December 16, 2024 • 38 mins
GenZ ‘it girl’ and entrepreneur Matilda Djerf has been accused of inflicting ‘psychological terror’ on her employees at her hugely popular lifestyle brand, Djerf Avenue. Eleven former and current employees made the startling claims on a Swedish documentary accusing Matilda of bullying, fatphobia and what’s been touted as the toilet scrubbing scandal.
Olivia Roger’s ex-boyfriend, Morgan Waterhouse, has taken a swipe at the former Miss Universe contestant, despite breaking up over a year ago.
UK influencer Saffron Barker is continuing to soft launch her new boyfriend.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the
hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm
Kate Torbert and coming up on today's show, Olivia Rodgers
exes continue to cause headaches and the Matilda Jurf toilet
scrubbing scandal. The first UK influencer, Saffron Barker, is continuing
to soft launch her new boyfriend. So you are across
(00:23):
all of this. I am heavily invested in this. I
actually started following her new boyfriend as soon as I
worked out who he is, because she has been doing
daily Christmas flogs, vlogmus and randomly this Scottish male voice
just started appearing in the background and she started referring
to him as babe. Is very clear that this guy
(00:43):
is basically living at her house. He's like this live
in boyfriend that we haven't been introduced. So I noticed
that something was amiss because the camera angle suddenly changed
because he was filming. I'm guessing he's quite tall. Well,
he is actually a model. That's what I've worked out
from my stalking, So he is very tall, He's fit,
he likes to take a lot of topless selfies, his
(01:04):
selfies and Instagram game is a bit cringe. Is that
what you're following? Well, he's not really my type because
he's traditionally fabulous looking like a very good looking guy,
but the way he posts almost makes him unattractive. Well
the fact he's like early twenties as well. I looked
up on Google, like I googled who is that from
Barker's boyfriend, And when I clicked on his Instagram, I
(01:25):
was like, why the hell is Sophie following him? Because
he's only got what six thousand? Well, I did feel
like a bit of a creep because he only had
around three and four thousand when I first started following him,
and obviously he's gained more followers over time. To me,
I get the vibe that he's very keen to be
involved in the vlogs. He's become a permanent fixture, like
kind of a main character, even though we've only seen
(01:48):
sort of the side of his face or him in
the background in a mirror, because he's hanging out with
her family a lot, which is also very weird. Because
I want to say, for those any new listeners, we
have been talking a lot about Saffron Barker's relationships this
year because at the start of the year, she had
a huge breakup with a guy called Lewis Rhys Zammitt,
(02:09):
who actually ended up getting a spot on the Chief's lineup,
well a rookie spot. Well, I mean he might not
even be on the list anymore. I haven't and he
dramatically cheated on her and all came out. So Saffron
has a relationship podcast, and she was very forthcoming with
saying that she's learnt her lesson. She's not going to
be sharing every single detail about her a new partner
(02:31):
if she gets one, So it's clear she's trying to
do a different tactic. She thinks, Okay, he's going to
be in all of my stuff, but I'm not going
to introduce him. I'm not going to show his face yet.
But that being said, it seems to be very serious
already because he's pretty much living with her. I don't
think a lot has changed, though she might be soft
launching him at the moment, but his voice is still
on there. It's still clear that she has a boyfriend
(02:53):
and they're quite serious. Plus, she is known for dating
people who live very far away from her, so her
most recent boyfriend, Lewis, he actually lived in Wales and
she was in Brighton in the UK, and then he
of course moved to the US. And now this guy
is from Scotland. So it seems like she has this
particular type. And I'm wondering if he's spewing that he's
(03:13):
not actually been able to be shown on the vlogs.
Surely he will soon though, because he's been posting instagrams
at her house while Saffron's away in New York. Well
he's house sitting. Yeah, so Saffron is away in New
York with her parents and he's looking after the house
and he is posting about this house almost as though
it's his own. He did a photo dump and has
showed him in the kitchen cooking up a meal. And
then he was in Saffron's gym. He took a photo
(03:35):
a gym selfie of course, with her car fully visible
in the backgrounds. That's a red flat. A lot of
people online are saying that they hope he's not using
her house to lure other girls there and pretend that
it's his house. Puly not. I think that's he actually
seems quite nice from what I've seen in the vlogs.
But my only concern is this from what I've heard,
(03:56):
but it's a case of deja vou, isn't it? Because
this time last year that's when Saffron Hard launched her
relationship with Lewis, and she also shared a log of
them picking up her Christmas trip. I just hope that
we don't see her a eyeing her and the new
boyfriend's future kids, her getting any tattoos of his initials.
I think she needs to play it a bit more
(04:16):
cool because I'm a big Saffron Barker fan. She is
one of my favorite influences that I follow after Molly
may So I just hope the best for her. She
always seems to be have no trouble getting boyfriends, but
it just seems to be maybe she picks the wrong guy. Well.
I also think she must have met him on Raya
because that's where she met her last boyfriend. It's all
these bloody models and athletes on there. She just needs
(04:37):
to date someone that's normal. But I think that this
guy might actually work for her because he doesn't seem
to have much of a modeling career, like he doesn't
seem to be busy that's he that he's using her. Yeah,
that's what a lot of people are worried about. But
he please not can work in the sense that she
probably just wants someone to be around. I'm going to
put a prediction out here. She will hard launch him
on Christmas Day. There'll be a family photo with him
(04:58):
in it or a selfie of them to who are
these guys that are so willing to meet the family
so quickly and hang around with people's grandparents and nieces
and nephews. She is worth a lot of money. Well,
she's got a very glamorous family, very glamorous life. How
she's a lovely girl, beautiful guy. I mean some people
you know when you know you know? Excuse me? Can
you just can you hold my phone and film me
(05:18):
for a second? Please recording. Olivia Rodgers' ex boyfriend, Morgan
Waterhouse has taken a swipe at the former Miss Universe
contestant despite breaking up over a year ago. Kate, can
you tell us more?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
So?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Morgan has jumped on this TikTok trend about your Christmas
wish list. So guys and girls are posting what they
want in a partner, and they're saying Santa, can you
please deliver this person? But he twisted it to seemingly
throw shade at Olivia Rogers. So in the video, Morgan
was casually sipping on a boost juice at the airport,
and on the screen it said, dear Santa, five foot five, honest,
(05:54):
obsessed with me, loves their family, doesn't cheat on me
every time they leave the state. Hasn't won a beauty pageant,
isn't a narcissist, doesn't gaslight me, loyal, loves puppies. Now
I do need to point out he made a grammatical
error with the word puppies, and a lot of people
were annoyed in the comments about it. Now he added
the caption at the bottom of the video, hope this
(06:15):
reaches the North Pole as expected. This video blew up
and at the time of recording it has over three
hundred and fifty thousand views and one eight hundred send on.
So I think that there were a lot of people,
or a lot of girls sending this on to their friends,
being like, I can't believe the shade he has thrown
at Olivia. It's interesting because there were two camps of
comments there well, one lot of women who seemed very
(06:37):
interested in Morgan. A lot of them were saying, oh,
would you accept a different height? What about five four eight?
And originally I thought, oh, wow, this is actually organically
blown up. But if you dig deeper, he's actually deleted
a lot of the negative comments that people were posting
about how petty he was being. Yeah, because this video
probably would have got even more views had he left
some of those comments up.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Well.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I was pretty quick to discover this video, and I
saw not only people having a girl at him about it,
but I saw people agreeing with him and having a
bit of a laugh at Olivia's expense because he didn't
try and conceal who he was speaking about. I mean
the fact that he and his friends have immaturely come
out before and accused her of cheating. You know, that
line was fairly obvious about, oh, a girl that doesn't
(07:18):
cheat on me every time she leaves the state. But
then by backing it up by saying, you want a
girl who hasn't been in a beauty paget, Yeah, you
couldn't get more obvious. He may as well have said
I want the opposite of Olivia Rodgers. Josh Moss from
Love Island even waded into this, and he wrote the
cheating every time she leaves the state. If you know,
you know, that surprised me because I wouldn't think that
(07:39):
you would want to be seen siding with Morgan Waterhouse.
I quite like Josh Muss as well. That disappoints me. Yeah. Well,
another influencer that's also weighed into this drama is Olivia White.
So she said that she was inserting herself into something
that had nothing to do with her. I mean, isn't
that just TikTok in general? So basically her opinion was
that this timing was very of considering what's been going
(08:01):
down with Olivia Rogers's ex husband Justin mckin. Let's row
to some of what she said. I don't think this
is hitting how you want it to hit.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And if it is hitting with said people, they're not
the kind of people that you'd want around, do.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Like, definitely not like.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
The type of people that you know, allegedly still a
million dollars and have really serious drug problem, who you're
like best friends with, so you know you are the
company you keep. Just want to remind you that and
you know maybe work on this because it's been a
few years. It's been a few years, and clearly you're struggling,
(08:38):
perhaps with seeing someone move on be happy, not with you,
but you know, considering the company you've been keeping lately,
I think that says more about you than it does
about her.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Now, this clap back from Olivia White went off, and
she followed up with a second video sharing a photo
of Morgan and Justin together, and she accused him of
hitching his wagon on Olivia for his own personal gain
and said he wasn't a good judge of character considering
he befriended Justin. I thought that this was a bit
of an interesting comment to say that because Morgan befriended Justin,
(09:12):
it says a lot about his character. Now we know
allegedly what Justin's been up to and been into, but
by that theory, isn't she also suggesting that it says
a bit about Olivia's character because she was married to
the guy. She was very much defending Olivia Rodgers. But
I did draw that parallel because I was like, well,
unfortunately Olivia Rodgers is connected to both of these guys
that don't have good characters. But normally when it's a woman,
(09:35):
we pass it off as oh, they just a bad guy.
