- Brooke Schofield's path from aspiring actress to influencer began when she befriended Tana Mongeau.
- A collaboration with Mongeau on the podcast “Cancelled” led to a national tour.
- However, Schofield has struggled with negative feedback and her words being misinterpreted.
Brooke Schofield always wanted to be famous. And now she has become famous.
“Well, I wanted to act,” she told Business Insider of her motivations for leaving Arizona for Los Angeles in 2019.
“There was no reason I thought I had to be successful at it, but I obviously thought I was going to be an actress.”
From an early age, she envisioned herself as someone like Hannah Montana and dreamed of making it big.
“I can't sing, I can't dance. I don't know what I'm thinking,” she said.
Schofield's career didn't always go that way. Although she appeared in several films, her main income for three years was working in a restaurant.
However, Schofield's fortunes changed when she befriended influencer Tana Mongeau. That led to her own influx of followers, her podcast a hit, and her sold-out national tours.
Scofield is one of the internet's hottest names, with 840,000 followers on TikTok and 167,000 subscribers on YouTube.
She is known for her commitment to pop culture, her remarkable hat collection, and her willingness to call out those who have wronged her.
Schofield spoke to BI about where it all started, how he balances transparency with his audience, and knowing when to hold back.
Making the most of the “nepotism situation”
Schofield felt the pressure from the start.
“The difficult thing about living in L.A. is that you almost always have to work to make money,” she says. “So it's really difficult for people who are trying to break into something. If you're working, when do you have time?”
But a friendship with Mongeau, an internet superstar who has been creating content on YouTube since 2015, changes everything.
Schofield said it was initially a “nepotism situation” in which he gained a following simply by being friends with Mongeau and appearing in her videos.
“At first I was frustrated because I wasn’t really doing anything,” she said. “Why would anyone care about this?”
But Schofield's confidence increased when her podcast, Cancelled, with Mongeau launched in July 2021, showcasing her comic timing, fashion sense and life story.
Episodes are posted on YouTube on a page converted from Mongeau's old vlog channel, which has more than 2 million subscribers. Early episodes were supported by guests such as YouTuber Trisha Paytas and Jeff Wittek, and he now regularly garners between 1 and 2 million views on weekly installments.
Scofield and Mongeau are also currently on a tour of the United States, which concludes on June 2nd in Oakland, California.
While speaking with BI, Schofield was in a hotel room in San Antonio.
She said the experience had been “surreal” and exhausting, but “amazing.” When she stepped into her first show, she felt “appalled.”
“When you actually show up and walk out, you're like, wow, wow, I can't believe there are so many people here,” she said. “I didn’t know people loved it so much.”
Schofield said she struggles with negative feedback, but sometimes asks for it anyway.
“It's been a guilty pleasure for me to find out what people are saying about us,” she said.
She said Reddit is a particular target because of its “lack of positivity.”
“You go there just to see what people hate about you,” she said. “I feel like I'm reading a group chat about myself, you know what I mean? But I had to get over that quickly on this tour, because it made me… It made me very anxious and I couldn’t deal with it.”
She said Mongeau is a good person for Schofield to turn to when he's feeling down about negativity. That's because she's been embroiled in countless controversies herself, from Tanacon (an ill-fated competition comparable to 2018's Vidcon) to allegations that she abused her friends. . Most likely, she has taken responsibility and shaken off her negative thoughts over the years.
“She's been hated for so many things and she's really good at not accepting it,” Schofield said. “But at the same time, she also told me that you can't put as much value in good opinions. I'm glad that people like what we're doing, but you can't put any of your opinions to the test.” You can't put too much emphasis on it, because then you'll be influenced by bad things. ”
attract public attention
“Cancelled” toured again in 2023, but received poor reviews. Attendees said the show was chaotic, started late and was not worth the ticket price.
Mr. Schofield said that his first tour was “a struggle” because he and Mr. Mongeau “quarreled a lot.” Starting a business with her best friend is always a “challenging situation,” she says.
“Typically when you travel with friends or spend that much time with your boyfriend or your best friend or whoever, you're going to have conflicts,” she said. “Half of the fights were because we were overworked, overwhelmed, and stressed out.”
Last time, the budget was much lower, so they were dealing with “a lot of things that probably shouldn't have been covered,” Schofield said.
“It was very, very overwhelming, and we blamed it on each other,” she said. “This time we literally have the best team ever, so it's just fun. We were able to come in and do the fun parts, and the fights were almost completely cut out.”
Schofield and Mongeau have a candid conversation during the podcast, talking about everything from the news of the day to their sex lives.
But this can backfire, especially since podcasts are a source of news reporting.
For example, Schofield recently announced that she briefly dated comedian Matt Rife, who had huge success on TikTok and released a Netflix special last year.
She accused him of cheating on her with multiple other women, some of whom he even took out on recent legs of his “cancelled” tour. (Mr. Rife did not respond to BI's request for comment).
She says several news outlets covered the story and mischaracterized her remarks.
“No, I never said that,” she said. Posted in Xa link to a Page Six article alleging Mr. Rife had affairs with “20 women.”
“The amount of news stories that came out of it was so misinformed and completely out there that it was really upsetting,” Schofield said.
“You shouldn't be allowed to be a journalist without researching what you're talking about. I think it should be illegal.”
But for the most part, Schofield manages to stay grounded. She still keeps in touch with many of her friends she grew up with and knows when to physically step away from her phone for her own mental health. I'm learning to recognize it. “Social media is not real life,” she said.
“I got so hooked on the internet and so involved in everything that all of a sudden I became this person,” she said. I'm like, “Oh my God, let's get off our phones and go pet the dog or something.''
