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Allanah Harris
127 Plays13 days ago
This week on the Mothers of All Crime we are chit chatting about a scandal that rocked TikTok. Allanah Harris was a successful momfluencer from Australia who was chronicling the life and illness of her baby daughter. Poor little Daisy was allegedly suffering from extreme health issues necessitating multiple brain surgeries. Followers were gripped by the suffering of Allanah's and many felt moved to donate to her gofundme. This all changed when nurses at the hospital started noticing inconsistencies in the facts and what ended up online. Their suspicions resulted in a police investigation which is ongoing. For now the fans are left to speculate about allegations of Factitious disorder imposed on another (also known as Munchausen Syndrome by proxy) and/or a financial scam.
Listener discretion is advised.
May contain explicit language and unfounded accusations.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Mothers of All Crime'
00:00:21
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Mothers of All Crime. This is a podcast where we deep dive into mothers involved in infamous crimes and scandals. I'm Monica and this is Crystal.
Who is Alana Harris?
00:00:51
Speaker
We're back on the Mothers of All Crime, and this week we are talking about an infamous TikToker named Alana Harris. Yes, I feel like TikTok stardom really is the new, like, it place to be.
00:01:05
Speaker
And we had our YouTube stars, we had the Vine stars, and now TikTok really is where it's at. Yeah, I feel like the TikTok Creator Fund is similar to YouTube, where you can really make a lot of money doing it on that. And so it's driven a lot of people that direction. i don't know what's going to happen with TikTok in the months to come, but certainly since the pandemic, it's been booming.
00:01:33
Speaker
And Alana Harris got a lot of attention on TikTok. she was She's from Australia. And she was big on Instagram as well. And it's very mommy vlog-esque, her picturesque life of her her husband, their four beautiful children.
00:01:53
Speaker
um But now all of that's kind of being looked at a bit differently because some alight some events have come to light. And I just think it's really interesting how the social media lens plays such a impact on certain families, especially the ones that are monetizing their families.
Daisy's Health Issues: Reality or Fabrication?
00:02:15
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. for alana so For Alana specifically, a lot of her content focused around her daughter, Daisy, who was undergoing some very serious health problems.
00:02:31
Speaker
And Alana was constantly posting from ah So she started her TikTok in 2021, but in 2023 is when Daisy was born to Alana, her husband Brock.
00:02:44
Speaker
And then when she was a few months old, Daisy... Was experiencing seizures and periods of unresponsiveness. And this was posted online.
00:02:56
Speaker
i know. Terrible. How heartbreaking to have to like imagine dealing with that as a parent. I just, that's so scary.
00:03:06
Speaker
So scary. So she would have these seizures. She was in and out of the hospital. she um Alana made this very upsetting video talking about how Daisy's brain was covered in tumors.
00:03:22
Speaker
And I know. Yeah. So she was asking for thoughts and prayers on social media. There was a GoFundMe that was made um to raise money for medical expenses because Daisy was in the hospital all of the time and she ended up having a brain surgery. she
00:03:49
Speaker
a second brain surgery and then on September 30th 2024 Alana posted that little Daisy was moving into palliative care and obviously that is so devastating for the family and for the followers but what's more interesting is the reaction of the nurses at the hospital because some of them started following Alana on TikTok, on Instagram, and they started to notice that what Alana was saying was happening with Daisy was not actually what was happening.
00:04:31
Speaker
The information did not match. And Daisy did not have any brain tumors. She had had two exploratory brain surgeries because of her symptoms, which were mostly long periods of unresponsiveness.
00:04:46
Speaker
But those surgeries did not come back with any significant findings. And she actually didn't have a diagnosis. So.
Investigation Begins: Alana Under Suspicion
00:04:56
Speaker
Interesting.
00:04:57
Speaker
Did any of the nurses say anything about like their experience, like seeing any of the non-responsiveness or seeing any of the seizures? Or are we going solely off of Alana?
00:05:14
Speaker
so So what I could gather was that she would be extremely lethargic and she would be sleeping a lot and be extremely difficult to wake up. But that it seems that most of these seizures occurred at home.
00:05:28
Speaker
course did. Where it was just Ilana that was taking care of her. Yeah. But she was in coma-like states for long periods of time. And this is a one-year-old baby.
00:05:40
Speaker
very, very abnormal behavior. So it's after being her second brain's blanchard vibes.
