best and that communication with the influencer was difficult if there was any.
2. She allegedly tried to silence angry customers.
When clients would comment on her posts on social media, Dawn would erase and ignore them, something she admitted to doing in an interview with WFAA.
"Yes, I was," she said. "When you see comments like that repeatedly showing up, it gets very hard sometimes."
Dawn also agreed to refund unhappy customers so long as her clients signed a non-disclosure agreement, which she says she no longer does.
"I was following poor advice from an overreaching lawyer, and I’m no longer requiring NDAs to be signed for partial or full refunds," she said.
3. There is a Facebook page specifically for complaints against her.
Upset customers created a Facebook page called "Brittany Dawn Fitness Complaints," which has over 4,600 members, over 3,300 of whom joined in the last month.
The page was created in April 2018 to "gather relevant information in disputing charges due to bad business practices for ours and for others’ sake."
RELATED: New Details About DJ Khaled's Weight Loss — Including His Before And After Pics
4. She lost over 15,000 subscribers in just a few days.
Prior to the scandal, Dawn had over 300,000 subscribers on YouTube. At least 15,000 of her fans dropped her on YouTube as the claims came out regarding her fitness plans, leaving her with just over 287,000 subscribers as of Friday.
5. She addressed the claims in a video.
"I apologize to anyone who feels like they got scammed from me and I genuinely promise that my intentions from the star were pure," she began her Feb. 6 video she posted on YouTube. "I wanted to help and impact as many women as I could because I feel like this is why I was given this incredible platform. When you're given an opportunity like this, you’d be stupid not to take it and run with it. Unfortunately, I ran too fast for one person.”
Dawn went on to say that her business got too big "too fast" and that she was not able to provide all of her clients with the quality fitness and diet plans they had paid for. She said that although it is not an excuse, she "didn't have much guidance" as being an influencer was a new concept back then.
"These claims are coming from years ago after I got launched into a business that took off so fast, I didn’t know to mentally handle it," Dawn continued. "I did what I needed to do to the best of my ability, I didn’t know what I was signing up for simply because being an influencer and running a fitness influencer business was not really a 'thing' back then.”
6. She apologized and suspended her business for now.
Following multiple apologies and public statements, Dawn has suspended her fitness business for now to address all of the issues her clients may be having, the Dallas Morning News reported. She doesn't "want to let anyone else down" and has hired a manager and public relations team to help her get through this.
Sarah Gangraw writes about all things news, entertainment and crime. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter.