In February 2015, the Great British Bake Off ruffled a few feathers when it introduced a new kind of celebrity to its charity special.
The Great Comic Relief Bake Off – as it was when still in the hands of the BBC – had just shown Joanna Lumley, Jennifer Saunders, Lulu and Dame Edna battling it out to be crowned Star Baker.
But alongside well-known celebs Gok Wan, Jonathan Ross, model and TV star Abbey Clancy, the BBC threw in a wildcard: the YouTube star Zoella.
Reaction ranged from bewildered to downright confused: why was a YouTuber best-known for makeup tutorials and showing off shopping hauls considered famous enough to appear on one of Britain’s most beloved TV competitions?
‘My parents r in the other room watching British bake off and I can just hear them saying ‘I don’t get youtube’ ‘what is zoella?,’ wrote one user on Twitter. ‘Watching The Great Comic Relief Bake Off & I still have no idea what the f*** a Zoella is,’ added another, less diplomatic, viewer.
But the BBC was ahead of the curve – as was the influencer, full name Zoe Sugg: a beauty blogger who, at her peak, would command the eyes and ears of 11million fans and a self-started media empire the likes of which had never been seen before.
She was only 24 when she appeared on Bake Off, and by then was already a one-woman media force and a byword for an entire industry who set the benchmark for countless other content creators and TikTokers to follow.
To chart her history is to chart the history of influencers, from the heady highs of early success to when things go wrong in front of an audience of millions. But in recent years the original influencer – who is now 35 – has moved away from make-up tutorials and novelty food taste tests – and her output has dipped.
Fans fervently speculate on Reddit and the controversial Tattle Life forum – whose owner was recently exposed – about what she and beau Alfie Deyes are up to now.
Zoe Sugg, aka Zoella, is the best known of Britain’s ‘first wave’ of online influencers – but has stepped away from the YouTube videos that first brought her fame
Sugg began her career as a vlogger in 2009 with this video, boasting the Ronseal-esque title ’60 Things In My Bedroom’
She ruffled feathers when she appeared on the Great Comic Relief Bake Off in early 2015
Katie Lloyd, associate researcher in fashion marketing at Cardiff University and an expert in influencer marketing, says this is only natural after a social media career lasting more than a decade.
‘Many (influencers) began their careers sharing makeup hauls and daily vlogs from their teenage bedrooms whilst their teenage audience watched along from their bedroom and learnt from them,’ she told the Daily Mail.
‘But of course, life moves on and so do influencers.’
It was in 2009 that Sugg, then working for high street chain New Look and blogging about beauty products, uploaded ’60 Things In My Bedroom’. Before long, she was being sent items to review.
Sugg began collaborating with Louise Pentland, then going by SprinkleOfGlitter, and the two became almost inseparable as they spearheaded the first wave of UK YouTubers big enough to become household names.
Known as the ‘Brit Crew’, the informal team featured, among others, Zoe’s brother Joe Sugg, her beau-to-be Alfie Deyes, Tanya Burr and Caspar Lee – names unfamiliar to anyone born prior to the 1990s.
But for younger millennials, relatable video creators like Sugg were the antidote to increasingly irrelevant mainstream media. Their ‘authentic’ and unvarnished videos earned them a degree of trust – as well as huge influence and power.
Fans bought into the girl-next-door vibe and the idea that she could be their friend; it took the idea of ‘parasocial relationships’ – the one-sided affinity and sense of intimacy fans feel about their favourite stars – to a new level.
That only grew with the launch of her second YouTube channel, MoreZoella, that showed everyday exploits with her fellow video-makers on day trips and holidays.
Zoella pictured with her brother Joe Sugg, who has since built his own career as a YouTuber and TV personality
She and boyfriend Alfie Deyes had been an item since 2012 – regularly appearing in each other’s videos as part of the original YouTuber ‘Brit Pack’
Sugg’s controversies began as it emerged that a ghostwriter had been employed to write her debut novel, Girl Online, about a blogger with anxiety
By now, Sugg was building a media empire, collaborating with Pentland to launch ‘Louella’ makeup brushes. Then in April 2013, she hit one million subscribers.
Months later, she was named one of the most influential Twitter users by a British newspaper – bringing her out of YouTube and into the mainstream.
