For Caroline Calloway, all is content.
In the 2010s, she rose to fame as an early Instagram influencer, captivating hundreds of thousands of followers with photos of her idyllic life studying art history at Cambridge University in England.
But her fame turned to infamy when it was revealed that she had been buying followers and that a friend had been ghostwriting her provocative captions.
Callaway developed an Adderall addiction, lost a lucrative book contract, and went bankrupt.
Now, she's self-published a new book, Elizabeth Wurtzel and Caroline Calloway's Life Guide, and talks about how she's overcome controversial Hurricane Milton, who has been living in Sarasota, Florida since 2022, with a cheeky social media post. , is once again in the spotlight.
“If I followed Hurricane Milton, oh my gosh, I would die,” Callaway, 32, said in an Instagram video with 676,000 followers on Tuesday, the day before the deadly storm made landfall. . .
Despite living in the evacuation zone, Calloway previously called the West Village home before moving south to care for her grandmother.
On Wednesday, she posted a photo of herself wearing a tube top and sitting cross-legged in front of a sliding glass door with her cat Matisse on her lap.
“If this storm actually kills me, the price of my book will go up significantly. Order now,” she shamelessly wrote on Instagram.
The next day, in a viral text exchange quoting the meme, she declared, “I was alive, well.”
Her hurricane-like antics have infuriated some people.
“Caroline Calloway refusing to leave the mandatory evacuation zone (over water, where landfall is expected) and dying in a hurricane would be the perfect ending to her story,” wrote a follower of X.
The influencer defended her actions to the Post.
“I decided to stay to help my elderly neighbors and because hurricane evacuation is always a difficult and sensitive decision for Florida residents,” she explained. “Since we've been stuck indoors, I've been creating content during my downtime, but that's not why I stayed home.”
But she also said it benefited her new book sales, and said the money would help her mother fix her car.
The new memoir interweaves Calloway's essays with excerpts from the late Wurtzel's 2001 advice book, The Secrets of Life.
“[It’s a] “It's a never-before-seen type of conversation between two depressed downtown lovers across time and space,” she said of the book.
Her path from disgraced internet “IT” girl to self-help author was a winding one.
The Falls Church, Virginia, native started her Instagram account (@CarolineCalloway) in 2013, showcasing the picturesque British academic life, including castles, the River Cam, and flower crowns.
She spent $4.99 to get 40,000 followers This was a common practice at the time, but is now considered an unethical mistake.
By 2015, she had amassed around 300,000 followers, a large fan base at the time.
“I had no idea about the gilded cage that you would lock yourself in by following an algorithm. What the algorithm likes is wealth, happiness, beauty, and beauty,” she said.
In 2016, she used her following to broker a $500,000 book deal with Macmillan's publisher, Flatiron Books.
But behind that post, she was battling and suffering from an Adderall addiction. She soon realized that she could not give birth.
“I was really stupid…I sold a book I didn't want to write,” she said. “The book I sold represented a fairy-tale version of my life. It was a cross between what I wanted and how I wanted to be perceived.”
But Calloway admitted, “I signed that document. No one put a gun to my head.”
She quickly used up her $100,000 advance, which also meant paying her $30,000 fourth-year tuition at Cambridge University, leaving her dependent on her publisher.
“I needed to find a way to make money,” Calloway said. At the time, she described herself as a “manic fairy nightmare”.
In 2019, desperate to make some money, she sold tickets for a “creativity workshop” for $165, which never materialized, and sold a $210 homemade “rejuvenation” product she cheekily named Snake Oil. He sold a concoction of “Noizumi.''
(Actually it was grapeseed oil and various other oils. Dermatologist) told VICE UK May cause sensitization reactions. )
Her troubles increased throughout the year.
First, her former West Village landlord sued her for $40,000 in unpaid rent.
Then she reached a new level of fame with New York magazine. the cut Former friend Natalie Beach published an article claiming she ghostwritten her Instagram captions.
It spread quickly and Callaway was branded a fraud and a fraud. “One Woman Fire Fest””
“My reputation was destroyed,” she said.
A few days after Beach's article was published, Calloway's father, William Gotshall, took his own life from a drug overdose. He had suffered from depression and bipolar disorder for years and was on the verge of bankruptcy.
“I was just dealing with so much pain: my depression, his depression, credit card debt, and my Adderall addiction on top of that,” she said. “I like to think that if it wasn’t for the drug addiction, I never would have.” [pulled out of a book deal] . . . I wanted to feel like I was being taken seriously as a writer. ”
At the height of her addiction, she was taking 90 milligrams of extended-release Adderall per day, which she said was “the maximum legal amount I'm allowed to take in New York.” He told British podcaster Grace Beverley last year:
He started a rehabilitation program in 2017. She still drinks, but has since stopped taking Adderall.
“The truth is, I just had to process a lot of grief,” she said.
In 2020, she created an Only Fans account where she sells topless photos of herself dressed as famous female literary characters, such as Daisy Buchanan, in order to raise enough funds to settle debts with her publisher. created.
“I paid it off that summer, and then I quit Only Funds,” said Calloway, who claimed to have earned about $100,000.
She has been lumped in with Fyre ringleaders Billy McFarland, 32, and Anna Delvey, 33, but Calloway says that comparison is unfair.
“I've never been to prison. I've paid off all my debts,” she said.
(McFarland and Delvey served nearly four years in prison for wire fraud and theft, respectively.)
But Callaway also flaunts being a fraud of sorts.
In 2023, she self-published her first memoir, “The Swindler.”
It was well received worldwide, so That's what New Yorkers call it. “Funny, engaging and full of genuine insight.”
Callaway says it sold 20,000 copies.
“People already think I'm a fraud,” she said. “You might even get some special benefits.”