I suppose the difference is that Olivia has dumped both
of these guys. She has distanced herself, whereas Morgan, as
soon as he and Olivia broke up, he spitefully met
up the I mean, he just looked like a total knob,
do it. Do you find it a bit hypocritical though,
because if this was a woman who was scorned and
cheated on and she put up an Instagram post out
(09:58):
with this guy's ex'es and having a great time exchanging notes,
everyone be like, go girl. But because it's a boy,
everyone's like fucking petty as fuck. Yeah. But I think
now that we have an insight into what was going
on behind the scenes of Olivia and Justin's marriage, and
she obviously would have shared that with Morgan, it just
makes him look even worse. And the fact that Olivia
(10:18):
and Morgan broke up so long ago, like maybe if
he had come out after their breakup and had done
an interview or something a bit classier than some sort
of TikTok immature well gibe at her, well, people would
have gone, oh, I feel sorry for Morgan. If he
had been cheated on, but he's only ever alluded to
it in really kind of icky way. I think it
was how he got his friends involved. To swagger off
(10:39):
in the comments section, well, you're actually talking about an
incident that happened this time last year, if you can
believe it, so nearly to the day. So basically we
all knew that OLIVERA and Morgan had broken up because
he'd got mia on her Instagram shortly after their trip
to Balley in August. And she finally addressed all these
breakup rumors in a Q and A in December, and
(11:00):
she wrote, I am single. My ex is a lovely person.
Sometimes things just don't work out, and she went on
to say that she was planning to keep her future
relationships more private on social media because it's so tricky
to navigate a breakup, particularly when people are invested online.
And it's quite interesting because now that we know more
about the timeline, she started dating her new boyfriend Hugo
in December, so that's when she actually had to put
(11:22):
this information out that, yeah, me and Morgan have broken
up now. An hour after Olivia shared this Q and
A last December, Morgan responded with a cryptic quote that
said loyal behind my back. That's my type. So meanwhile,
influencer updates Au posted the news about the breakup to
her feed, and she ended up getting an even juicier
(11:42):
scoop in the process because Morgan's friends jumped in the
comments to defend him and basically slag off Olivia. So
one of them wrote that is because she wants to
keep her six sexual partners a secret while dating Morgan,
and then another one chimed in six, Haha, that's being nice,
that's so fou. It was disgusting, and it really seemed
(12:02):
like Morgan had instructed his friends to act like a
mouthpiece for him. And this is the issue. All of
these accusations being leveled at Olivia have been so slut shamy.
And the interesting thing is, if this was five to
ten years ago, everyone would have gone, oh my god
and turned on Olivia and shamed her. But we're now
living in twenty twenty four, we were like, this is
(12:24):
actually disgusting. You know, these allegations have no factual basis
at the moment. You know, you haven't even come out
with any receipts to back then. I'm sure if he
had the receipts, we'd be seeing them as well. I
think another reason why people aren't buying Morgan's story or
siding with him is because he's always come across as
a bit of a cloud chaser. I mean, he and
(12:44):
Olivia got together pretty soon after her breakup with her
ex husband, and he always seemed to want to be
very front and center in her content. It seemed very opportunistic,
and it seemed like Morgan's video may have been in
response to a TikTok that a live via shared earlier
in the day, where it seemed like she took a
dig at the men that she's previously dated. So she
(13:06):
minded the song young Hearts Run Free, and in the caption,
she wrote, I always used to think this was an
upbeat love song, but recently really listened to the lyrics
and realized it's actually about self love with a warning
not to end up with someone who doesn't respect you.
She then added, Candy's been warning people not to settle
since nineteen seventy six. It's funny that he centered himself
(13:29):
in this and thought, oh, it's a dig at me,
because well, she was with Justin McKean for was it
like four years beforehand got married to the guy all
this news has broken about him recently. Yeah, but no, No,
it's about Morgan Waterhouse, who she was in a rebound
relationship with a couple of months. I thought it was
fairly obvious it was a dig at justin McCann and
not settling in a marriage that you were unhappy in. Well,
(13:51):
it more so seems like he's a bit upset and
jealous that Olivia's found love with this new guy who
seems really lovely? Now? Is this remind me of Sydney Sweeney?
Is this me? But he's got it? So as usual,
Olivia Rogers was very classy about this whole thing, so
she easily could have responded with her own dig at Morgan. However,
she just shared a TikTok video with some happy snaps
of her and a new boyfriend at the end of
(14:13):
year celebration, and she referred to him as her favorite human,
which I think was enough. It says a lot without
having to say much. The timing of this is pretty
terrible for Olivia because, as you touched on Kate, her
ex husband was accused of allegedly stealing almost half a
million dollars from his former employer to allegedly support a
very serious drug habit, and the alleged theft came after
(14:37):
his colleagues reported to their employer that Justin had been
sleeping in the work toilets for up to four hours
a day. It was reported in the press last week
that Justin was meant to appear at a directions hearing
in the Victorian Supreme Court. However, he was a no show,
so the court had to extend a freezing order on
his assets till April next year. So that means that
(14:58):
he has to live on a of eight hundred dollars
a week and that's for his ordinary living expenses and
can pay up to ten thousand on reasonable legal expenses.
It is becoming quite concerning because Justin hasn't made contact
with his lawyer since November eleven, when he was contacted
by lawyers acting for his former employer, so there are
fears that he is potentially missing at the moment. Yeah, well,
(15:21):
to not show up in court is a big deal
and it's clear that these allegations have really rocked him.
He's deactivated his Instagram account and LinkedIn. I really hope
that his family are looking after him and he's okay,
because this is just awful watching this allt and I
think that this is why a lot of people are
rather outraged by Morgan's post, because the timing is just
(15:42):
very off. I mean, I understand that this is Olivia's
ex husband, but it's still going to be affecting her
on a certain level. There's already so much speculation and
attention on her for something that has nothing to do
with it. She doesn't need even more of it from
another ex pop. It just seems gross that he's piggybacking
off this horrible moment in both Justin and Olivia's lives
and trying to get attention from it. I also did
(16:05):
my Vegan Collagen and Simos makes and I needed to
get some work done before I headed to the office.
Jen said it girl. An entrepreneur Matilda Jef has been
accused of inflicting psychological terror on her employees at a
hugely popular lifestyle brand, jurf Avenue. Eleven former and current
employees made the startling claims on a Swedish documentary, accusing
(16:28):
Matilda of bullying, fat phobia and what's been touted as
the toilet scrubbing scandal. So before we get into it,
can you bring us up to speed with who Matilda
Jurf is. Yeah. Well, she is a twenty seven year
old Swedish influencer and she has over four point five
million followers across TikTok and Instagram. She's known for her
signature bouncy blonde hair and having this really scandy, cool
(16:51):
girl aesthetic. I feel like she's single handedly created hype
around the dice and air rap as well. And she
started gaining traction from documenting her travels with her boyfrid
Friend and people really loved the aspirational nature of her
posts and she quickly began making money through brand deals
and also modeling. It's interesting now some of these claims
have come to light to know that as a teenager,
(17:12):
Matilda actually suffered from anarexia and orthorexia, which led her
to become an advocate for mental health and body positivity.
Now she has developed a very squeaky clean image. She's
built this personal brand around being kind and she even
earned herself the title of the Internet's Sweetheart. Today, she
is known as being one of the most influential people
(17:34):
not only in Sweden but the world, and in twenty nineteen,
Matilda really took her career to the next level, so
she founded lifestyle and fashion brand Jeff Avenue alongside her boyfriend,
and this brand quickly resonated with a large global audience.
So young girls fell in love with the clothing staples
she had, hair products, homewhors Sophia. I feel like this
(17:54):
is the sort of stuff that you would be purchased. Yeah.
I mean, I think you've got to be living under
a rock not to have seen the Jeff Avenue dressing gown.
It's their signature dressing gown which has fruit all over it.
I think literally every TikToker or everyday person who creates
to get Ready with Me video is wearing this dressing gown. Yeah.
I really wanted one when I was pregnant because every
(18:15):
mummy TikToker was wearing it, and I was like, oh,
maybe I'll look into that. It's a couple of hundred bucks. Yeah,
when I dressing. When I looked up the price, I
think it's actually close to four hundred dollars. Is absolutely crazy.
