TikTok Star Ava Majury Discovers the Darkish Facet of Fame

NAPLES, Fla. — Ava Majury downloaded TikTok when she was 13, and on the top of the pandemic lockdowns a yr later had greater than one million followers. Her followers, almost three-quarters of them male, watched her lip-sync and dance to trending music on an account with the profile message, “Hey, I like you!!”

In early 2020 Ava observed that one fan, EricJustin111, was making an attempt to get her consideration in feedback on TikTok. He messaged her in Snapchat and on Instagram, and turned up in on-line video games she performed along with her brothers. Ava responded to him a couple of occasions at first, she mentioned, “as a result of I used to answer to my followers, like ‘Hey, how was your day?’’’

Early on July 10, the fan — Eric Rohan Justin, 18, of Ellicott Metropolis, Md. — arrived with a shotgun on the Majury household residence in Naples and blew open the entrance door. His weapon jammed; Ava’s father, Rob Majury, a retired police lieutenant, chased him off however fell. Mr. Majury instructed Collier County sheriff’s officers that he returned to the home, retrieved his handgun and stood guard on the entrance door, solely to see the gunman return a short while later. By dawn Mr. Justin lay dying, shot by Mr. Majury.

What started as an enterprising teenager’s lockdown enterprise has woke up the household of 5 to how on-line fame can gasoline real-world violence. In interviews with The New York Instances, they spoke for the primary time about an ordeal that illuminates the darkish aspect of a social media platform favored by thousands and thousands of kids.

TikTok’s proprietor, Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., and lots of of its customers emphasize the friendships, progressive content material and inventive collaboration enabled by the platform, however its huge recognition amongst weak, underage individuals has additionally been linked to psychological well being issues, accidents and deaths.

At present Ava Majury stays on TikTok, the place she is netting hundreds of {dollars} in sponsorship offers and has attracted curiosity from Hollywood, together with from actuality TV producers. Her TikTok fame has introduced sponsorship alternatives on Instagram and Snapchat, too. Instagram, owned by Meta, previously often called Fb, has additionally been accused of causing mental and emotional health problems amongst teenage feminine customers.

“Her creations, her contacts, her movies grew to become such a giant a part of her that to take it away would have been arduous,” her father mentioned.

“We selected what’s finest for our household,” Ava’s mom, Kim Majury, added. “We all know there are going to be two sides, and a few individuals gained’t perceive.’’

A ‘Go-Getter’ and a Lurking Risk

The Majurys moved to Florida in 2019 from Manalapan, N.J., lured by its heat local weather, low taxes and a quieter life-style. They settled in Naples, a staid, secure group of prosperous retirees and rising households in Collier County, on the state’s Gulf Coast. Mr. Majury, 51, is a former Jersey Metropolis police lieutenant, and Mrs. Majury, 45, is an ultrasound technologist. The household rented a house in Raffia Protect, a subdivision of tidy houses on curving streets.

Ava is “a go-getter,” her father mentioned. When classmates in New Jersey admired a sticker she had designed for her laptop computer, she began promoting them, ultimately incomes almost $700. On TikTok, she has promoted a tooth-whitening product, rising recording artists and N.F.L. video games.

“I’ve three TikTok accounts, so I may have one model come to me and be like, ‘Oh, I’ll do $1,000 for one video in your fundamental account,’ and I’ll be like, ‘Oh nice, I’ve two different accounts which can be various kinds of individuals on there,’” Ava mentioned in an interview. “So altogether, I’m making $1,700 off simply my title, as a result of I opened up three accounts somewhat than simply constructing off one.”

Her enterprise stunned and intrigued her mother and father. “Actually, we had no thought the extent of what she was in a position to earn,” Mr. Majury mentioned. He has appeared in a few her movies, together with one she made within the automotive whereas he was driving.

“We each pointed on the digicam on the similar time and the music stopped and she or he begins laughing. You recognize, so harmless, it was candy for me. It’s me and her having a second,” Mr. Majury recalled. The second drew a whole lot of hundreds of views.

Downloads of TikTok grew by 75 percent in 2020, making it the world’s most-downloaded app that yr, in response to Hootsuite. At present the platform has more than one billion common month-to-month customers. It welcomes account holders as younger as 13, and in 2021 outflanked both Instagram and Snapchat in weekly utilization by youth ages 12 to 17. Whereas teenagers like Ava have used it to entertain and unfold optimistic messages, viral “TikTok Challenges” have been cited as inspiring youngsters to vandalize and threaten their colleges, observe hunger “Corpse Bride” diets and asphyxiate themselves. Teen women have been repeatedly targeted by baby predators.