00:05:51
Speaker
Is it not? i know. I know it really is. So obviously the nurses seeing this famous influencer posting these blatant misrepresentations on Instagram, on TikTok, and They brought it to the attention of other people at the hospital, and they ultimately decided to run a toxicology screening on Daisy, which shows ah very, very high level of benzodiazepine.
00:06:25
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:06:29
Speaker
So, at this point... very very much so so this came out online pretty quickly and then people started going back through all of the videos all of the pictures that have been posted over the last year and with new eyes with new skepticism and it's It was apparent to a lot of people that Alana was smiling in most of the videos while she's at Daisy's bedside, that she's doing silly videos, that she's she seems very, very happy for someone in such a situation.
00:07:07
Speaker
And people also looked back further at other times in her life where some people would be intense situations distress and she is posting smiles and laughs and all silliness and so it just all comes off as a little bit creepy in retrospect.
00:07:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's one thing because like here's where it gets complicated from like the outside perspective, right? When it comes to her being bubbly is she's monetizing her family. So she has to keep up this persona. Like regardless of how she feels in her actual life, she has to keep up this persona in order to still make her money because she's monetizing her family and this is her income.
00:07:57
Speaker
So if all of a sudden she's depressed and her videos suck, then No one's going to want to watch them and she won't make any money. But on the contrary, don't know, people monetizing their babies just give me the ick anyway.
00:08:10
Speaker
But having someone who is now coming out that they're intentionally making their baby sick in order to get likes, I i' actually have a loss of words. Yeah.
Financial Scandal and Legal Involvement
00:08:28
Speaker
It's pretty horrifying. And when you think about the $60,000 that were donated to her GoFundMe for covering medical and travel and missed work expenses, and what is that really going to at this point? I mean, I guess they were really in the hospital, but...
00:08:48
Speaker
um So the police get involved at the point that the benzodiazepine is discovered. um Child Protective Services in Australia get involved and the children end up being taken into Child Protective Services.
00:09:06
Speaker
they are essentially taken into foster care because there's speculation and suspicion about Alana's husband, Brock, as well, because he's in the hospital with them He's been home with them. He's the other parent that's been pushing for surgeries and medications and hospitalizations.
00:09:28
Speaker
So immediately suspicion was falling on him as well. you know It's always the parents. It's always the spouse. That kind of a situation. Yeah. I will say, though, from from our Blanchard episode, to my understanding, Munch as a pro proxy, for them both to have that, it would be...
00:09:48
Speaker
ridiculous like it would be close to negative numbers right because it's such a rare disorder as it is like I wonder if she's basically drugging the baby and then running to her Brock and be like oh my god this happened today were you at work we need to fix it but in a panic or And then rightfully so, he'd be at the hospital pushing for surgeries, pushing to be like, something's wrong with my baby.
00:10:16
Speaker
like I wonder, or it's flipped. Like, I don't know. Like, one of them clearly is doing this. The question is who?
00:10:26
Speaker
Clearly. But it reminds me also of Juanita Hoyt, who her husband really believed that their babies were all dying from SIDS. And that there was sort of terrible genetic problem in the family.
00:10:40
Speaker
And ah I mean, you don't want to believe that someone is capable of doing something so awful, especially if you're both experiencing this scary, terrible thing together of your baby being critically ill.
00:10:55
Speaker
It would be hard to wrap your mind around it. And Brock actually went missing temporarily after the children were taken into foster care. And he eventually ended up putting a story on snapchat and i have it here of his side of things yeah so i can i can just read it i guess so brock harris um said i figured this would be the fastest way to reach everybody as i know everyone likes to gossip for what it is worth i had no idea about what alana was doing to daisy
00:11:30
Speaker
I pushed for those surgeries because in my heart I felt that it would help. I didn't realize that Daisy was being drugged the entire time causing her symptoms to be what they are. I'm not everybody's cup of tea but I'm a good dad and I do my best to love and protect my children.
00:11:46
Speaker
I should have done better for them. I'm sorry I couldn't protect Daisy the way I should have. The children have been taken away into custody under speculation. i potentially had something to do with this. On everything i have ever known and ever loved, I had no idea what Alana was doing.
00:12:03
Speaker
Alana, you're an absolute monster. You win. To all four of my beautiful children, i love you so dearly. I'm so sorry. Wow.
00:12:16
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:12:19
Speaker
I wonder what he means by you win. Like, I wonder if they have been having issues with their other children and it just got so bad that this is where it ended.