I'm just gonna get vomped on it. Yeah. Well, this
brand really took off during COVID and since then Jeff
Avenue has had pop up stores in major cities like Stockholm, London,
and New York. It's also collaborated with Fellow Girls. So
(18:37):
Hailey Bieber and Sofia Richie have done collaborations with the brand.
And it's so crazy because in such a short amount
of time, Jeff Avenue has already reached thirty five million
dollars in revenue, so it is enormous this brand. It's
interesting because most people actually predicted that Matilda would have
some sort of fall from grace because normally once you
(18:59):
build up, people drag you down tall poppy syndrome, well,
particularly if you have a squeaky clean image. Yeah, and
I thought that last year was that for her because
she was involved in this dupe scandal. So the Jurf
team noticed that smaller influencers were sharing dupes of their
products and started reporting their videos on TikTok and at
the time, the company shared a statement saying that intellectual
(19:21):
property lawyers were flagging content that they believed infringe their copyright. Now,
a lot of fans called Matilda out because they thought
it was really hypocritical because she became so popular on
TikTok for actually posting dupes of luxury designer items, and
the backlash actually led to Matilda temporarily deactivating her account,
and at the time a lot of large female creators
(19:43):
came out to fiercely defend Matilda. They said that women
are always held to different standards in business and that
it was all part of tall poppy syndrome, and really
this scandal has been the only chink in Matilda's armor
until now this week, startling new claims made in a
sweet this documentary and also picked up by Sweden's largest newspaper,
(20:04):
have described Jeff Avenue's workplace as far from the polished
facade because something that has really resonated with Jeff avenues
gen Z audience was its commitment to inclusion and also sustainability.
So on Jeff Avenue's website, it describes as workplace as
a place of respect and inclusion and a place to
create a supportive and inspiring environment. This sounds very cynical,
(20:27):
but it's normally these type of places that have the
exact opposite of that environment that they put The journalist
Joanna Ekstrom has spoken to eleven format and current employees
in this documentary who describe Jeff Avenue as a toxic workplace.
They said that the company's outward image is nothing like
the reality of working there. In fact, it is the
complete opposite. Now, these employees appeared on camera, but they
(20:50):
remained anonymous with their faces concealed, and it quickly became
apparent how scared these women were of Matilda and also
the potential repercussions that may come their way. Now, the
majority of people working at Jeff Avenue are all young
girls who presumably thought they'd landed their dream job working
alongside this generation's it girl. I mean, when they probably
(21:13):
got the job. Can you imagine the messaging their friends
being like, I can't believe I get to work with her.
It seems like this is on the next level, though,
because someone has actually described it as everyday psychological terror
that was being carried out in this office, Like that
is next level. Yeah, It's clear that a lot of
these employees were terrified of Matilda because one described her
(21:35):
treatment as psychological violence. So the employee said that after
working at Jeff Avenue she started to feel like she
was losing herself and her mind. She described it as
being in a destructive relationship. One other employee also said
that she has never been so scared of a person
in her whole life, alleging that Matilda would yell at
employees in front of the whole office and she was
(21:57):
scared every day that she would get a scolding, whilst
as another said, I was scared of Matilda. I didn't
like it when she was in the room. She was condescending.
She could be disgusted by the fact that you took
public transportation. There was this general vibe from the employees
that Matilda thought that she was better than all of
her staff, and they even said that she wouldn't say
hello to a lot of them. Yeah. Another claim she
(22:18):
would call them names and ask them if they were stupid.
She also alleged that anything and everything would set Matilda off,
saying she could yell at someone if there was no coffee,
She could yell at someone if you were sitting in
the wrong seat. She could yell at someone if her
food hadn't been heated up, if there was anywhere that
wasn't clean. She would completely lose her temper. Is it
(22:39):
wrong that the whole time you were reading out these
terrible accusations that I was just thinking, Wow, I'm shocked
that she's so hands on in her business because a
lot of influences you probably wouldn't see them at all.
She's giving out the bollocking herself also. Yeah, but also
a lot of influencers don't really operate in the day
to day of their businesses. I'm not sticking up for me?
(23:00):
Are you taking out off to it? And I think
that's embarrassing is that it's such a different view that
she put. That's what I'm trying to say. It's actually
to her detriment. And maybe that's why a lot of
influencers don't work in the operations of their business because
it's probably best not for their personal brain. I actually
heard Lucy and Nikki from The Wild Ones, and also
Sammy Robinson who owns one Mile, talking about how difficult
(23:22):
it is being influential and owning a brand, because they
said they're often worried what people are going to say
to their friends if they tell them off, or I
feel like Matilda didn't have any of these worries. I
know we're having a bit of a laugh about this,
but some of these accusations are very serious because a
lot of the workers spoke about having panic attacks after
encounters with Matilda, and one claimed they developed anxiety after
(23:44):
working with her. One employee also said that so many
people were completely broken after working with her, and claimed
that tears were a daily occurrence in the office. It
shows how arrogant she is to think that these kind
of allegations aren't going to get out there. I mean
to surely she would have some idea how rudely she
was speaking to the stuff, and to think that no
(24:04):
one was going to say anything, it shows how powerful
she thinks she is. I feel like for anyone who's
thinking maybe these weren't that serious, this really puts into
perspective because one employee said she realized she stopped eating,
and after she quit at Jeff Avenue, she was walking
along the street and she spotted Matilda and her boyfriend
and she ended up collapsing in her partner's arms, just
(24:26):
at the side of them and had a panic attack
on the street. That's absolutely awful. Amy to what you
said in terms of Matilda thinking that this wouldn't get
out I'm assuming that Swedish laws are pretty similar to
Australian in that you make employees sign a contract where
they won't actually discuss anything that goes on in the business,
so a lot of them probably were bound by some
sort of gag order. Well, it seemed like she was
(24:48):
also banking on the women being so terrified of her
and the repercussion. It's just even general chitchat on the street, Like,
even if you're bound by a confidentiality agreement, surely she
would have been concerned about idle gossip from PEP, especially
if they're all young women and they're the same demographic
of people who follow her. Yeah. Well, I wonder if
any disgruntled employees were involved in the last scandal dropping
(25:10):
around the dupe and maybe they helped get that out
into the public domain. Can we get into my favorite
claims which are being made, and that is around a
toilet scrubbing incident. So the workers made claims about favoritism
culture where employees were moved up and down in the hierarchy.
So they claimed if you couldn't work over time, you
would automatically fall lower in rank, but if you did
(25:33):
the right thing, you would fall into her favorites category.
And one of the most shocking claims was that Matilda
had her own private toilets so it was closed off
to only her and her favorite employees. So in the documentary,
they showed a photo that one of the employees had
secretly snapped off the toilet door, so it had had
this little hand written sign on it that said please
(25:53):
don't use with a little love hut. Now, one day,
allegedly that sign fell off and an employee used the
toilet by mistake. They didn't understand the rules, maybe they
were new, and when Matilda found out, she allegedly went
nuts and made another employee scrub the toilet before she
would use it again. Now, the employee said she doesn't
(26:16):
even want to use the same toilet as us, when
not people were not colleagues to her. Now, I have
to say, I think that she is taking this whole
clean girl aesthetic to a whole new level. Having a
separate toilet that your colleagues and team members are not
allowed to use. It's unpopular opinion. In no way do
I think that this is correct, But I would actually
have loved to have my own toilet at my work. Yeah,
(26:39):
but I'm sure if a colleague accidentally used it, you
wouldn't scold them and then punish them by making the
scrubble clicks. Having worked sof and I worked in newsrooms.
It's not as if the newsreaders have their own personal toilets.
It's not as if they think that they're better than
everybody her office, like is it behind glassdoor or something.
My favorite part of this is that there's a note
with like a little patronizing love heard on her they
(26:59):
do use. Can you imagine all of her favorites, the
look they would give everyone else when they go up
to you to key in, because it wasn't a key,
it was just the sign. And I suppose also the
alleged terror that she was reeking over the office that
no one probably everyone had been too scared to set
foot in there. Do you think someone's reverse can't get
the toilet and she's got as like a fuck you?
(27:21):
I also said, how nervous they are. I'm assuming there
are a few nervous poos going on. When irritual bow
going on, there was clearly some unspoken rule, like nobody's
allowed to do a number two in this toilet. Oh
my god, you're telling me though, that all that fresh girl,
healthy living, all that match, they're not using that toilet
for more than another one. Maybe that's much she wants
it because she doesn't want it getting out that she's
(27:42):
done a big work and going on TikTok. But that's why.
Another startling claim that was made in this documentary was
accusations of fat phobia. So Jeff Avenue has always positioned
itself as a company that champions inclusion, and Matilda previously
told reporters that everyone is worth the same and everyone
has the right to be seen. Meanwhile, the employees who
(28:05):
spoke on camera claimed that Matilda allegedly refused to use
a photo of a plus sized model, saying we have
to reshoot this because she looks so fucking fat in
these clothes. We can't show that now. There were also
further claims of body shaming of employees. So one employee
stated to one person she said that her butt didn't
(28:25):
fill out the genes, and to another she said her
butt filled up the genes too much. So she was
comparing employees in different pairs of jeans. It's got like
the Goldilocks. One too hot, one with two cold, and
one was just right. Well I know, sorry, I don't
mean to laugh at this, but it's just absolutely insane.
