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  • February 14, 2025
Drew Afualo takes TikTok break and says she’s ‘suffocating’

Drew Afualo takes TikTok break and says she’s ‘suffocating’

  • TikTok star Drew Afualo — who has amassed more than 8 million followers with her caustic clapbacks — announced in an emotional Dec. 9 post that she’s taking a break from the platform
  • The author and podcaster, 29, said it’s not because of “vitriol” but because “I feel like I’ll never be enough” and it’s affecting her mental and physical health.
  • Afualo vowed to come back and hopes some time away will help her realize the good things she is doing on the platform

Extremely popular TikTok star Drew Afualo has announced in an emotional manner that she is taking a break from the platform December 9 message where she shared that she was “violently ill” as she struggled with her mental health.

“I have decided to take a break from TikTok in particular,” Afualo, 29, began her post, which has been viewed three million times. ‘I don’t want it to be more dramatic than that. I won’t disappear forever. I am not deleting my account. I just need a break and because I love you all so much, I want to explain to you why that is.”

Afualo – who parried her clever viral clapbacks to misogynistic creators in a media empire with a popular podcast, The comments sectionAnd best selling book, LOUD: Accept nothing less than the life you deservesaid that “my build on TikTok was very difficult and sometimes very violent, for my very specific niche.”

Drew Afualo released her best-selling memoir in 2024.

Adam Simmons; AUWA books


But Afualo, who has 8.2 million followers on TikTok and was named one of PEOPLE’s Top 10 makers of the yearwas quick to point out that her split was not “because of vitriol, and I want to make that very clear. This is not because of the hate I receive from bigots or misogynists, or from the many, many people who don’t like me on the app because of what I do, which is trying to fight for other marginalized groups.”

She said she originally started posting on TikTok after she was fired — something she said “really derailed me because it felt like it proved to me that I wasn’t enough.” But her work in therapy made her realize that she needed her validation not to come from her achievements, but from herself. And over the past year, she said she lost sight of that.

“My validation no longer comes from me. I feel like I’m consistently pursuing people who love me or care about me, or who are part of the groups I feel so passionate about protecting. And that, again, is an unhealthy and unsustainable way of looking at myself. Because now I feel like I’m constantly trying to fit into everyone’s idea of ​​perfection.”

“People on this app see me in many different roles,” she continued. “The perfect content creator, the perfect influencer, the perfect ally, the perfect activist, the perfect feminist. The list goes on and that feeling is suffocating.”

“I constantly feel like I’m not enough for the groups I feel so passionate about protecting and it has become truly unbearable to exist on this app, knowing that, because I care so much about so many different people on this app …it’s gotten to a point now where I feel like I’ll never be enough. And it’s starting to affect my mental health so severely that I’m violently ill. I am physically very ill.”

She said that last year, “I almost had to be hospitalized,” but “I just couldn’t (take a break) because I never want anyone to feel like I let them down.”

But now, Afualo says, “I have to protect myself too, because I matter too.” She compared her stance on TikTok to “a burning building.”

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Drew Afualo in West Hollywood, California, in 2024.

Leon Bennett/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty


‘I found the exit. I opened the door and I will keep it open,” she explained. “It is my honor and privilege to keep that door open. But at the same time I am also being burned from both sides and something has to be done eventually. So this is me doing that. I hope you can all understand and respect it. I am forever grateful for this platform and the community we have built together and I promise I will be back.”

She said she hopes time away from the app will help her realize that she is a good person because “there are content creators who don’t deserve the influence and reach that they have… They’re bad people who don’t caring about others.”

“I know I’m not one of those people,” she said. “And I think time away from this app will give me a chance to remind myself of that and to remind myself that I am a good person and that I know I am a good person so that I can fully care for all of you to appear.”

She ended her video with a plea to her fans: “Please take care of each other, okay? Love you.”

If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.