The Best High-School Drama You’re Not Watching Is on TikTok

Charli D’Amelio won’t be wasting another Instagram caption on Lil Huddy. The TikTok star laid into her ex-“boyfriend” on Twitter last night, after rumors about cheating reared their ugly head. Eighteen-year-old Chase “Lil Huddy” Hudson and 16-year-old D’Amelio were the biggest couple to come out of the Great TikTok Boom of 2019, but Lil Huddy didn’t wanna label it. Now, months after their conveniently pandemic-timed public separation, Miss Charli returned to the content hive Hype House in Los Angeles and they started posting TikToks together again, prompting rumors about their reconciliation. But as of last night’s Twitter fiasco, it appears D’Amelio is done. Here’s a breakdown of the drama that’s tearing all of straight TikTok apart.

Okay, why do I suddenly need to know everything about Charli D’Amelio and Lil Huddy?
If this teenage drama is giving you blissful The Hills flashbacks — let’s begin by remembering that influencers are the executive producers of their own lives. And this Charli D’Amelio–Lil Huddy tea starts with the orchestrator of it all, one of the Hype House founders and former member of Jake Paul’s controversial collab house Team 10, Thomas Petrou. (He was previously the subject of his own scandal, when fellow founder Daisy Keech claimed he was manipulative, among other accusations.) On July 5, Petrou posted a YouTube video suggesting that TikTokker Nessa Barrett could be joining the Hype House. Monumental in its own right. Just two weeks ago, Barrett and Josh Richards, members of the rival Sway House announced their breakup. Drama pretty much constantly surrounds those two — like in April, when they were at the center of Charli D’Amelio and Chase Hudson’s previous controversy.

Oh, this is part two?
A literal sequel. A few weeks before they announced their breakup, Richards posted a diss track claiming that Hudson sent Barrett explicit pics and DMs while Hudson was talking to D’Amelio. She stayed pretty quiet about it, and later Hudson and Richards posted TikToks together as if the beef was squashed. Which explains why fans were extremely stressed over the idea of Barrett being in the Hype House with both D’Amelio and Hudson.

How did Charli respond?
Well, she posted vague captions, potentially hinting at the drama. But mainly, she kept it quiet until Twitter user @xlilhuddy logged on. “All this drama going on is because I kissed Nessa when we were both single,” he tweeted (and deleted). But certainly that wasn’t the full story. “Then, you shouldn’t have come to my house after without telling me …” D’Amelio quote-tweeted it.

The ellipses … This is too real, where’s the drama?
Meanwhile, Barrett’s ex-ex-boyfriend Jaden Hossler (also a TikTokker) spit some hard truths at Lil Huddy. “Boy, you need to ONE stop lying and giving half the truth to make yourself look better and TWO when we pulled up and confronted you in person you didn’t say shit except you were wrong,” he quote-tweeted. “Sit down and be quiet on social media if you aren’t gonna talk in person. Sad.” Pretty much all the Sway House boys, including Bryce Hall and Anthony Reeves, started to subtweet Hudson.

Wow, so when does the #LilHuddyIsOverParty start?
Well, the decorations weren’t even up before Hudson pulled out more reasons to celebrate. “Since all my drama has to be put on the internet for the world to judge me, let’s lay out everyone else’s,” he wrote in a since-deleted screenshot, desecrating the humility and honor of the Notes app apology. “Anthony got with Cynthia a week after we broke up on tour. Jaden actively tried to hook up with Dixie [Charli D’Amelio’s big sis] at our house on the 4th of July in front of me while she was dating Griffin. Griffin cheated on Dixie with Tayler’s ex Kaylyn and Bryce’s ex Elle. Jaden and Josh cheated endless amounts of times on Mads & Nessa for the past few months. Kio cheated on Olivia.” If none of that means anything to you, that’s fine, because it’s the personal business of a bunch of teenagers. What fans actually cared about was Hudson making it right with D’Amelio. The second half of his note does a lot, but it just doesn’t do that.

“The only person who has a right to be upset with me is Charli and I’m sorry I hurt her,” he starts off. “We broke up and I messed up by kissing Nessa. I am not sorry to Josh, we are not boys and we haven’t been boys since he lied to Charli saying I had an STD 6 months ago trying to get her to stop seeing me. I’m not going to let these hypocrites try and ruin my life without their lives being out on the internet too.” People couldn’t even process this. Richards, instead of tweeting about it, just started promo-ing his TikTok drama series TeaTok because, remember, they’re executive producers and that covers film, TV, and audio, baby.

What about the people he called out?
Only a few of the TikTokers bothered to address Hudson’s claims about them, with many others coming to the defense of those who were “exposed.” Kio Cyr denied the claim against him in a subtweet to his ex, saying, “No wonder the break up was so out of the blue, someone says some shit about me, and you choose to believe it.” Hossler tweeted that he and Hudson talked and it’s settled. Dixie D’Amelio was too busy defending her little sister. But it’s Charli who got the last word. “Stop deflecting you’re [sic] actions onto others because you can’t take responsibility chase. want me to talk about how you treated me throughout our relationship or do you just want to continue to play the victim?” she quote-tweeted Hudson, making sure to leave a Carrd link with petitions in the replies. And that was that! She’s over on TikTok doing her little thing, celebrating 68 million followers.

… This is all gonna happen again in a few months, isn’t it?
Probably, but you know where we’ll be.