There was a movie when somebody puts across just such
(28:47):
a different image of line. Well, another employee has also
come out and said that employees were exploited if they
had an appearance that didn't fit the norm. So what
she's saying there is that some employees who were plus
size or of a different ethnicity, they were heavily featured
on the company's social media accounts because they thought it
looked really good to be saying, oh, we've got a
(29:09):
very inclusive working force here. But again she said it
wasn't genuine. They didn't treat those people with respect. I'm
actually not that surprised because I think if you looked
into a lot of other companies closer, you would find
that there's a lot of virtue signaling going on, and
that's why people get frustrated by it, because it does
seem just not genuine. In this case, it clearly isn't,
because this isn't something that she stands for now all
(29:31):
Matilda was notably absent from this documentary. We didn't hear
from her, she didn't provide a statement for the documentary,
and the journalist Joanna said that she had barely started
her investigation when Geoff Avenue reached out to her. Questioning
why she had asked former employees about their working environment.
Maybe one of the girls that got the key to
the toilet snitch Now. Joanna immediately suggested lining up an
(29:55):
interview with Matilda to share her side of the story,
and the company flat out said no.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Now.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
The journalists also mentioned in her piece to camera in
this documentary that the workplace problems were well known to
Jeff Avenue's HR and management team, yet nothing was done.
She alleges when the employees spoke to HR and the CEO,
they said, it's always been like this and that's just
the way it is. They also allegedly retorted, what do
you want us to do? We can't fire Matilda. So
(30:23):
is Matilda just the founder of the company or does
she actually have a specific role within it. Well, a
lot of publications are reporting that she's the CEO, but
she is actually the co founder. So they've employed someone
else to act as the CEO. Probably a wise move.
Most people would do that and employ a CEO. I
know at Kick, their co founder, Laura Henshaw is actually
(30:44):
the CEO, which makes more sense because she has got
a background in law and she's very intelligent. But I
actually think listening to her podcast recently that she's going
to handle that job onto someone else and focus on
because her days looks so stressful whenever she posts about them,
like God, she works hard. We're getting back to Jeff Avenue.
I was so enraged when I heard the HR just
(31:05):
stood back and did nothing for these employees, particularly if
you look at Amy and my story. We had terrible
treatment from the HR team at our former employer, and
a lot of the time, unfortunately, they are just there
to protect the employer and not the employee. So it
made me so sad to see that these women, these
young women, had come forward trying to make change in
(31:27):
this awful and toxic workplace environment and they were just ignored.
And I just want to say, it's so brave that
they've actually found the courage to come out and make
these claims, particularly against someone who is so powder. The
best thing is that the reaction has been so good
from the public. People are believing these women, and people
are going, fuck you, Matilda, I'm not going to follow
(31:47):
you well. Matilda did release a statement acknowledging the seriousness
of the claims, so she apologized for any negative experiences
her employees had endured and expressed her commitment to fostering
a respectful work She said, I take the criticism that
has come forward very seriously and want to be clear
that a safe and respectful work environment is crucial for me,
both as a person and the founder of Jeff Avenue.
(32:10):
She continued. If any staff member has felt mistreated or
ill equipped in their role due to my actions, that
is something I am truly sorry for and apologize for.
It was never my intention to contribute to a work
environment that negatively affects anyone, and I am sorry that
there are employees who have had such experiences. She also
went on to say that she didn't recognize herself in
(32:31):
the claims and is choosing not to comment on individual cases.
She said, however, I think it's valuable that this is highlighted,
as it gives both me and Jeff Avenue the opportunity
to develop and become better. I want to emphasize that
I take my responsibility and see this as an opportunity
to reflect, develop and contribute to a better culture for
all my employees at Jeff Avenue. I will work actively
(32:54):
with my leadership and, among other things, continue to receive
support from a coach The Sweetest Location also spoke to
the COO of Jurff Avenue, Panila, Bonnie, who said the
company is aware of areas in need of development, including leadership.
Bonnie also confirmed that Matilda does have a private toilet,
describing it as a measure to help keep the influencer healthy.
(33:17):
She said our office makes it possible to offer this
solution without affecting other employees access to facilities, and that
the note will remain in place. She also clarified that
she believes it's not reasonable that an employee had to
clean a bathroom outside their job description. She said she
wants to make it clear that such a situation should
never occur. So I can't get my head around this
(33:38):
toilet business. So are you telling me that there's a
row of cubicles and there's a sign on one door
that says no one else's life is there in a
private room. It's separate. It's a private room far away
from the other toilet. Well, I'm not proximity, but we
just saw a white door that wasn't a cubical door,
but a white separate toilet door. Now, is it the
(33:59):
same toilet that she's taken off I'm not sure. I
want to know if this has happened in any other
people's workplace. Are their private toilets in other businesses? Yeah? Well,
I mean what also really stood out to me about
Matilda's statement is that she didn't really refute any of
the claims, No, just sort of acknowledged them. I mean,
to me, that screams that all of this happened allegedly,
(34:21):
and it's like, it wasn't my intention. It makes people
feel bad. It wasn't really poor response, isn't it. It wasn't
my intention to be a total jerk and terrorize the office.
Do you guys think she'll be able to come back
from this? Well, since the scandal broke, some of Matilda's
most devoted fans have vowed to boycott jerf Avenue. So
there's all these videos of young women wearing the signature
(34:41):
dressing gown that are going viral, and they're asking their
audience what they're planning on doing with all of their
jerf Avenue items now, and underneath one of these videos,
I thought it was very telling because a follower wrote,
I have so many items from her, and I love
my tote bag because it was so big but it
says jef Avenue on it, so I'm embarrassed to wear it.
Does that mean some of these fruit dressing games going on,
(35:02):
you could probably get a dupe from somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, but it's kind of like when Chloe Zepp everyone
was selling their stuff or burning their zep So you
don't want to be seen in it, No you don't,
but I mean I'm not going out in public and
addressing it. Well, still a cute dressing guy. I mean,
I don't want to support her, but I'll get one
dirt cheek. I was really intrigued to see how this
scandal actually affected her follow account because since then, on
Instagram she's lost over fifty thousand followers, and on her
(35:27):
jurf Instagram account she's lost twelve thousand. It's not heaps
considering that she has four millions. Yeah. Well, it hasn't
actually even affected her teaktok following, so she's continuing to
steadily gain followers like normal. Her accounts have been flooded, though,
with fans expressing their disappointment. So one fan wrote, unfortunately unfollowing,
terrible behavior of you if you can't see your employees
(35:49):
as fellow humans. How are you supposed to see your
fans as one Exposing others to bullying and harassment is
completely mindless. Remember we are living in the year twenty
twenty four. You need to take responsibility for your behavior
and get down to earth a bit. I think the
reason why we haven't seen more people unfollow Matilda Jerf
is because she's one of those huge influences, a bit
(36:09):
like Kim Kardashian where people will just follow her because
she's a huge influencer. The follows as well, now yeah,
and they're not as invested in her life. I think
a large amount of the people who have unfollowed her
are the die hard Matilda Jurf fans, which actually speaks
volumes because they're saying, I'm not putting up with this shit.
I actually follow you and used to respect you, and
now I've hit Those are the unfollows that are going
(36:31):
to be most damaging to her and her brand, because
those are the people that actually genuinely convert to sales. Yeah.
And also, I have noticed a trend. We spoke about
it probably months ago now on the podcast, but a
lot of people who end up trolling influencers were once
fans of those influences, and as soon as that parasocial
relationship changes because a lot of people are like, Wow,
(36:52):
we thought we knew her, but she's totally different, and
they will then turn into the people that investigate her,
remove and talk about tatle Lie. I know a lot
about her, they've got AMMO, and they essentially probably now
want to continue to bring her down. The whole thing
is quite comical in the sense that people are like,
She's not what I thought she would be. Like, what
(37:12):
some absolute glamazon girl who is rich and has everything
that she wants isn't a nice person? I am utterly shocked. Well,
that's when it comes across like a high school bulld
like someone who thinks that they're better than everyone. The
whole clean girl aesthetic too thing. It's quite funny with
this toilet scandal because it is like everyone else is
so filthy. I need my clean space away from everyone.
(37:34):
I think it is too soon to know the financial
hit that this is going to have on Jeff Avenue.
I really don't know how they can come back from
this and rebuild, because, as we've said, it's at the
point where it's embarrassing if you look like you're publicly
supporting this brand and their designs are so recognizable. Yeah,
but scandals happen so quickly, especially on TikTok, like this
will probably be forgotten by next month. I think Jeff
(37:56):
Avenue will be known as a mean girl brand from now. Yeah.
People aren't going to buy into the shit as well,
like all their virtue signaling, because before it's oh, it's
about inclusion, and I mean I think Genzetta's in particular
are very ethical when it comes to the brands that
they want to support, and they don't want to particularly
the fat phobic claims as well. See I think it's
outrage culture and then people go, oh, but I really
like that. Well that's where we're going to leave things today.
