TikTokers were left stunned earlier this week after a mother posted a TikTok purporting to expose the realities of being a single parent. The clip, which has since been deleted from the app, shows the user (@morethanelizabeth) crying while baking as on-screen text reads: “Being a single mom is making your own birthday cake on your birthday so that your babies can feel happy they are singing to you.”
Before the clip was deleted from TikTok, it had amassed 4.5 million likes—as well as catching the attention of Elizabeth’s ex-husband Andrew (@inventingelizabeth). He responded via TikTok on May 24 with a slew of allegations, claiming that he had sole custody of the children and that Elizabeth owed him $21,175 in child support.
The husband’s side
In the video, he shows child support documents and a purported mugshot of Elizabeth. He also claims that she stole “almost a million dollars,” accused her of faking cancer, and said she “barely has” her children and goes out all the time. This video, at the time of writing, has 2.8 million views.
@reinventingelizabeth #greenscreenvideo @morethanelizabeth is a fraud and a con artist! From fake chairities to faking cancer to leaving her kids! @morethanelizabeth @Newsweek @Netflix @sara eaton ☁️ 👱🏻♀️ #birthdaygirl #singlemom #morethanelizabeth #inventinganna #tampafraud #reinventingelizabeth #viral #conartist #fbi #fakedcancer #mrtodd #checkfraud #foryou #cakevideo #fraud #feartofierce @Fear to Fierce ♬ original sound – Inventing Elizabeth
Elizabeth then hit back with a 9-minute video in which she claims that Andrew was “extremely abusive” throughout her marriage—so much so that she says she experienced “trauma-induced psychosis”. She also alleges that Andrew is a Scientologist who has made an account dedicated to “destroying [her] life.” On TikTok, this video has 428,600 views as of Sunday. She also shared a website he made detailing allegations about her, which Andrew also linked to in his own subsequent video.
@morethanelizabeth My response
♬ original sound – Elizabeth
“The point is that I have tried for three years, to not expose him on the internet, to not talk about who he is, because as a mother, that is the right thing to do,” she said. “My family, my friends, anyone in my life has said, ‘Elizabeth, you have to come forward with what is happening, because he can’t keep doing this to you.’ And I have always said, I don’t care what he does to me what I care about. What I care about is my children.”
In a later video she also shared a screenshot of what she claims is a domestic violence restraining order issued by one of Andrew’s former partners.
yet another man causing a witch hunt against a woman that was groomed then abused by a rich man. & now he is trying to destroy and smear her because she left him. https://t.co/VMGunoSfYC pic.twitter.com/erkm731ybA
— a. (@jcnniferlindley) May 25, 2024
Who’s telling the truth?
All in all, viewers struggled with who to believe. Several remarked how Andrew had “destroyed” and “demolished” Elizabeth in his initial response video, and questioned why she shared the birthday cake video in the first place. But others suggested that his TikTok account, which is named after his ex-wife, might be a red flag in and of itself.
“Obsessed abusive ex husband with an entire page dedicated to smearing the mother of his children?” one commenter said. “Dude is NOT NORMAL.”
On X, a re-post of the initial video and Andrew’s response has amassed 51.6 million views. But this video was then quoted with a clipped version of Elizabeth’s second video which garnered 15.4 million views. The accompanying text read, “Yet another man causing a witch hunt against a woman that was groomed then abused by a rich man. [And] now he is trying to destroy and smear her because she left him.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Andrew via TikTok comment and Elizabeth via email.
Update 11:53am CT, May 26, 2024:
In an email to the Daily Dot, Elizabeth claims she just “wants this to stop.”
“He has done this to me for so long and all I care about is my children,” she wrote. “I don’t want him getting hate either because that is not what my page has ever been about. But I don’t deserve what he has been posting. I’m just a mom who posts on TikTok for fun. And what he did isn’t OK.”
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