by Isabella Avila and Sophie Best.
Every year, July 6th comes around; but in the world of influencers, it’s the anniversary of some of the biggest drama to hit the TikTok platform. Since it is the 5-year anniversary, I figured it would only be appropriate to remind us of the drama and give some new updates!
By 2020, TikTok had become a global powerhouse, especially with millions still in quarantine because of the pandemic. Not just for dance trends and comedy skits, but for the rise of new internet celebrities. The platform had given birth to creators like Charli D’Amelio, Chase Hudson (Lil Huddy), Addison Rae, and Nessa Barrett, among others—many of whom were linked through the now-iconic Hype House.
Another popular group of influencers, some would say rival to the Hype House, was the Sway House. Influencers like Josh Richards, Jaden Hossler, Bryce Young and Noah Beck were all members of The Sway House. Sway could’ve been comparable to a frat house: a bunch of boys living together and spending their days working out and nights partying.
Here’s the 411: It all started with accusations of cheating. Chase Hudson, who had been in an on-again-off-again relationship with Charli D’Amelio, was accused of kissing Nessa Barrett—who was also part of the friend group and had previously dated Josh Richards. Word got out, and it didn’t take long for things to explode publicly.
Josh Richards and Bryce Hall took the drama to another level, posting now-deleted videos and tweets calling out Chase and defending their friends. Which led to a series of tweets and live streams from both sides of the drama.
Chase took to twitter with a statement written on the notes app that started an all-out war among several influencers. He aired out everyone’s dirty laundry, claiming nearly every guy in the friend group had cheated or acted shady in some way. It started with: “Since all my drama has to be put on the internet for the world to judge me, let’s lay out everyone else’s.”
Reactions to this list of alleged activities sent these two groups into battle, with members of Sway showing up to the Hype House and confronting Chase directly. Charli D’Amelio, who rarely commented on internet drama, was tweeting about the situation and responding to Chase’s posts and insinuated Chase had lied to her.
Even though this was a very dramatic night, that’s all it seemed to be: one night. After the sun came up, social media users were talking, but not many comments coming from the influencers themselves following the events.
However, the “legacy” of July 6, 2020 lives on and had been brought back up a few times.
In 2021, Mads Lewis, former girlfriend of Jaden Hossler, admitted that she knew about the Nessa and Chase kiss from 2020 that began the July 6th drama. She touched on this briefly during her feature on Call Her Daddy with Alex Cooper.
In early 2025, several influencers began sharing their own secrets on TikTok ahead of a nationwide ban (that only lasted around 12 hours). Griffin Johnson, a former member of Sway, brought up July 6, 2020, in his video claiming everything in Chase’s note post from that night was true. He said “lil huddy didn’t lie on July 6th.” This confirmed that he, along with several of his co-Sway members, had cheated on their girlfriends at the time.
Back to present time, many of the creators have moved on. But for those of us who lived through it in real-time, July 6, 2020 will always be a little piece of internet history—a wild night where everyone was online, everyone had a side, and classic teenager drama that became performance art.