(38:19):
If you do love the show, please leave us a
review and on Thursday we'll be back in your ears
with our Christmas special with Leah. It's seen us. I'm
very excited for us. That's a good one. This episode
was recorded on the traditional land of the Ghana people
of the Adelaide Planes. We pay respect to elders past
and present,
Hello and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the
hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm
Kate Torbert and coming up on today's show, Olivia Rodgers
exes continue to cause headaches and the Matilda Jurf toilet
scrubbing scandal. The first UK influencer, Saffron Barker, is continuing
to soft launch her new boyfriend. So you are across
(00:23):
all of this. I am heavily invested in this. I
actually started following her new boyfriend as soon as I
worked out who he is, because she has been doing
daily Christmas flogs, vlogmus and randomly this Scottish male voice
just started appearing in the background and she started referring
to him as babe. Is very clear that this guy
(00:43):
is basically living at her house. He's like this live
in boyfriend that we haven't been introduced. So I noticed
that something was amiss because the camera angle suddenly changed
because he was filming. I'm guessing he's quite tall. Well,
he is actually a model. That's what I've worked out
from my stalking, So he is very tall, He's fit,
he likes to take a lot of topless selfies, his
(01:04):
selfies and Instagram game is a bit cringe. Is that
what you're following? Well, he's not really my type because
he's traditionally fabulous looking like a very good looking guy,
but the way he posts almost makes him unattractive. Well
the fact he's like early twenties as well. I looked
up on Google, like I googled who is that from
Barker's boyfriend, And when I clicked on his Instagram, I
(01:25):
was like, why the hell is Sophie following him? Because
he's only got what six thousand? Well, I did feel
like a bit of a creep because he only had
around three and four thousand when I first started following him,
and obviously he's gained more followers over time. To me,
I get the vibe that he's very keen to be
involved in the vlogs. He's become a permanent fixture, like
kind of a main character, even though we've only seen
(01:48):
sort of the side of his face or him in
the background in a mirror, because he's hanging out with
her family a lot, which is also very weird. Because
I want to say, for those any new listeners, we
have been talking a lot about Saffron Barker's relationships this
year because at the start of the year, she had
a huge breakup with a guy called Lewis Rhys Zammitt,
(02:09):
who actually ended up getting a spot on the Chief's lineup,
well a rookie spot. Well, I mean he might not
even be on the list anymore. I haven't and he
dramatically cheated on her and all came out. So Saffron
has a relationship podcast, and she was very forthcoming with
saying that she's learnt her lesson. She's not going to
be sharing every single detail about her a new partner
(02:31):
if she gets one, So it's clear she's trying to
do a different tactic. She thinks, Okay, he's going to
be in all of my stuff, but I'm not going
to introduce him. I'm not going to show his face yet.
But that being said, it seems to be very serious
already because he's pretty much living with her. I don't
think a lot has changed, though she might be soft
launching him at the moment, but his voice is still
on there. It's still clear that she has a boyfriend
(02:53):
and they're quite serious. Plus, she is known for dating
people who live very far away from her, so her
most recent boyfriend, Lewis, he actually lived in Wales and
she was in Brighton in the UK, and then he
of course moved to the US. And now this guy
is from Scotland. So it seems like she has this
particular type. And I'm wondering if he's spewing that he's
(03:13):
not actually been able to be shown on the vlogs.
Surely he will soon though, because he's been posting instagrams
at her house while Saffron's away in New York. Well
he's house sitting. Yeah, so Saffron is away in New
York with her parents and he's looking after the house
and he is posting about this house almost as though
it's his own. He did a photo dump and has
showed him in the kitchen cooking up a meal. And
then he was in Saffron's gym. He took a photo
(03:35):
a gym selfie of course, with her car fully visible
in the backgrounds. That's a red flat. A lot of
people online are saying that they hope he's not using
her house to lure other girls there and pretend that
it's his house. Puly not. I think that's he actually
seems quite nice from what I've seen in the vlogs.
But my only concern is this from what I've heard,
(03:56):
but it's a case of deja vou, isn't it? Because
this time last year that's when Saffron Hard launched her
relationship with Lewis, and she also shared a log of
them picking up her Christmas trip. I just hope that
we don't see her a eyeing her and the new
boyfriend's future kids, her getting any tattoos of his initials.
I think she needs to play it a bit more
(04:16):
cool because I'm a big Saffron Barker fan. She is
one of my favorite influences that I follow after Molly
may So I just hope the best for her. She
always seems to be have no trouble getting boyfriends, but
it just seems to be maybe she picks the wrong guy. Well.
I also think she must have met him on Raya
because that's where she met her last boyfriend. It's all
these bloody models and athletes on there. She just needs
(04:37):
to date someone that's normal. But I think that this
guy might actually work for her because he doesn't seem
to have much of a modeling career, like he doesn't
seem to be busy that's he that he's using her. Yeah,
that's what a lot of people are worried about. But
he please not can work in the sense that she
probably just wants someone to be around. I'm going to
put a prediction out here. She will hard launch him
on Christmas Day. There'll be a family photo with him
(04:58):
in it or a selfie of them to who are
these guys that are so willing to meet the family
so quickly and hang around with people's grandparents and nieces
and nephews. She is worth a lot of money. Well,
she's got a very glamorous family, very glamorous life. How
she's a lovely girl, beautiful guy. I mean some people
you know when you know you know? Excuse me? Can
you just can you hold my phone and film me
(05:18):
for a second? Please recording. Olivia Rodgers' ex boyfriend, Morgan
Waterhouse has taken a swipe at the former Miss Universe
contestant despite breaking up over a year ago. Kate, can
you tell us more?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
So?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Morgan has jumped on this TikTok trend about your Christmas
wish list. So guys and girls are posting what they
want in a partner, and they're saying Santa, can you
please deliver this person? But he twisted it to seemingly
throw shade at Olivia Rogers. So in the video, Morgan
was casually sipping on a boost juice at the airport,
and on the screen it said, dear Santa, five foot five, honest,
(05:54):
obsessed with me, loves their family, doesn't cheat on me
every time they leave the state. Hasn't won a beauty pageant,
isn't a narcissist, doesn't gaslight me, loyal, loves puppies. Now
I do need to point out he made a grammatical
error with the word puppies, and a lot of people
were annoyed in the comments about it. Now he added
the caption at the bottom of the video, hope this
(06:15):
reaches the North Pole as expected. This video blew up
and at the time of recording it has over three
hundred and fifty thousand views and one eight hundred send on.
So I think that there were a lot of people,
or a lot of girls sending this on to their friends,
being like, I can't believe the shade he has thrown
at Olivia. It's interesting because there were two camps of
comments there well, one lot of women who seemed very
(06:37):
interested in Morgan. A lot of them were saying, oh,
would you accept a different height? What about five four eight?
And originally I thought, oh, wow, this is actually organically
blown up. But if you dig deeper, he's actually deleted
a lot of the negative comments that people were posting
about how petty he was being. Yeah, because this video
probably would have got even more views had he left
some of those comments up.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Well.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I was pretty quick to discover this video, and I
saw not only people having a girl at him about it,
but I saw people agreeing with him and having a
bit of a laugh at Olivia's expense because he didn't
try and conceal who he was speaking about. I mean
the fact that he and his friends have immaturely come
out before and accused her of cheating. You know, that
line was fairly obvious about, oh, a girl that doesn't
(07:18):
cheat on me every time she leaves the state. But
then by backing it up by saying, you want a
girl who hasn't been in a beauty paget, Yeah, you
couldn't get more obvious. He may as well have said
I want the opposite of Olivia Rodgers. Josh Moss from
Love Island even waded into this, and he wrote the
cheating every time she leaves the state. If you know,
you know, that surprised me because I wouldn't think that
(07:39):
you would want to be seen siding with Morgan Waterhouse.
I quite like Josh Muss as well. That disappoints me. Yeah. Well,
another influencer that's also weighed into this drama is Olivia White.
So she said that she was inserting herself into something
that had nothing to do with her. I mean, isn't
that just TikTok in general? So basically her opinion was
that this timing was very of considering what's been going
(08:01):
down with Olivia Rogers's ex husband Justin mckin. Let's row
to some of what she said. I don't think this
is hitting how you want it to hit.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And if it is hitting with said people, they're not
the kind of people that you'd want around, do.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Like, definitely not like.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
The type of people that you know, allegedly still a
million dollars and have really serious drug problem, who you're
like best friends with, so you know you are the
company you keep. Just want to remind you that and
you know maybe work on this because it's been a
few years. It's been a few years, and clearly you're struggling,
(08:38):
perhaps with seeing someone move on be happy, not with you,
but you know, considering the company you've been keeping lately,
I think that says more about you than it does
about her.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Now, this clap back from Olivia White went off, and
she followed up with a second video sharing a photo
of Morgan and Justin together, and she accused him of
hitching his wagon on Olivia for his own personal gain
and said he wasn't a good judge of character considering
he befriended Justin. I thought that this was a bit
of an interesting comment to say that because Morgan befriended Justin,
(09:12):
it says a lot about his character. Now we know
allegedly what Justin's been up to and been into, but
by that theory, isn't she also suggesting that it says
a bit about Olivia's character because she was married to
the guy. She was very much defending Olivia Rodgers. But
I did draw that parallel because I was like, well,
unfortunately Olivia Rodgers is connected to both of these guys
that don't have good characters. But normally when it's a woman,
(09:35):
we pass it off as oh, they just a bad guy.