00:12:34
Speaker
i don't know. I guess I was interpreting it like you won you deceived me. but
00:12:43
Speaker
maybe yeah i don't know ruin my life right like that's an interesting statement but also we could be reading into it because he's probably very very emotional and trying to just like make a post for sure for sure Pretty quickly after that, the GoFundMe disappeared and GoFundMe ended up actually refunding all the donors their money. Oh, that's cool. um I didn't know they could do that. Yeah, for sure.
00:13:14
Speaker
I guess they can. I guess they can just avoid the payments. I wasn't really sure how that worked, but maybe if it's still sitting there.
00:13:22
Speaker
I don't know.
Unusual Behavior and Psychological Speculation
00:13:24
Speaker
I feel it is interesting, like the confidence that she had going to the hospital, presenting herself as this influencer, yet still lying, essentially, online. Because Really, you got to give her credit. Like if you were that delusional, you think no one in the hospital that your daughter is actively being treated in isn't going to put that together.
00:13:52
Speaker
and you're going to the same hospital. It's it. I don't know. i feel like that is a level of confidence we haven't really seen. Yeah.
00:14:03
Speaker
Because every influencer we've ever talked about or I've ever seen online also, like in the real world, they like to tell you. But they want to talk about that they're an influencer and they're important.
00:14:16
Speaker
So you know she's going around this hospital being like, yeah, I'm an influencer. Follow me. Blah, blah, blah. And then posting that her child has all these issues in the same hospital that that she's not having the issues.
00:14:28
Speaker
Like how do you not see that coming?
00:14:32
Speaker
I mean, it's just a level of
00:14:37
Speaker
confidence, ego, narcissism. The whole world revolves around me. Like, no one's going to look into anything I do. And it's just completely illogical. Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:52
Speaker
and like I mean, you could have even waited and until she was discharged from the hospital to make these posts. It would have been less likely that the nurses were going to see them and care. But she was in the hospital posting pictures of herself at Daisy's bedside, pictures of Daisy hooked up to all of this medical equipment, unconscious, bandages around her head, recovering from brain surgery. This child had two brain surgeries in a week.
00:15:18
Speaker
because of her extreme lethargy and all of her symptoms that we now know were caused by benzodiazepine. To a one-year-old,
00:15:31
Speaker
Oh, God. And she's such a cute little baby. Like, Googling photos of her and, like, images of she's so cute. Like, you just, she has these beautiful eyes, really, is what, like, the first thing I noticed about her.
00:15:45
Speaker
And there are so many pictures of her being just such a happy little girl. And the fact that... It really just shows child resilience, right? Like this baby is being put through.
00:15:59
Speaker
this is only what we know of. So I can only imagine the other stuff. But she's still smiling and giggling and like all these photos and stuff. Like it really just shows that children want to be happy, right? Like they just want love and entertainment.
00:16:16
Speaker
like And this is how she chose to love her. just It's sad. Yeah, well, for Daisy, this is all she knew.
00:16:29
Speaker
She's just a little ah baby that doesn't have any context or any way to assess the situation. So I'm sure in her mind, like, her mother was her whole world, and she loved her and trusted her.
00:16:42
Speaker
And that makes it extra sad. And I feel like Munchausen by proxy feels like the only... explanation that's even possible because what else would truly, i mean, if it's just financially motivated, somehow that's even worse.
00:17:02
Speaker
Because it like if it wasn't her... Like, Munch of the Proxy, part of it is, like, they're coming from, like a caring place. A twisted and weird one, but caring in some level.
00:17:15
Speaker
And if it was to just simply harm the child, she wouldn't be bringing them to the hospital to have it fixed. Like, she wouldn't be talking about it to have it corrected, quote-unquote, right?
00:17:29
Speaker
And um I'd be very curious if other children, once they kind of start looking into it have had any issues. Or if it's just the baby.
00:17:48
Speaker
so She had a child who was unfortunately tragically stillborn and she posted pictures leaving the hospital where she is smiling for the for a selfie and the caption on it says, looking at it it's very disturbing.
00:18:13
Speaker
um Nothing can prepare you to say goodbye to your baby and leave the hospital empty-handed. smiling for a mirror selfie. And smiling? app No. Nope.
00:18:27
Speaker
Yep. And so obviously people have been speculating as well like was that all fabricated? that that even really happen?
00:18:38
Speaker
Was there some sort of was there a baby at all cause yeah because it's so sad but it's so it's such a real thing like people do fake pregnancies and pregnancy loss for attention we've talked about on this podcast we've seen it on documentaries on it's horrible to think that someone would lie about something so tragic happening in their lives but people do
00:19:06
Speaker
And if Alana truly has Munchausen by proxy, like, would that extend to your pregnancy? Or would you have some sort of hysterical pregnancy in the same vein? to me, those diseases don't seem...