She moved to Brighton with Alfie Deyes, the pair’s vlogging careers going stratospheric. Mental health charity Mind then named her its first ‘digital ambassador’ after she spoke frankly about her struggles with anxiety.
From there, the Zoella machine was unstoppable: makeup brushes, beauty products, appearances on Loose Women and This Morning, a Penguin book deal and a spot on the Band Aid 30 re-recording of Do They Know It’s Christmas.
Sugg was making £50,000 a month in 2014, according to The Sunday Times. She was in the spotlight – but she would soon discover that its power goes both ways shortly after releasing debut novel Girl Online.
The novel starred a Brighton-based teen blogger with anxiety who finds fame online. Sugg insisted it was in no way autobiographical. It sold 78,000 copies in its first week, with booksellers breaking the release date to cash in.
‘I’m so pleased to introduce my new book, Girl Online,’ she said in a promotional video, explaining that her social media career had led her to ‘being able to write my very own novel.’
It emerged shortly after that Sugg had not written the book alone. Children’s author Siobhan Curham lent an unspecified form of ‘editorial assistance’, and was sent hate mail by fans who accused her of trying to ride the vlogger’s coat-tails.
Curham, who said she was not aware she would appear in its acknowledgments, later said she did not work on the book to ‘get rich’, but because she supported its message and reckoned Sugg would inspire a new generation of readers.
‘I think it would be really healthy to have a broader debate about transparency in celebrity publishing,’ she wrote. ‘But please don’t blame Zoe personally for a practice that has been going on for years.’
Sugg fled the internet for a short time to let the heat cool off, later describing the experience as ‘horrible’. But further controversy was not far behind.
Sugg was blasted by a top police officer after being seen to take her hands off the wheel and speak into the camera for a vlog while driving
Sugg and friend Louise Pentland – known then as SprinkleOfGlitter – were a regular double act
Rumours of a rift have persisted over the years after the pair stopped appearing in each other’s videos and social media posts
In 2014, Sugg (pictured in blue next to Ed Sheeran) appeared on the re-recording of Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas
Just over a week later, a senior Metropolitan Police officer blasted Sugg as ‘reckless’ for vlogging behind the wheel, taking both hands off the wheel and talking into the camera as her boyfriend films from the passenger seat.
The unnamed cop told Now magazine: ‘She could have killed someone. How can anyone who has their eyes off the road for that amount of time be in complete control of a vehicle?’
A spokesperson for Sugg insisted the vlogger took road safety ‘very seriously’ – but she was also condemned by charity Brake for not setting a ‘good example’.
Sugg’s Bake Off appearance came shortly after – as did her Madame Tussauds waxwork. She and Deyes snapped up a £1million mansion in 2015 – only to hit out at fans who rang the doorbell and tried to peek through the windows.
One Twitter user said: ‘Welcome to the famous life. Didn’t you see this coming at all?’
In 2016, she was forced to defend herself after sharing an image to the picture-swapping platform Snapchat showing her lying in bed in a t-shirt and underwear.
It sparked outrage given the age of her young, impressionable audience. She fired back online: ‘I hope one day we will live in a world where promoting self love & body confidence won’t be sexualised or shamed.’
Her earnings were so great at this point that she and Deyes quickly moved into a luxury seven-bed mansion just outside Brighton, in 2017. The home is in Sugg’s name and was valued at £1.8million, official records show.
Shortly after, homophobic and fat-shaming tweets she had written between 2009 and 2012 resurfaced. Sugg apologised for the messages, in which she called an X Factor contestant a ‘fat chav’ and suggested a woman should ‘keep her legs shut’.
Others made fun of gay men spitting, and referred to a woman querying the cost of an expensive dress as a ‘tramp’. ‘That is not who I am today and I’d like to think I’m a little older and wiser,’ Sugg said in an apology.
Her 2017 ‘advent calendar’ failed to pass muster with parents of disappointed children who opened the measly 12 doors to find cookie cutters, a small bag of confetti, a candle, room spray and a pen. The £50 price tag was a last insult.
Sugg maintained that she was ‘happy’ with the product, but had no say in its price, which was eventually slashed to £25 following an outcry.
But by this point, fans weren’t the only people putting Sugg under the microscope. A study suggested that teenage literacy levels were falling because young adults were reading books like Sugg’s instead of more ‘challenging’ material.