I suppose the difference is that Olivia has dumped both
of these guys. She has distanced herself, whereas Morgan, as
soon as he and Olivia broke up, he spitefully met
up the I mean, he just looked like a total knob,
do it. Do you find it a bit hypocritical though,
because if this was a woman who was scorned and
cheated on and she put up an Instagram post out
(09:58):
with this guy's ex'es and having a great time exchanging notes,
everyone be like, go girl. But because it's a boy,
everyone's like fucking petty as fuck. Yeah. But I think
now that we have an insight into what was going
on behind the scenes of Olivia and Justin's marriage, and
she obviously would have shared that with Morgan, it just
makes him look even worse. And the fact that Olivia
(10:18):
and Morgan broke up so long ago, like maybe if
he had come out after their breakup and had done
an interview or something a bit classier than some sort
of TikTok immature well gibe at her, well, people would
have gone, oh, I feel sorry for Morgan. If he
had been cheated on, but he's only ever alluded to
it in really kind of icky way. I think it
was how he got his friends involved. To swagger off
(10:39):
in the comments section, well, you're actually talking about an
incident that happened this time last year, if you can
believe it, so nearly to the day. So basically we
all knew that OLIVERA and Morgan had broken up because
he'd got mia on her Instagram shortly after their trip
to Balley in August. And she finally addressed all these
breakup rumors in a Q and A in December, and
(11:00):
she wrote, I am single. My ex is a lovely person.
Sometimes things just don't work out, and she went on
to say that she was planning to keep her future
relationships more private on social media because it's so tricky
to navigate a breakup, particularly when people are invested online.
And it's quite interesting because now that we know more
about the timeline, she started dating her new boyfriend Hugo
in December, so that's when she actually had to put
(11:22):
this information out that, yeah, me and Morgan have broken
up now. An hour after Olivia shared this Q and
A last December, Morgan responded with a cryptic quote that
said loyal behind my back. That's my type. So meanwhile,
influencer updates Au posted the news about the breakup to
her feed, and she ended up getting an even juicier
(11:42):
scoop in the process because Morgan's friends jumped in the
comments to defend him and basically slag off Olivia. So
one of them wrote that is because she wants to
keep her six sexual partners a secret while dating Morgan,
and then another one chimed in six, Haha, that's being nice,
that's so fou. It was disgusting, and it really seemed
(12:02):
like Morgan had instructed his friends to act like a
mouthpiece for him. And this is the issue. All of
these accusations being leveled at Olivia have been so slut shamy.
And the interesting thing is, if this was five to
ten years ago, everyone would have gone, oh my god
and turned on Olivia and shamed her. But we're now
living in twenty twenty four, we were like, this is
(12:24):
actually disgusting. You know, these allegations have no factual basis
at the moment. You know, you haven't even come out
with any receipts to back then. I'm sure if he
had the receipts, we'd be seeing them as well. I
think another reason why people aren't buying Morgan's story or
siding with him is because he's always come across as
a bit of a cloud chaser. I mean, he and
(12:44):
Olivia got together pretty soon after her breakup with her
ex husband, and he always seemed to want to be
very front and center in her content. It seemed very opportunistic,
and it seemed like Morgan's video may have been in
response to a TikTok that a live via shared earlier
in the day, where it seemed like she took a
dig at the men that she's previously dated. So she
(13:06):
minded the song young Hearts Run Free, and in the caption,
she wrote, I always used to think this was an
upbeat love song, but recently really listened to the lyrics
and realized it's actually about self love with a warning
not to end up with someone who doesn't respect you.
She then added, Candy's been warning people not to settle
since nineteen seventy six. It's funny that he centered himself
(13:29):
in this and thought, oh, it's a dig at me,
because well, she was with Justin McKean for was it
like four years beforehand got married to the guy all
this news has broken about him recently. Yeah, but no, No,
it's about Morgan Waterhouse, who she was in a rebound
relationship with a couple of months. I thought it was
fairly obvious it was a dig at justin McCann and
not settling in a marriage that you were unhappy in. Well,
(13:51):
it more so seems like he's a bit upset and
jealous that Olivia's found love with this new guy who
seems really lovely? Now? Is this remind me of Sydney Sweeney?
Is this me? But he's got it? So as usual,
Olivia Rogers was very classy about this whole thing, so
she easily could have responded with her own dig at Morgan. However,
she just shared a TikTok video with some happy snaps
of her and a new boyfriend at the end of
(14:13):
year celebration, and she referred to him as her favorite human,
which I think was enough. It says a lot without
having to say much. The timing of this is pretty
terrible for Olivia because, as you touched on Kate, her
ex husband was accused of allegedly stealing almost half a
million dollars from his former employer to allegedly support a
very serious drug habit, and the alleged theft came after
(14:37):
his colleagues reported to their employer that Justin had been
sleeping in the work toilets for up to four hours
a day. It was reported in the press last week
that Justin was meant to appear at a directions hearing
in the Victorian Supreme Court. However, he was a no show,
so the court had to extend a freezing order on
his assets till April next year. So that means that
(14:58):
he has to live on a of eight hundred dollars
a week and that's for his ordinary living expenses and
can pay up to ten thousand on reasonable legal expenses.
It is becoming quite concerning because Justin hasn't made contact
with his lawyer since November eleven, when he was contacted
by lawyers acting for his former employer, so there are
fears that he is potentially missing at the moment. Yeah, well,
(15:21):
to not show up in court is a big deal
and it's clear that these allegations have really rocked him.
He's deactivated his Instagram account and LinkedIn. I really hope
that his family are looking after him and he's okay,
because this is just awful watching this allt and I
think that this is why a lot of people are
rather outraged by Morgan's post, because the timing is just
(15:42):
very off. I mean, I understand that this is Olivia's
ex husband, but it's still going to be affecting her
on a certain level. There's already so much speculation and
attention on her for something that has nothing to do
with it. She doesn't need even more of it from
another ex pop. It just seems gross that he's piggybacking
off this horrible moment in both Justin and Olivia's lives
and trying to get attention from it. I also did
(16:05):
my Vegan Collagen and Simos makes and I needed to
get some work done before I headed to the office.
Jen said it girl. An entrepreneur Matilda Jef has been
accused of inflicting psychological terror on her employees at a
hugely popular lifestyle brand, jurf Avenue. Eleven former and current
employees made the startling claims on a Swedish documentary, accusing
(16:28):
Matilda of bullying, fat phobia and what's been touted as
the toilet scrubbing scandal. So before we get into it,
can you bring us up to speed with who Matilda
Jurf is. Yeah. Well, she is a twenty seven year
old Swedish influencer and she has over four point five
million followers across TikTok and Instagram. She's known for her
signature bouncy blonde hair and having this really scandy, cool
(16:51):
girl aesthetic. I feel like she's single handedly created hype
around the dice and air rap as well. And she
started gaining traction from documenting her travels with her boyfrid
Friend and people really loved the aspirational nature of her
posts and she quickly began making money through brand deals
and also modeling. It's interesting now some of these claims
have come to light to know that as a teenager,
(17:12):
Matilda actually suffered from anarexia and orthorexia, which led her
to become an advocate for mental health and body positivity.
Now she has developed a very squeaky clean image. She's
built this personal brand around being kind and she even
earned herself the title of the Internet's Sweetheart. Today, she
is known as being one of the most influential people
(17:34):
not only in Sweden but the world, and in twenty nineteen,
Matilda really took her career to the next level, so
she founded lifestyle and fashion brand Jeff Avenue alongside her boyfriend,
and this brand quickly resonated with a large global audience.
So young girls fell in love with the clothing staples
she had, hair products, homewhors Sophia. I feel like this
(17:54):
is the sort of stuff that you would be purchased. Yeah.
I mean, I think you've got to be living under
a rock not to have seen the Jeff Avenue dressing gown.
It's their signature dressing gown which has fruit all over it.
I think literally every TikToker or everyday person who creates
to get Ready with Me video is wearing this dressing gown. Yeah.
I really wanted one when I was pregnant because every
(18:15):
mummy TikToker was wearing it, and I was like, oh,
maybe I'll look into that. It's a couple of hundred bucks. Yeah,
when I dressing. When I looked up the price, I
think it's actually close to four hundred dollars. Is absolutely crazy.
I'm just gonna get vomped on it. Yeah. Well, this
brand really took off during COVID and since then Jeff
Avenue has had pop up stores in major cities like Stockholm, London,
and New York. It's also collaborated with Fellow Girls. So
(18:37):
Hailey Bieber and Sofia Richie have done collaborations with the brand.
