Celebs say gossip forum ruined their lives. Now its owner has been unmasked

Celebrities and influencers have been shocked to learn a controversial gossip website accused of allowing stalking, harassment, doxing and “relentless trolling” towards them was being run by a 41-year-old vegan influencer called Sebastian Bond.

While some public figures are used to dealing with online abuse and anonymous trolling, many, including glamour model Katie Price, say Tattle Life goes too far and is “the absolute worst platform for trolling”.

Set up in 2017, Tattle Life describes itself as a “commentary website on public business social media accounts” and its founder has operated anonymously – until recently.

Following a landmark defamation and harassment case in Northern Ireland, the elusive founder of the website was revealed.

“People shouldn’t be able to hide behind a keyboard,” Price tells the BBC, glad that its founder has been identified.

It’s estimated Tattle Life could be earning up to £180,000 a year in revenue from Google Ads, according to The Centre for Countering Digital Hate. After the BBC contacted Google the platform confirmed it had restricted adverts appearing on the gossip forum.

Model, 47-year-old Price, has hundreds of threads and anonymous comments about her looks, relationships and family, particularly her son Harvey who has multiple disabilities.

Speaking to the BBC, Price says she has had many private documents posted onto the site – called doxing – including some of her confidential mail.

“It’s absolutely horrendous, the stuff that’s posted about me on the website,” she says. “The abuse is unmanageable, especially when they involve my family.”

Price has done a number of stints at a mental health hospital as a result of the trolling on Tattle Life and says the “constant and disgusting abuse on the website” contributed to her decision to try to take her own life.

In an email to the BBC’s The State of Us podcast, which covered the story on 17 June, Tattle Life defended its business model, stating that influencers who monetise their personal lives should be open to scrutiny as it’s a totally unregulated industry. But not everyone sees it that way.

Jeremy Clarkson’s daughter Emily has recently spoken about how users on the website announced her pregnancy before she had, and says horrible comments about how she looked on her wedding day were part of the reason she went to therapy.

Influencer Carly Rowena also found herself being trolled on the platform after her young son was taken to hospital.

“People were saying it was all my fault,” she says, with many comments accusing her of profiteering from her son’s illness by continuing to post content on social media.

For the past six years, Rowena adds, a thread has existed on the website that shares details of where she lives as well as her parents’ names and address.

Caroline Hirons, a beauty expert with a large social media following, tells the BBC that it’s a “lie that this is in the public interest”.

“I’m a skincare expert, you don’t need to be posting pictures of my grandchildren,” she says.

Hirons has had private documents shared on Tattle Life as well as pictures of her children and grandchildren, some of which are still on the website.

“This is not normal trolling – the website has become a place that makes it seem like it’s OK to stalk and harass people constantly.”

Lydia Millen, who has more than 1.6m followers on Instagram, also believes anonymity shouldn’t be an option when utilising forums, comment sections or social media.

“Whilst you are entitled to your opinion, you aren’t entitled to anonymity which places you above the law,” she argues.

Millen, one of the most talked about people on the gossip website, says she has dealt with “relentless trolling” every day for the past five years, and often fears for her family’s safety.

Influencer Jen Graham agrees, suggesting people should have to verify their identity by uploading a document such as a driving licence or taking a picture of themselves.

“That way it’s traceable and someone can’t hide behind a secret identity,” she says, “and if they’re cruel then they’re punished.”

Graham says that discovering a thread about herself on Tattle Life “massively sent me under”.

“It wiped me out for a month and affected how I made my content as I was really anxious about posting.”

Katie Price has long campaigned to make online abuse a specific criminal offence and make social media users provide verified identification when opening new accounts.

“You should be able to trace these people as I imagine most people wouldn’t say this stuff if they used an account under their real name.”

Price says she has tried to take legal action against Tattle Life and reported some comments to the police, but the force have been unable to find who is behind the posts because they’re anonymous.

Tattle Life claims to have a “zero-tolerance policy to any content that is abusive, hateful, harmful and a team of moderators online 24/7 to remove any content that breaks our strict rules – often in minutes”.

Laura Rodrigo from Tattle Life told the BBC recent events have “highlighted the need to make some changes going forward”.

She said Tattle Life would improve its reporting system by giving people a ticket number and reiterated that there is a contact form on every page where anyone can report a post.

According to SimilarWeb, an internet analytics company, Tattle Life has been visited more than 11.5m times in the past month, mostly by British users.

It was a defamation and harassment lawsuit brought by Neil and Donna Sands that eventually outed Sebastian Bond, who also goes by the name of Bastian Durward.

The entrepreneurs took action against Tattle Life after suffering years of abuse, trolling and in-person stalking.

For nearly a decade no-one knew who ran the website, with its operator going under the fake name Helen McDougal.

Neil and Donna Sands were awarded £300,000 in damages and say they have received more than 1,000 messages from other celebrities and influencers who faced abuse on the platform.

An email to the BBC claiming to be from Sebastian Bond’s lawyers says he was “entirely unaware of the proceedings” brought before him and “is at a complete loss to understand how proceedings have been pursued” without his knowledge.

“Mr and Mrs Sands have only obtained ‘judgment in default’ because my client wasn’t aware of the proceedings, didn’t have an opportunity to consider a defence and the proceedings went ahead in private,” the email added.

Mr Sands says he will continue to pursue legal action against the Tattle Life community, adding: “The usernames of everyone who has attacked us on the website are listed in the court order so we will take action against all of them”.

The couple first reported abusive content on Tattle Life in February 2021, but Mr Sands told BBC News and BBC Radio 5 Live’s Nicky Campbell there are still comments of a stalking nature on the website and various threads about him keep being taken down and uploaded again.

The BBC contacted Tattle Life for comment on this specific allegation but did not receive a response.

The Centre for Countering Digital Hate says the website has been “monetising cruelty” for years through Google ads.

A spokesperson for Google said: “We don’t allow sites to engage in disruptive ad serving practices. After reviewing the site in question, we have restricted ads in accordance with our publisher policies.”

It added that that when it restricts ads a site will have little to no buyer demand.

Responsibilities on platforms to tackle illegal content and activity under the Online Safety Act came into force in March, and Ofcom says it is currently assessing platforms’ compliance with these new duties.

It has launched investigations into 13 different platforms of which Tattle Life is not one, but the regulator expects “to make further enforcement announcements in the coming months”.

It added: “those who fail to introduce appropriate measures to protect UK users from illegal content should expect to face enforcement action.”