A TikTok spokeswoman, Mahsau Cullinane, emailed an announcement saying that TikTok is “deeply invested within the security and well-being of our group’’ and added that the platform makes use of instruments to guard customers underneath the age of 16. In 2020, TikTok categorised greater than a 3rd of its 49 million each day customers in america as 14 or youthful, according to internal company data and documents reviewed by The Times.

Ava has two brothers, Evan and Logan, ages 17 and 11. She and Evan attend a sprawling public highschool the place a lot of scholar life revolves round social media.

In early 2020, after Ava observed Mr. Justin angling for her consideration on TikTok, she realized that mates in New Jersey and Florida have been promoting him images of her in addition to her private info, together with her cellphone quantity, which Mr. Justin used to name and textual content her. In one other occasion, Mr. Justin logged onto a classmate’s college account and did math homework in trade for details about Ava, her household mentioned.

“I needed to unfollow all my native mates and Jersey mates,” Ava mentioned. “And everybody round me was like, ‘Oh you’re going Hollywood on all of us, you don’t wish to speak to us anymore.’ And I’m like, ‘You’re promoting my stuff.’”

However Ava’s mother and father allowed her to promote Mr. Justin a few selfies that she had already posted to Snapchat.

“I wasn’t sending something of my physique,’’ Ava mentioned. “It was simply footage of my face, which is what I assume that he was paying for. My entire factor is my fairly smile — that’s my content material.” She mentioned Mr. Justin paid about $300 for 2 images, by way of the Venmo digital pockets app.

After that, Mr. Justin messaged Ava on Venmo with a breakdown of what he would pay for “booty pics” and images of her ft, “stuff {that a} 14-year-old shouldn’t be sending,” she mentioned. She blocked him on all her accounts. In Venmo messages seen by The Instances, Mr. Justin pleaded along with her to unblock him, sending $159.18, then $100, and at last $368.50 with the message, “sorry that is all I’ve left i’m broke.”

Mr. Majury mentioned he texted Mr. Justin’s cellphone, instructed him that Ava was a minor, and demanded that he cease contacting her.

At that time Mr. Justin’s efforts turned sinister. In a collection of textual content messages that made their method to Ava, and which the Majury household confirmed The Instances, he requested one among Ava’s male classmates whether or not he had entry to a “strap,” or gun, shared plans to assault her, and wrote, “i may simply breach the door with a shotgun i believe.” The classmate’s mom declined an interview request.

When Ava realized of the threatening messages, she referred to as the classmate who had obtained them. He confirmed that he had gotten them, and forwarded others to her. Fearful, she confirmed her mother and father. They researched Mr. Justin’s identification, noticed that he lived a whole lot of miles away, and reassured her that “he was one among these keyboard cowboys,” Mr. Majury mentioned.

“I form of discredited what may have been a risk.”

‘This Is All Your Fault’

Ava’s bed room was simply contained in the door Mr. Justin blasted open.

“All I keep in mind was, I heard it, I felt it in my chest, and I seemed up, and there was a gap in my door from the fragments,” she mentioned. She ran via a connecting lavatory to her brothers’ room, clutching a blanket, water bottle and her cellphone.

Mr. Majury bolted from mattress and ran shouting to the lobby, the place he mentioned particles nonetheless floated within the air. Mrs. Majury adopted, dialing 911 on her cellphone. Outdoors a gangly teenager carrying what seemed like a blue Walmart employee’s vest, protecting earplugs and security glasses stood on the entrance garden. He turned to flee and Mr. Majury sprinted ahead however fell, gashing his knee. The gunman paused, struggling to clear his jammed weapon, then ran away. Mr. Majury retrieved his handgun, and was standing on the entrance door awaiting the police when Mr. Justin returned. Mr. Majury mentioned he ordered {the teenager} to drop the shotgun, and when he as a substitute pointed it at him, Mr. Majury fired.

The three Majury youngsters had retreated to their mother and father’ bed room within the rear of the home. Ava’s older brother, Evan, turned to her in panic and fury.

“That is all of your fault,” he mentioned.

“The topic was probably a stalker that resulted from her daughter’s intensive social media involvement,” the Collier County Sheriff’s Workplace report learn, citing statements to them from Mrs. Majury. “Since her daughter’s involvement with social media, a number of topics have tried to establish her household’s tackle up to now.” Mrs. Majury supplied them with contact info for Mr. Justin, the report mentioned.

The Collier County Sheriff’s Workplace told local media at the time {that a} man had been shot and killed by the resident of a house in Raffia Protect after firing a gun into the house, in an tried residence invasion theft. The workplace didn’t title the gunman.

