The Bizarre Story Behind the Viral Image of a Woman Alone at Her Baby Shower and Why People Are Calling It a Scam
A photo of an expectant mother at a seemingly empty baby shower in Ohio has caused much controversy and has some calling her a scammer.
Chelsie Collins hosted a baby shower at a Golden Corral in Ohio over the weekend, yet was disappointed when friend Dorthy Holmes and her boyfriend were the only guests who showed up.
After Holmes snapped several photos of the unattended party, she posted them on Twitter and the images quickly went viral. Soon enough, strangers on the internet donated gifts and cash to the lonely mother-to-be.
The original tweet, which had over 16,000 retweets before it was deleted on Wednesday, resulted in people buying gifts from her registry and sending money to a PayPal account her friend set up for donations.
However, some people who were not certain about the details of the story followed up with the Golden Corral to fact check. Managers at the restaurant said the party had been attended by 12 people, which was the same number of people Collins invited.
Collins and Holmes told the Irish Examiner they had invited 70 people to the event on Facebook.
“We posted in the event numerous times and got no comments — only a few people marked that they were interested. When the day came nobody showed up,” Holmes told the Irish Examiner.
Although Collins claimed nothing was false about her story, several people tweeted their own proof of the alleged scam
In a Periscope video titled “The Truth,” Holmes attempted to clear up the situation.
“I didn’t handle it the way I should have,” Holmes said in the now deleted video about the tweet she originally sent.
She also called her and Collins's actions “immorally wrong,” but said they didn't ask for the tweet to blow up.
“I didn’t ask for sh*t,” she said. “We didn’t ask for it to go viral.”
According to her Walmart registry, Collins is due Sept. 25.