00:19:23
Speaker
that far apart. I see how you could get from one to the other. and Yeah.
Legal Proceedings and Future Concerns
00:19:28
Speaker
so there's been all kinds of accusations and Alana is still under investigation.
00:19:35
Speaker
as but as far as I can find, she has not been convicted of anything and she hasn't been tried of anything yet, but It just looks like she's still under investigation.
00:19:47
Speaker
This was recent, though. This was in November. So I'm sure it's taking a long time, by I'll definitely be interested on updates in the future because there are people who say that some of Daisy's medical problems were legitimate and could not have been faked.
00:20:07
Speaker
And that could be the case. And that was the case for Gypsy Rose as well. She did have something minor. And then it was like her mother got addicted to the attention.
00:20:19
Speaker
Yes. yeah and it spirals from there. So I wouldn't be shocked to learn that she had some sort of minor condition that needed hospitalization, that needed treatment, and that the response Alana got as the savior, wonderful mother, she was high off of that.
00:20:39
Speaker
and
00:20:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point. i I will be very curious as things kind of develop, um,
00:20:50
Speaker
what that condition was, if that is the case, because that's a good point where it it could be sprouted from something. i I don't want to say I hope so because it like it makes it sounds bad but it like makes more sense right like it you just zone in on something versus like her starting with this perfectly healthy baby and being like nah want attention like so it'll be curious as that kind of develops
00:21:27
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. I mean, a tragic case. I really hope that all those kids are okay and that they do not get returned to Alana's care because I think they would be constantly in danger.
00:21:40
Speaker
And maybe if Brock got some help dealing with the situation, um
00:21:49
Speaker
came to some hard realities, maybe he could get the kids back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I guess as long as it's shown that like he wasn't involved, I have no problem with the kids being returned to a parent because unification is important.
00:22:06
Speaker
Like, and we've had countless stories on here that the foster care system is not what I would like it to be, obviously. And it could sure cause issues. But yeah,
00:22:20
Speaker
but I mean, yeah, if they can find out that Brock's a good parent and he was completely unaware of what was happening, like, I have... no I don't know. At this moment, I guess I don't have a problem with it.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, with the amount of information that I have right now, I think he could he would be a good candidate to get them back. ah Assuming he can mentally handle this situation and the scrutiny...
00:22:51
Speaker
Yeah, the poor man's probably getting ripped into, which rightfully so. like The idea of like how are you not aware that's happening to your kid, but at the same time, ah you you only know what you're presented, right? like Yeah, and you believe what you want to believe.
00:23:08
Speaker
And I think that that anyone who thinks that they would have seen through this like is underestimating how manipulative someone can be, especially if they are truly, truly psychologically ill and they maybe even believe.
00:23:27
Speaker
their lies and I do think a lot of the time that's the case nobody wants to believe that like things like this are cape their loved one is capable of it right like you fall in love you think they're a good person you have they're the mother of your children your first instinct isn't going to be to think that they're clearly the ones hurting them that's probably the last thing you think of Absolutely. Especially when the child is in the hospital and still has all of these symptoms.
00:23:59
Speaker
Like because she was being drugged, she wasn't better at the hospital. She was still very sick. And so that to me would be confirming if I was him, like, wow, she's, I mean, she's clearly dealing with a lot, something that can't be easily fixed because we've been at the hospital for a hundred days and it's still not better.
00:24:24
Speaker
Right. Yeah. ah Poor baby. Well, I know. Poor little Daisy. hope that her life gets much better and continues that way.
Reflections and Systemic Insights
00:24:38
Speaker
just thought it was an interesting case. And, you know, I love TikTok. Love the drama. ah Yes. Well, if there's anything new and they end up going to trial, we'll definitely keep an eye on it.
00:24:49
Speaker
um But thank you for that one. That was a good one. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And, you know, I'll stalk Australia and see what's going on. i also want to point out that Australia has universal health care.
00:25:03
Speaker
So the GoFundMe makes even less sense. Like, what do you... I mean, i know that there's other expenses, obviously, but... it it seems even more outrageous universal here that induced hospital because like if they went to like a private hospital right like if you go to a private doctor that's out of pocket versus like the health care system so i'm wondering if she's like i have to see specialists because no one can figure out what my baby has and that's what caused the extra fees i don't know that could definitely be
00:25:36
Speaker
That could definitely be. All right. Well, until next week. Talk to you soon.