The Majurys mentioned police instructed them that Mr. Justin was carrying two cellphones that contained hundreds of images of Ava and a whole lot of hours of her movies.

Collier County Sheriff Kevin Rambosk and investigators from his workplace didn’t reply to requests for interviews. “This stays an energetic investigation and there aren’t any updates,” Karie Partington, a sheriff’s workplace spokeswoman, mentioned in an e mail.

The gunman’s identification was confirmed by his father, Justin Dominic. Mr. Dominic, a software program engineer who’s divorced from Mr. Justin’s mom, mentioned that earlier than the divorce the household had lived in america after which had moved to Mr. Dominic’s native India. When his mother and father cut up up, Mr. Justin selected to maneuver again to the U.S. together with his mom, his father mentioned, recalling their transfer as round 2015.

Mr. Dominic, who mentioned he had spoken with investigators, recalled his son as an excellent scholar who did nicely in math at Mount Hebron Excessive College in Ellicott Metropolis. “He was a pleasant child. I’m perplexed,” he mentioned in an interview. “I don’t know what went unhealthy with him. He made a nasty alternative.”

After the capturing the Majurys, reeling, moved in with mates. A number of days later Mrs. Majury obtained an invite from a would-be agent for Ava to go to Los Angeles, meet different influencers, and attend a few pink carpet occasions. One was for “Glo-Up Ladies,” a line of makeover-ready dolls marketed on a YouTube channel that includes six teenage influencers “dwelling in a mansion and taking up sensational Glo-Up challenges.”

“It was a pleasant distraction, completely,” Mrs. Majury mentioned.

After the Majurys returned residence, their householders’ affiliation despatched a letter to their landlord demanding their eviction as a result of, amongst different causes, Ava’s social media enterprise had attracted an intruder to the property.

In early August, Ava obtained messages on Venmo from a person calling her “child lady,” providing to pay $1,000 a month for her cellphone quantity. Her mother and father found that the person’s title matches that of a registered intercourse offender, arrested beforehand for soliciting a 14-year-old lady.

Mrs. Majury remembers considering, “We will’t stay like this.”

New Alternatives and Risks

Mr. Majury mentioned he was suggested by the police that underneath Florida’s “stand your floor” law governing justifiable use of lethal power, he was not topic to prosecution. However simply to be secure, he contacted a lawyer, James Scarmozzino, to characterize him. Mr. Scarmozzino related the household to different legal professionals who organized a enterprise centered on Ava’s potential earnings.

Michael Marino, an leisure lawyer in New York, created an enterprise, AGM Creations, for Ava, and signed an settlement with the Majurys for a share of future revenues. Mr. Marino turned to a good friend, Lanny Davis, a Washington lawyer and disaster supervisor whose public relations agency is now representing Ava.

The capturing continues to reverberate.

The boy who obtained Mr. Justin’s messages about his plans to assault Ava nonetheless attends highschool along with her. In December, Ava instructed her mother and father that he was following and watching her. The household visited the highschool to report the matter. Final month, one other classmate despatched her a video the boy had made from himself firing a gun at a capturing vary, her mom mentioned.

Unnerved, Ava withdrew from college this month and now attends class from residence. Mr. Scarmozzino filed a petition in Collier County Circuit Courtroom searching for an injunction for defense in opposition to stalking. A listening to is ready for Feb. 28, and Ava will testify.

Ava continues to be on social media, along with her mother and father’ assist. Mrs. Majury mentioned she didn’t need “sick people” to power Ava off the platforms. “Why ought to we permit them to cease her? Possibly she’s meant to convey consciousness to all this,” Mrs. Majury mentioned.

Ava has not instructed her followers what occurred. “I don’t need it to exit negatively and folks assume I attracted him,” she mentioned.

Her larger fear is that different troubled individuals will “make it a contest to see who can get right here first,’’ and she or he acknowledged that generally at night time, making an attempt to go to sleep after the capturing, “I’d assume, ‘I don’t wish to do that anymore.’” However by morning, “I considered all the advantages.’’

“Most individuals would say the cash. And yeah, it’s an enormous profit. But it surely’s the expertise. I received to go to L.A., the those that I met,” she mentioned. “Simply with the ability to make different individuals smile is what I like, the enjoyment of seeing the influence I made on some individuals’s lives.

“I’d publish a video at night time, shut my eyes, and within the morning it was thrilling to see what number of views I received.”

Her father interjected: “It’s like Christmas daily, as a result of you then see it construct.”

“I believe we simply needed to permit her to decide and form of assist her. I believe it’s going to assist her heal. It sounds corny, however I don’t know what else you’ll do it for.”

Kitty Bennett and Susan C. Beachy contributed analysis.