And it's so crazy because in such a short amount
of time, Jeff Avenue has already reached thirty five million
dollars in revenue, so it is enormous this brand. It's
interesting because most people actually predicted that Matilda would have
some sort of fall from grace because normally once you
(18:59):
build up, people drag you down tall poppy syndrome, well,
particularly if you have a squeaky clean image. Yeah, and
I thought that last year was that for her because
she was involved in this dupe scandal. So the Jurf
team noticed that smaller influencers were sharing dupes of their
products and started reporting their videos on TikTok and at
the time, the company shared a statement saying that intellectual
(19:21):
property lawyers were flagging content that they believed infringe their copyright. Now,
a lot of fans called Matilda out because they thought
it was really hypocritical because she became so popular on
TikTok for actually posting dupes of luxury designer items, and
the backlash actually led to Matilda temporarily deactivating her account,
and at the time a lot of large female creators
(19:43):
came out to fiercely defend Matilda. They said that women
are always held to different standards in business and that
it was all part of tall poppy syndrome, and really
this scandal has been the only chink in Matilda's armor
until now this week, startling new claims made in a
sweet this documentary and also picked up by Sweden's largest newspaper,
(20:04):
have described Jeff Avenue's workplace as far from the polished
facade because something that has really resonated with Jeff avenues
gen Z audience was its commitment to inclusion and also sustainability.
So on Jeff Avenue's website, it describes as workplace as
a place of respect and inclusion and a place to
create a supportive and inspiring environment. This sounds very cynical,
(20:27):
but it's normally these type of places that have the
exact opposite of that environment that they put The journalist
Joanna Ekstrom has spoken to eleven format and current employees
in this documentary who describe Jeff Avenue as a toxic workplace.
They said that the company's outward image is nothing like
the reality of working there. In fact, it is the
complete opposite. Now, these employees appeared on camera, but they
(20:50):
remained anonymous with their faces concealed, and it quickly became
apparent how scared these women were of Matilda and also
the potential repercussions that may come their way. Now, the
majority of people working at Jeff Avenue are all young
girls who presumably thought they'd landed their dream job working
alongside this generation's it girl. I mean, when they probably
(21:13):
got the job. Can you imagine the messaging their friends
being like, I can't believe I get to work with her.
It seems like this is on the next level, though,
because someone has actually described it as everyday psychological terror
that was being carried out in this office, Like that
is next level. Yeah, It's clear that a lot of
these employees were terrified of Matilda because one described her
(21:35):
treatment as psychological violence. So the employee said that after
working at Jeff Avenue she started to feel like she
was losing herself and her mind. She described it as
being in a destructive relationship. One other employee also said
that she has never been so scared of a person
in her whole life, alleging that Matilda would yell at
employees in front of the whole office and she was
(21:57):
scared every day that she would get a scolding, whilst
as another said, I was scared of Matilda. I didn't
like it when she was in the room. She was condescending.
She could be disgusted by the fact that you took
public transportation. There was this general vibe from the employees
that Matilda thought that she was better than all of
her staff, and they even said that she wouldn't say
hello to a lot of them. Yeah. Another claim she
(22:18):
would call them names and ask them if they were stupid.
She also alleged that anything and everything would set Matilda off,
saying she could yell at someone if there was no coffee,
She could yell at someone if you were sitting in
the wrong seat. She could yell at someone if her
food hadn't been heated up, if there was anywhere that
wasn't clean. She would completely lose her temper. Is it
(22:39):
wrong that the whole time you were reading out these
terrible accusations that I was just thinking, Wow, I'm shocked
that she's so hands on in her business because a
lot of influences you probably wouldn't see them at all.
She's giving out the bollocking herself also. Yeah, but also
a lot of influencers don't really operate in the day
to day of their businesses. I'm not sticking up for me?
(23:00):
Are you taking out off to it? And I think
that's embarrassing is that it's such a different view that
she put. That's what I'm trying to say. It's actually
to her detriment. And maybe that's why a lot of
influencers don't work in the operations of their business because
it's probably best not for their personal brain. I actually
heard Lucy and Nikki from The Wild Ones, and also
Sammy Robinson who owns one Mile, talking about how difficult
(23:22):
it is being influential and owning a brand, because they
said they're often worried what people are going to say
to their friends if they tell them off, or I
feel like Matilda didn't have any of these worries. I
know we're having a bit of a laugh about this,
but some of these accusations are very serious because a
lot of the workers spoke about having panic attacks after
encounters with Matilda, and one claimed they developed anxiety after
(23:44):
working with her. One employee also said that so many
people were completely broken after working with her, and claimed
that tears were a daily occurrence in the office. It
shows how arrogant she is to think that these kind
of allegations aren't going to get out there. I mean
to surely she would have some idea how rudely she
was speaking to the stuff, and to think that no
(24:04):
one was going to say anything, it shows how powerful
she thinks she is. I feel like for anyone who's
thinking maybe these weren't that serious, this really puts into
perspective because one employee said she realized she stopped eating,
and after she quit at Jeff Avenue, she was walking
along the street and she spotted Matilda and her boyfriend
and she ended up collapsing in her partner's arms, just
(24:26):
at the side of them and had a panic attack
on the street. That's absolutely awful. Amy to what you
said in terms of Matilda thinking that this wouldn't get
out I'm assuming that Swedish laws are pretty similar to
Australian in that you make employees sign a contract where
they won't actually discuss anything that goes on in the business,
so a lot of them probably were bound by some
sort of gag order. Well, it seemed like she was
(24:48):
also banking on the women being so terrified of her
and the repercussion. It's just even general chitchat on the street, Like,
even if you're bound by a confidentiality agreement, surely she
would have been concerned about idle gossip from PEP, especially
if they're all young women and they're the same demographic
of people who follow her. Yeah. Well, I wonder if
any disgruntled employees were involved in the last scandal dropping
(25:10):
around the dupe and maybe they helped get that out
into the public domain. Can we get into my favorite
claims which are being made, and that is around a
toilet scrubbing incident. So the workers made claims about favoritism
culture where employees were moved up and down in the hierarchy.
So they claimed if you couldn't work over time, you
would automatically fall lower in rank, but if you did
(25:33):
the right thing, you would fall into her favorites category.
And one of the most shocking claims was that Matilda
had her own private toilets so it was closed off
to only her and her favorite employees. So in the documentary,
they showed a photo that one of the employees had
secretly snapped off the toilet door, so it had had
this little hand written sign on it that said please
(25:53):
don't use with a little love hut. Now, one day,
allegedly that sign fell off and an employee used the
toilet by mistake. They didn't understand the rules, maybe they
were new, and when Matilda found out, she allegedly went
nuts and made another employee scrub the toilet before she
would use it again. Now, the employee said she doesn't
(26:16):
even want to use the same toilet as us, when
not people were not colleagues to her. Now, I have
to say, I think that she is taking this whole
clean girl aesthetic to a whole new level. Having a
separate toilet that your colleagues and team members are not
allowed to use. It's unpopular opinion. In no way do
I think that this is correct, But I would actually
have loved to have my own toilet at my work. Yeah,
(26:39):
but I'm sure if a colleague accidentally used it, you
wouldn't scold them and then punish them by making the
scrubble clicks. Having worked sof and I worked in newsrooms.
It's not as if the newsreaders have their own personal toilets.
It's not as if they think that they're better than
everybody her office, like is it behind glassdoor or something.
My favorite part of this is that there's a note
with like a little patronizing love heard on her they
(26:59):
do use. Can you imagine all of her favorites, the
look they would give everyone else when they go up
to you to key in, because it wasn't a key,
it was just the sign. And I suppose also the
alleged terror that she was reeking over the office that
no one probably everyone had been too scared to set
foot in there. Do you think someone's reverse can't get
the toilet and she's got as like a fuck you?
(27:21):
I also said, how nervous they are. I'm assuming there
are a few nervous poos going on. When irritual bow
going on, there was clearly some unspoken rule, like nobody's
allowed to do a number two in this toilet. Oh
my god, you're telling me though, that all that fresh girl,
healthy living, all that match, they're not using that toilet
for more than another one. Maybe that's much she wants
it because she doesn't want it getting out that she's
(27:42):
done a big work and going on TikTok. But that's why.
Another startling claim that was made in this documentary was
accusations of fat phobia. So Jeff Avenue has always positioned
itself as a company that champions inclusion, and Matilda previously
told reporters that everyone is worth the same and everyone
has the right to be seen. Meanwhile, the employees who
(28:05):
spoke on camera claimed that Matilda allegedly refused to use
a photo of a plus sized model, saying we have
to reshoot this because she looks so fucking fat in
these clothes. We can't show that now. There were also
further claims of body shaming of employees. So one employee
stated to one person she said that her butt didn't
(28:25):
fill out the genes, and to another she said her
butt filled up the genes too much. So she was
comparing employees in different pairs of jeans. It's got like
the Goldilocks. One too hot, one with two cold, and
one was just right. Well I know, sorry, I don't
mean to laugh at this, but it's just absolutely insane.
