Drama erupted in the London mommy-blogger community when a prominent influencer admitted to being behind an anonymous account that bullied many of her peers.AliceInWanderLust had repeatedly targeted prominent mommy bloggers on an online discussion board.Over the course of several months, users grew suspicious that midwife and social-media figure Clemmie Hooper was behind the insults against other bloggers and even her own husband.After trying to throw forum observers off her scent and being called out by a fellow blogger, Hooper posted an apology on her Instagram story.Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.The London mommy-blogger community was rocked by one of its own this week when it was revealed that midwife and social-media personality Clemmie Hooper had been issuing personal attacks through anonymously targeting some of her closest friends in the community.The 34-year-old London-based blogger lost at least 30,000 of her approximately 700,000 followers when reports revealed she was behind the account AliceInWanderLust that had repeatedly dragged prominent mommy bloggers on the online discussion board, Tattle Life.Hooper admitted that she had been posting behind the handle after a fellow influencer posted a mysterious warning that the true poster should reveal herself after months of bullying.See how the drama unfolded around the seemingly squeaky-clean community.For several months, AliceInWanderLust was a regular poster on Tattle Life. However, some observers of the mommy-blogging community had become suspicious that Hooper was behind the account.Instagram Embed: //instagram.com/p/B2gez7HHoX_/embed Width: 540pxAliceInWanderLust took aim at different mommy influencers, including calling Bethie Hungerford, known on Instagram as Hunger-mama, "desperate," and accusing blogger Candice Brathwaite, who is black, of being "aggressive" and using her race "like a weapon to silence people's opinions."Fellow users on the forum grew suspicious after something seemed off with the account, including when some noted that some posts had been tagged in the same location as Hooper's St. Lucia vacation, according to Grazia. The account seemed to ramp up its insults when other users floated their suspicions that Hooper was behind it, and posts took aim at the blogger's husband Simon, calling him a "t---" and saying she couldn't believe his wife "puts up with his nonsense."After months of suspicion, several influencers were reportedly contacted by a fellow blogger who owned up to posting nasty insults online, but didn't reveal the true identity of "Alice."The first and most direct address to the anonymous poster came from fellow influencer Laura Rutherford, who posted a photo referencing Alice in Wonderland alongside a long caption decrying AliceinWanderlust's online insults."You've goaded and encouraged trolls to tear my reputation apart for the last 8mths," Rutherford wrote. "Mine and a handful of other influencers- and for what gain'No I won't talk to you or discuss with you your justifications for online bullying. There is absolutely no justification for this behaviour."Instagram Embed: //instagram.com/p/B4hqLEhnJ9F/embed Width: 540pxAfter Rutherford's post, Hooper issued a public apology in her Instagram story, where she said she first created the account when she saw people were talking about her and her family.Instagram Embed: //instagram.com/p/B3jbFz5HJaZ/embed Width: 540px"I know there are some rumors circulating and I want to take the opportunity to explain," Hooper wrote, according to The Telegraph. "Earlier this year, I became aware of a website that had thousands of comments about my family and I. Reading them made me feel extremely paranoid and affected me much more than I knew at the time."Hooper said over time, maintaining the secret account "became all-consuming and it grew bigger than I knew how to handle," especially as other users grew suspicious."When the users started to suspect it was me, I made the mistake of commenting about others. I regret it all and am deeply sorryI know this has caused a lot of pain," she wrote."Undoubtedly, I got lost in this online world and the more I became engrossed in the negative commentary, the more the situation escalated. Engaging in this was a huge mistake. I take full responsibility for what has happened and I am just so sorry for the hurt I have caused everyone involved, including my friends and family."Hooper's husband later addressed the controversy.Instagram Embed: //instagram.com/p/B4qEyMMFNrd/embed Width: 540pxHooper's husband Simon, who runs the account @father_of_daughters and has garnered one million followers, posted after the reveal that he was in a "crap position" and wish he had known about it all along."I'm in a crap position as I only really have two options - 1) to stay silent to protect my wife and knowing that if I do, the silence will be deafening or 2) to comment on something I had no knowledge of. It's not a fun place to be," he wrote.Hooper echoed some of his wife's references to their troubles with others posting about them online, saying that he had "seen first hand what three years of being attacked online can do to a person and the dark places it can drive you toI guess whereas I can happily ignore it all, she couldn't and ended up getting lost.""To be clear, I'm not here to defend my wife's actions or provide excuses because I have none," he wrote. "What I do know is online actions have real-world consequences - this has impacted our family and it will take some time to recover."This isn't the first time she's been at the center of online drama.Instagram Embed: //instagram.com/p/Bzd1IEyn8WY/embed Width: 540px In May 2018, Hooper left Instagram amid accusations that she was inappropriately using her children for paid advertising partnerships that set off a dramatic discussion on Mumsnet, a parenting forum.However, it remains to be seen how her account will weather this scandal as her latest posts have some assorted negative comments criticizing her and some have called for the Nursing and Midwifery Council to strip her of her title at Kings College Hospital in London.
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