The influencer’s success online led to the launch of her own branded beauty products (pictured at the Zoella Beauty launch in London in 2014)
The vloggers later bought a £1million house in Brighton (pictured: the living room of the house as it appeared on the market)
She and Deyes were turned into Madame Tussauds waxworks in 2015. The models are no longer on public display
And as vloggers took up more mainstream opportunities, watchdogs began paying closer attention to the murky ways in which they made their cash.
In 2018, the Advertising Standards Authority launched its first guidelines for online influencers to ensure they were being transparent with their viewers about where they were getting items from.
Like other YouTubers, Sugg was earning money from YouTube adverts as well as sponsored posts and shout-outs, as well as ‘affiliate links’ for sites such as Amazon that would earn her money if people bought an item via her channel.
However, she was not always declaring whether she had been gifted the items featured in her videos, and whether she was receiving any money to promote them, irritating the Competition and Markets Authority.
Shortly after the guidelines were issued, the CMA gave her a stern warning to clean up her act so that her fans could, in the words of the regulator, ‘decide whether something is really worth spending your hard-earned money on’.
Nevertheless, she found herself on the wrong end of the ASA’s ire after a July 2019 Instagram post featured a link to buy an ASOS dress – declaring it as an ‘affiliate’ post but not explicitly an ‘ad’.
Sugg’s and Deyes’ Madame Tussauds waxworks were put into storage. By this point, the one-time teen favourite was approaching 30.
By then, the ‘Zoella’ phenomenon had been in a managed decline. Sugg abandoned her main YouTube channel, with its 11million subscribers in 2018. It remains online, a living archive of her early career. The last video posted is a takeaway pizza taste test.
Instead, Zoella became a lifestyle brand and Sugg began using her second YouTube channel more, later saying she had wanted to move away from the videos that made her a household name.
‘(It was) too much needing to stay a certain way… I just didn’t feel it was reflective of me as a late twenty-something-year-old,’ she said in an interview.
But she may have gone too far in trying to mature with an audience of millions – particularly with the Zoella brand, reborn as a lifestyle magazine website that she says was targeted at the over-25s.
Her 2018 party planning hardback, Cordially Invited, was lampooned for featuring advice on how to make a sandwich: ‘Lay your bread out on your work surface and butter each slice.’
Sugg was criticised for sharing an image of herself in a t-shirt and underwear in bed, given the age of her impressionable young audience
Zoella’s £50 ‘advent calendar’ featured only 12 doors – and was ridiculed (pictured) for its contents, including cookie cutters, confetti and a pen
Sugg wrote several fiction books and the hardback party planning guide Cordially Invited, which was panned for its basic advice such as how to make a sandwich (pictured at a launch event in 2018)
The pair moved to a seven-bed mansion on the outskirts of Brighton in 2017, snapping up the home for a cool £1.7million
She has given viewers an occasional glimpse inside the sprawling home via her secondary YouTube channel – after abandoning the one that gave her fame
An exam board dropped her content from a GCSE media studies course after it featured a list of the year’s best sex toys. It admitted it had not discussed including the star’s website in its study materials with her.
Somewhere in the middle of that, Louise Pentland – her one-time on-camera bestie – disappeared from view.
Rumours of a rift between the two have persisted for years. While Pentland said in 2019 that she remains in touch with the ‘Brit crew’ – and the pair still follow each other on Instagram – she and Sugg haven’t been seen together in years.
The star was then blasted by MPs for taking taxpayer cash to put her £25,000-a-year A To Z Creatives office manager on furlough – shortly before she and Deyes snapped up a £1.9million Brighton loft from which to run her business empire.
A spokesperson for Sugg said the decision had been taken to use the scheme because the office was closed.
Sugg and Deyes then had their first daughter, Ottilie, in August 2021. The pair were engaged in September 2023 – second daughter Novie followed three months later.
Since then, Sugg’s output has changed dramatically. Out go make-up tutorials and pizza taste-tests; in come wholesome videos of family days out, conversations about post-partum life and – yes – the occasional clothes haul.
These days, Sugg appears to be taking life a little slower, with company accounts showing she has millions in the bank on which to depend.