There was a movie when somebody puts across just such
(28:47):
a different image of line. Well, another employee has also
come out and said that employees were exploited if they
had an appearance that didn't fit the norm. So what
she's saying there is that some employees who were plus
size or of a different ethnicity, they were heavily featured
on the company's social media accounts because they thought it
looked really good to be saying, oh, we've got a
(29:09):
very inclusive working force here. But again she said it
wasn't genuine. They didn't treat those people with respect. I'm
actually not that surprised because I think if you looked
into a lot of other companies closer, you would find
that there's a lot of virtue signaling going on, and
that's why people get frustrated by it, because it does
seem just not genuine. In this case, it clearly isn't,
because this isn't something that she stands for now all
(29:31):
Matilda was notably absent from this documentary. We didn't hear
from her, she didn't provide a statement for the documentary,
and the journalist Joanna said that she had barely started
her investigation when Geoff Avenue reached out to her. Questioning
why she had asked former employees about their working environment.
Maybe one of the girls that got the key to
the toilet snitch Now. Joanna immediately suggested lining up an
(29:55):
interview with Matilda to share her side of the story,
and the company flat out said no.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Now.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
The journalists also mentioned in her piece to camera in
this documentary that the workplace problems were well known to
Jeff Avenue's HR and management team, yet nothing was done.
She alleges when the employees spoke to HR and the CEO,
they said, it's always been like this and that's just
the way it is. They also allegedly retorted, what do
you want us to do? We can't fire Matilda. So
(30:23):
is Matilda just the founder of the company or does
she actually have a specific role within it. Well, a
lot of publications are reporting that she's the CEO, but
she is actually the co founder. So they've employed someone
else to act as the CEO. Probably a wise move.
Most people would do that and employ a CEO. I
know at Kick, their co founder, Laura Henshaw is actually
(30:44):
the CEO, which makes more sense because she has got
a background in law and she's very intelligent. But I
actually think listening to her podcast recently that she's going
to handle that job onto someone else and focus on
because her days looks so stressful whenever she posts about them,
like God, she works hard. We're getting back to Jeff Avenue.
I was so enraged when I heard the HR just
(31:05):
stood back and did nothing for these employees, particularly if
you look at Amy and my story. We had terrible
treatment from the HR team at our former employer, and
a lot of the time, unfortunately, they are just there
to protect the employer and not the employee. So it
made me so sad to see that these women, these
young women, had come forward trying to make change in
(31:27):
this awful and toxic workplace environment and they were just ignored.
And I just want to say, it's so brave that
they've actually found the courage to come out and make
these claims, particularly against someone who is so powder. The
best thing is that the reaction has been so good
from the public. People are believing these women, and people
are going, fuck you, Matilda, I'm not going to follow
(31:47):
you well. Matilda did release a statement acknowledging the seriousness
of the claims, so she apologized for any negative experiences
her employees had endured and expressed her commitment to fostering
a respectful work She said, I take the criticism that
has come forward very seriously and want to be clear
that a safe and respectful work environment is crucial for me,
both as a person and the founder of Jeff Avenue.
(32:10):
She continued. If any staff member has felt mistreated or
ill equipped in their role due to my actions, that
is something I am truly sorry for and apologize for.
It was never my intention to contribute to a work
environment that negatively affects anyone, and I am sorry that
there are employees who have had such experiences. She also
went on to say that she didn't recognize herself in
(32:31):
the claims and is choosing not to comment on individual cases.
She said, however, I think it's valuable that this is highlighted,
as it gives both me and Jeff Avenue the opportunity
to develop and become better. I want to emphasize that
I take my responsibility and see this as an opportunity
to reflect, develop and contribute to a better culture for
all my employees at Jeff Avenue. I will work actively
(32:54):
with my leadership and, among other things, continue to receive
support from a coach The Sweetest Location also spoke to
the COO of Jurff Avenue, Panila, Bonnie, who said the
company is aware of areas in need of development, including leadership.
Bonnie also confirmed that Matilda does have a private toilet,
describing it as a measure to help keep the influencer healthy.
(33:17):
She said our office makes it possible to offer this
solution without affecting other employees access to facilities, and that
the note will remain in place. She also clarified that
she believes it's not reasonable that an employee had to
clean a bathroom outside their job description. She said she
wants to make it clear that such a situation should
never occur. So I can't get my head around this
(33:38):
toilet business. So are you telling me that there's a
row of cubicles and there's a sign on one door
that says no one else's life is there in a
private room. It's separate. It's a private room far away
from the other toilet. Well, I'm not proximity, but we
just saw a white door that wasn't a cubical door,
but a white separate toilet door. Now, is it the
(33:59):
same toilet that she's taken off I'm not sure. I
want to know if this has happened in any other
people's workplace. Are their private toilets in other businesses? Yeah? Well,
I mean what also really stood out to me about
Matilda's statement is that she didn't really refute any of
the claims, No, just sort of acknowledged them. I mean,
to me, that screams that all of this happened allegedly,
(34:21):
and it's like, it wasn't my intention. It makes people
feel bad. It wasn't really poor response, isn't it. It wasn't
my intention to be a total jerk and terrorize the office.
Do you guys think she'll be able to come back
from this? Well, since the scandal broke, some of Matilda's
most devoted fans have vowed to boycott jerf Avenue. So
there's all these videos of young women wearing the signature
(34:41):
dressing gown that are going viral, and they're asking their
audience what they're planning on doing with all of their
jerf Avenue items now, and underneath one of these videos,
I thought it was very telling because a follower wrote,
I have so many items from her, and I love
my tote bag because it was so big but it
says jef Avenue on it, so I'm embarrassed to wear it.
Does that mean some of these fruit dressing games going on,
(35:02):
you could probably get a dupe from somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, but it's kind of like when Chloe Zepp everyone
was selling their stuff or burning their zep So you
don't want to be seen in it, No you don't,
but I mean I'm not going out in public and
addressing it. Well, still a cute dressing guy. I mean,
I don't want to support her, but I'll get one
dirt cheek. I was really intrigued to see how this
scandal actually affected her follow account because since then, on
Instagram she's lost over fifty thousand followers, and on her
(35:27):
jurf Instagram account she's lost twelve thousand. It's not heaps
considering that she has four millions. Yeah. Well, it hasn't
actually even affected her teaktok following, so she's continuing to
steadily gain followers like normal. Her accounts have been flooded, though,
with fans expressing their disappointment. So one fan wrote, unfortunately unfollowing,
terrible behavior of you if you can't see your employees
(35:49):
as fellow humans. How are you supposed to see your
fans as one Exposing others to bullying and harassment is
completely mindless. Remember we are living in the year twenty
twenty four. You need to take responsibility for your behavior
and get down to earth a bit. I think the
reason why we haven't seen more people unfollow Matilda Jerf
is because she's one of those huge influences, a bit
(36:09):
like Kim Kardashian where people will just follow her because
she's a huge influencer. The follows as well, now yeah,
and they're not as invested in her life. I think
a large amount of the people who have unfollowed her
are the die hard Matilda Jurf fans, which actually speaks
volumes because they're saying, I'm not putting up with this shit.
I actually follow you and used to respect you, and
now I've hit Those are the unfollows that are going
(36:31):
to be most damaging to her and her brand, because
those are the people that actually genuinely convert to sales. Yeah.
And also, I have noticed a trend. We spoke about
it probably months ago now on the podcast, but a
lot of people who end up trolling influencers were once
fans of those influences, and as soon as that parasocial
relationship changes because a lot of people are like, Wow,
(36:52):
we thought we knew her, but she's totally different, and
they will then turn into the people that investigate her,
remove and talk about tatle Lie. I know a lot
about her, they've got AMMO, and they essentially probably now
want to continue to bring her down. The whole thing
is quite comical in the sense that people are like,
She's not what I thought she would be. Like, what
(37:12):
some absolute glamazon girl who is rich and has everything
that she wants isn't a nice person? I am utterly shocked. Well,
that's when it comes across like a high school bulld
like someone who thinks that they're better than everyone. The
whole clean girl aesthetic too thing. It's quite funny with
this toilet scandal because it is like everyone else is
so filthy. I need my clean space away from everyone.
(37:34):
I think it is too soon to know the financial
hit that this is going to have on Jeff Avenue.
I really don't know how they can come back from
this and rebuild, because, as we've said, it's at the
point where it's embarrassing if you look like you're publicly
supporting this brand and their designs are so recognizable. Yeah,
but scandals happen so quickly, especially on TikTok, like this
will probably be forgotten by next month. I think Jeff
(37:56):
Avenue will be known as a mean girl brand from now. Yeah.
People aren't going to buy into the shit as well,
like all their virtue signaling, because before it's oh, it's
about inclusion, and I mean I think Genzetta's in particular
are very ethical when it comes to the brands that
they want to support, and they don't want to particularly
the fat phobic claims as well. See I think it's
outrage culture and then people go, oh, but I really
like that. Well that's where we're going to leave things today.
(38:19):
If you do love the show, please leave us a
review and on Thursday we'll be back in your ears
with our Christmas special with Leah. It's seen us. I'm
very excited for us. That's a good one. This episode
was recorded on the traditional land of the Ghana people
of the Adelaide Planes. We pay respect to elders past
and present,
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