{"id":669783,"date":"2026-05-14T05:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T05:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/669783\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T05:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T05:45:08","slug":"very-demure-very-mindful-how-jools-lebron-went-viral-and-her-life-fell-apart-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/669783\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Very demure, very mindful\u2019: how Jools Lebron went viral \u2013 and her life fell apart | Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jools Lebron was in her car, taking a break from her job in a supermarket, when she posted the TikTok<\/a> video that would change her life. \u201cYou see how I do my makeup for work?\u201d she told her followers that day in August 2024. \u201cVery demure, very mindful \u2026 A lot of you girls go to the interview looking like Marge Simpson and go to the job looking like Patty and Selma. Not demure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first, it was like any other video,\u201d she says, on a video call from her home in Chicago. \u201cA few likes, a couple of comments. But then I started noticing the numbers moving faster than usual \u2013 faster than anything I had seen before. I remember refreshing my phone and just staring at it like: \u2018Wait \u2026 what is happening?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Within days, she was a meme. \u201cYou see how Earth looks in space?\u201d Nasa wrote on X<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s very demure, very mindful.\u201d Joe Biden\u2019s White House X account posted<\/a>: \u201cCancelling the student debt of nearly 5 million Americans through various actions. Very mindful. Very demure.\u201d Khlo\u00e9 Kardashian repeated<\/a> the phrase for TikTok while getting her own makeup done: \u201cDo you see how I\u2019m sitting here, very ladylike, very mindful, very demure.\u201d<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t Lebron\u2019s first glimpse of fame. Then 30, she had previously had some success as a YouTube makeup artist, after transitioning in her early 20s and going online in search of a new community. A fan of the trans makeup artist Nikita Dragun, she had decided to make her own videos. \u201cI felt like I\u2019d never seen a trans woman that looked like me, that was a bigger woman, that even came from my background,\u201d she recalls. \u201cSo I started telling stories while doing my makeup and it\u2019d be like: \u2018Oh, first time hooking up with a straight guy,\u2019 \u2018The first time coming out to my parents,\u2019 and then those videos started doing numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The more she shared, the higher her engagement. Eventually, she had almost a million subscribers. She used to think that transitioning had brought so much negativity to her life, but now it was bringing positivity. \u201cIt felt like I finally found people who I understood and who understood me truthfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it all came crashing down after an online feud with another influencer, Patrick Starrr. She lost brand deals, developed a serious cocaine habit and was dropped by her management.<\/p>\n

After years of her mother telling her to get a normal job, she stopped trying to strike deals with big beauty brands. Her new life was very mundane: stocking shelves, organising products, helping customers find things, sometimes working the cash register. \u201cI\u2019m working a regular job,\u201d she remembers thinking. \u201cThis is so good. I turned my life around. That same week, \u2018demure\u2019 happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lebron was feeling good that day in 2024 with her pink blush and simple black winged eyeliner, so she recorded and posted an off-the-cuff video commenting on her makeup. Then the views kept coming, and coming and coming \u2026 \u201cIt wasn\u2019t even excitement right away,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was confusion, then a little bit of fear, because I knew something was shifting. I just didn\u2019t know how big it was going to get.<\/p>\n

With talk show personality Guillermo Rodriguez on the set of Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Photograph: Randy Holmes\/AP<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one tells you how to handle this. At one point, for 10 or 11 weeks straight, I was not home. I was flying back and forth to hotels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first, it was a lot of emails, a lot of interest, and trying to figure out what made sense. Then came the first deals, followed by bigger conversations. Shortly after that, I started getting asked to do appearances and interviews.\u201d She appeared on an episode of the talkshow Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> Live! co-hosted by RuPaul; you could see she was more than just a catchphrase as she held her own in a witty exchange with the Drag Race presenter.<\/p>\n

Again, though, the dream started to turn sour. Brands had been reaching out, wanting the exposure her virality would bring, sending her items to post about, but the volume of requests quickly became too much to handle. \u201cI\u2019m waking up to like 100 packages a day at some point, and a lot of these are just getting stolen before I can even get to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

One deal collapsed after theft delayed a promotion for a hair care company. \u201cThey cancelled the brand deal and a person from that agency went on to tell a bunch of people at other agencies: \u2018She\u2019s horrible to work with. She can\u2019t meet a deadline. She\u2019s a mess.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markIt\u2019s like they got their viral moment and they don\u2019t see you as a long-term creator<\/p>\n

Lebron also began to feel used. She felt brands convinced her to work with them by offering lasting collaborative partnerships, but the interactions felt short and one-sided: \u201cIt\u2019s like they got their viral moment and they don\u2019t see you as a long-term creator.\u201d<\/p>\n