Her Zoe Sugg YouTube channel hasn’t seen an upload for weeks. Fans have noticed she has missed ‘Vlogust’, an annual challenge to post one video every day throughout this month.
It has five million subscribers – decent enough, but far from the heady highs of her career peak.
Elsewhere, the Zoella website hasn’t been updated for two years and her most prolific platform is now Instagram, where she has nine million followers.
Her posts are typically liked 118,000 times each, and are seen 3.6million times, according to data from social analytics platform Modash.
Even there, her posts are weekly at best – save for the occasional sponsored video promoting Marks and Spencer food. Comments on all of her posts are heavily moderated.
Together with Alfie Deyes, Sugg also snapped up this Brighton loft complex for £1.9million in 2020, from which to run her business empire
She was criticised in 2020 for furloughing a £25,000-a-year office manager during the pandemic despite sitting on a multi-million pound fortune
Sugg fell pregnant and gave birth to first daughter Ottillie in 2021 – three years after she had stopped posting on the main Zoella YouTube channel
Sugg later announced she was pregnant with second daughter Novie online. These days, Novie features more than her older sister in Zoe’s family-led Instagram content
At her peak, she gave interviews to newspapers, and magazines like Vogue and Glamour. But Sugg hasn’t spoken to a mainstream media publication in years.
One of the last, with Marie Claire, noted that the landscape had been shifting as she got started.
‘When I started back in 2008 or 2009, social media influencer wasn’t a term that was used, it wasn’t a thing. It was just some people writing about makeup and beauty or whatever it was they were passionate about,’ she said.
‘They just shared it and a community was formed. Nobody really had any idea of the scale, or how big or influential it could get.
‘I guess a part of me thinks it’s quite nice you didn’t know because you really went on a journey with it. And would it be the same if you did (now)? I don’t know.
‘There would have been absolutely no way of anyone anticipating the scale things would get to, how many people would be in this space and the careers that were formed from it.’
And the landscape has continued to shift even now. YouTube is full of videos heralding the ‘the end of beauty gurus’.
Attention spans have dropped as viewers shift from 20 minute vlogs to rapid-fire TikToks – where the top influencers have followings Sugg can only dream of.
And recent studies have suggested that people no longer trust influencers to the degree they once did – with everyone and their mother able to hawk items via TikTok Shop with the most meagre of followings.
Deyes has said publicly that they intend to share less content with Ottillie before she starts school in September – and the youngster’s face has been obscured in photographs on Sugg’s Instagram as of late.
Lower follower counts – and the flurry of controversies – could suggest that Sugg’s fans have turned against her.
But Katie Lloyd of Cardiff University believes the truth is simpler than that: it might just be that Sugg, and her fans, have grown up.
And for some, the shift towards parenting videos – particularly for those who aren’t parents – can feel like ‘losing a friend’, she explained.
Sugg was blasted by advertising watchdogs over this post about an Asos dress, which regulators said did not make clear it was an advertisement
A social media expert has suggested that Sugg’s audience may be growing up beyond the point of looking to influencers for life advice (pictured with Alfie Deyes at their home)
‘Whilst that might sound crazy, the parasocial relationships are a fundamental basis to the success of influencer marketing,’ she said, referring to the one-way relationship between fans and celebrities.
‘Because of this, their engagement often dips and this is not necessarily out of disinterest from their audience, but because the shared life experience that once bound the creator and their audience has evolved.’
She believes Sugg may yet retain much of her audience who, like her, have become parents. But the social media landscape has changed too.
‘Indeed we are seeing many influencers are realising that not every aspect of motherhood needs to be shared,’ Miss Lloyd continued.
‘There’s a growing awareness around digital boundaries, child privacy, and the mental toll of constantly performing for an audience.
‘This withdrawal, whilst may be disappointing for some fans, is often a healthy and necessary recalibration for the influencers too.
‘Ultimately, we are seeing this evolution of influencers challenge their followers to either grow with them or simply let go.
‘And for influencers, it underscores a deeper truth that even when platforms change and audiences shift, the most meaningful content comes from living authentically through each phase of their life.’
Perhaps, having lived the last 15 years staring down the barrel of an ever-recording camera, Sugg simply has decided to hit pause for the first time.
- Representatives for Zoe Sugg informed the Daily Mail she was unavailable for interview for this article.
