After going viral with her wild 50-part "who TF did I marry" series on TikTok, social media star Reesa Teesa, real name Teresa Johnson, is denying reports that she got a big payday from the videos.
"The stories about the amount of money that I've made on TikTok with this whole 'Who The Fuck Did I Marry' series is wildly inaccurate," she said in a video shared over the weekend. "So, when I started this series, I was not yet in their creator fund. I didn't get approved for it until, like, midway into the series, right? So, all the videos I did beforehand weren't even counted for the creator fund."
While TikTok doesn't publicly share the exact figures it pays its content creators, the platform's old Creator Fund paid users roughly two cents per 1,000 views, according to The Leap. Its new version of the system, the Creativity Program, was rolled out last year and claims to pay up to 20 times more, however.
Teesa also shared that her account had been suspended from the Creator Fund.
"It's only counted based off of the eligible views, so if you do the math, it's not that much," she continued. "But here's the kicker. Guess who got suspended out of the creator fund. I got suspended because I had multiple violations because I had reuploaded some of the videos in the series and you can't do that. For the next thirty days, I am not making any money from the videos. I am merely making these videos from the heart. ... But, the good news is, in my mind I have an idea for a series of videos. It will not be 50 parts, but just something I can document and talk to you guys about and again upload it all at once. I was going to do it sooner rather than later, but now that I'm suspended I'ma just wait out my 30 days."
She concluded the video by downplaying some of the figures she's seen circulating online.
"So to the people who think I've made 80,000, 100,000, 300,000... I am so sorry to disappoint you, but the actual number is nowhere near," she said. "I am not quitting my day job."
In a later video, Teesa shared that her status in the Creativity Program has been restored. She's garnered over 150 million views on the main series of videos, so if the Creativity Program does, in fact, payout to its creators as much as TikTok promises, she could still be due a sizeable payday—though it's unlikely that the views will be counted retroactively.
The Atlanta area woman made a huge splash on TikTok with her story of Legion, who told her he was a wealthy, former arena football player who also formerly worked at Apple. They married in January 2021, but divorced five months later when she discovered that he was lying about everything.
“I just know that everything was a lie. I have not found anything that proves something was true,” Reesa said during a live chat breaking down the story. “I need to forgive myself; maybe I shouldn’t say forgive myself for being dumb, but definitely forgive myself, for you would rather be right and married than be obedient and patient.”
Through the course of her story she revealed that, in reality, he worked as a forklift driver and wasn't able to afford the $700,000 home he promised her. He allegedly used false details to try and purchase a home for them and was on probation for offenses such as criminal trespassing and impersonation of an officer, which he never disclosed to her.
A man claiming to be "Legion" said that many of her claims aren't true and that he plans to file a lawsuit against her.