What these companies didn\u2019t know was that Lebron was in a vulnerable place. Just after her \u201cdemure\u201d post went viral, she was assaulted by a man she had met online. The event left her feeling shaken, but she had no time to process it. She mentioned it to some of the people around her, but no one wanted to slow the momentum. \u201cIt was heard and it hit their ears. But it was kind of just like: \u2018Oh, we hear you, but Tuesday we do need \u2026\u2019 It\u2019s like no one cared.\u201d Feeling overwhelmed and isolated, she turned to drugs again.<\/p>\n

Even as she shares her darkest moments, she finds some humour in them. While at Milan fashion week in 2024, getting ready to interview celebrities on behalf of luxury brand Bottega Veneta, she got a call from her ex-fiance to tell her their dog was being put down. The glam team struggled to put on her makeup as tears rolled down her cheeks.<\/p>\n

It had all happened so suddenly that she didn\u2019t get to say goodbye. \u201cMy manager was like: \u2018I\u2019m so sorry: we have to go.\u2019 And then I go, and fucking Kendall Jenner\u2019s mean to me.\u201d As she approached the model for a soundbite, \u201cshe looks at me and looks at the manager and goes: \u2018Do I have to do this?\u2019 And so then they just walked away. I left that party in tears. And I went back to my hotel room and I was like: \u2018Where are the drugs?\u2019 But I was in Italy, so there were no drugs.\u201d She bursts out laughing, stroking her long wig.<\/p>\n

\u2018Being yourself will always pay off.\u2019 Photograph: Jamie Kelter Davis\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

She sometimes found herself thinking about death: \u201cA part of me did think that it would be a better way to end everything if I overdosed.\u201d To add to the pressure, friends and family were relying on her for a living. She came from a big, loud and loving Puerto Rican family, who had always been supportive of her during her low periods. Now she wanted to support them in return. She paid her grandmother\u2019s medical bills and her brother\u2019s debts, and helped her dad renovate his kitchen. She hired her brother to appear on a podcast with her, but the agency running the podcast pushed her into letting him go. She paid him all the same, \u201cout of guilt, because I made him quit his second job to do this\u201d.<\/p>\n

There was no one to turn to. \u201cI would reach out to influencers who were bigger than me and they would kind of be like, \u2018Diva, it\u2019s not that serious. You\u2019re just doing some coke. You could be doing heroin.\u2019\u201d Influencers with less of a following told her: \u201cBut you went viral! You\u2019re lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her income was drying up, and she had to let go of her employees and honour the salaries she owed them. At that point, she says, \u201cI\u2019m like I hate \u2018demure\u2019; I never want to hear that word again.\u201d She was angry at those around her, her family, and most of all herself. Finally she told herself: \u201cI don\u2019t deserve to think about it that way. I don\u2019t deserve to feel so negative about the best time of my life. I don\u2019t deserve to be yelling at my family. And you know what? My family doesn\u2019t deserve to have to deal with this side of me. This isn\u2019t fair to them.\u2019\u201d Not for the first time in our conversation, she wipes tears from her eyes.<\/p>\n

One day, she woke up after another bender. There was a man in her house whom she\u2019d spent the past three days with. \u201cI looked at him and I had seen this man so many times. Not the same man, but metaphorically, another random weird guy here that you\u2019re hanging out with. And then I just messaged my mom: \u2018I need therapy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

At least she managed to buy herself somewhere to live. \u201cI do have a stable place to heal,\u201d she says. Her most recent videos have been her getting ready for the gym, going to the dentist and prioritising her health.<\/p>\n

Looking back, she thinks she\u2019s been struggling with guilt: \u201cIt feels like everyone around me tells me I\u2019m so lucky to have had this happen. But because I was just so heavily in use I don\u2019t remember a lot of it \u2026 I wish I had taken better care of myself, but I can\u2019t go back and try to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, for the moment, at least, things are looking up. \u201cBrands are reaching out again, the views are up again and my relationship with my audience is up again. Being yourself will always pay off \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, she wants the world to know that she\u2019s more than just a meme. \u201cYou can be the biggest person, but at the end of the day, you are still a person. You\u2019re still a human being under all this. And I want people to know that I\u2019m Jools Lebron. I\u2019m 32. I\u2019m a Puerto Rican girl from Humboldt Park in Chicago who\u2019s transitioning and trying to recover from this. And I\u2019m a person very much making mistakes \u2013 just like you, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans<\/a> can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org<\/a> or jo@samaritans.ie<\/a>. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline<\/a> at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org<\/a>. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline<\/a> is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/a><\/p>\n

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