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Through talent and hustle, entrepreneur/comedian/actress/social media personality B. Simone made her way to more than five million followers and a career that includes Wild ‘n Out, the Let’s Try This Again podcast, and a new app, LTTA. But it’s the app that has her reconsidering her finances these days.
On the June 16 episode of Let’s Try This Again, Simone shared with her BFF, Shekinah, that she was facing some financial challenges. This was only after Shekinah shared her own struggles. However, Simone’s response left her fan base a little underwhelmed, as she mentioned that her struggles included a change in her shopping habits.
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“I feel like it’s a breakthrough with what I’m creating with the app,” Simone said, tearing up. “Just, my finances. Like, the budgeting. You see how I am—nitpicking every little thing. I’ve never been like that. We were in Bloomingdale’s yesterday. I’m like, ‘We have to go to H&M..’ And I notice in me now, just nitpicking. I just don’t have it to spend – the liquid. I’m used to having liquid. And because I’ve invested in this app, in this platform, I don’t have the liquid. I got the money, but not yet. It’s coming. I have it in assets, I have it in jewelry. I’m used to seeing a certain amount in my account.”
However, some folks felt she diminished Shekinah’s struggles, after Shekinah confessed that she’d had some hard times, but never reached out to Simone for help.
“Being a best friend with a celebrity – everybody thinks that because you’re connected to this person, that your life is just as grand as theirs or they got it or they’re helping you….baby, didn’t have a job, living with my parents, as a single mom….Nobody gave me a handout,” Shekinah shared. “But guess what … that wasn’t your responsibility.”
She added, “God has to take me through that for my own season, for my own thing. I had to get my car repossessed. I had to go through the food stamp line. I had to be on Medicaid. … As a friend of somebody who has it … it’s hard to digest.”
It appears that B. Simone has yet to read the room. She’s already been criticized for charging, yes, charging to have people see her processing grief after her friend Jacky Oh, another influencer, suddenly passed away two years ago. For her to say her comedown was having to shop at a fast fashion retailer after her bestie confessed she’d nearly lost it all struck most as tone-deaf, to say the least.
The backlash came quickly with full columns on Ice Cream Convos and Ebony about how success has gone to B. Simone’s head. Comments on her IG and YouTube accounts were even harsher. Under posts where the self-proclaimed Christian discussed God working in her life, many questioned her faith and compassion.
“At some point, we have to say it plainly, B. Simone, please log out,” the Ebony op-ed, penned by columnist Victor Qunnuell Vaughns, Jr., reads.
“May this type of friend never find me,” more than one IG user posted on a clip about avoiding “the noise.”
Another posted, “And you are not a real friend, how could you let your BF struggle like that?”
“Mmh… Oprah would NEVER let Gayle. There are so many things to be said. I love that you said your story is still being written,” one commenter pointed out.
On IG, another post said, “I’m looking for yo friend page so I can tell her to get tf away from you & STAY AWAY! it’s gone take more than that religion to fix that spirit.”
How did we get here? Maybe it’s just the way media personalities evolve – or devolve – once they reach a certain success. They have to keep feeding their fan bases with new and improved content as they move further and further away from relatability while earning more money and followers. It’s a Catch-22 that is unique to content creators as they must continue to feed the content machine, based not on their accomplishments, but on the personality that led them to success in the first place.
“We’re in a cultural era where influencers are becoming pastors, therapists, and lifestyle coaches all in one—without the credentials or emotional intelligence to back it up,” Vaughns continues. “And B. Simone might be the loudest example of that pipeline.”
B.Simone may yet respond to the backlash – hopefully, for free.
See social media’s reaction below.
