Emma Chamberlain Addresses $10,000 Personal DM Claim

This past weekend, the 21-year-old influencer came under scrutiny after a Twitter user shared an alleged screenshot from her online store, which appeared to advertise a "Personal Thank You Note From Emma in Instagram DM." And priced at a whopping $10,000, the purported listing immediately began to make the internet rounds, with numerous people joking about buying a "used car for that price" or spending their entire month's salary on the purchase.

why is emma chamberlain charging 10K for an instagram DM this is wild pic.twitter.com/vO0ghF34TK

— Layla 🪬 (@itslaylas) March 18, 2023

Shortly after the listing went viral, Chamberlain's online shop was placed "under construction" without further explanation. That said, the Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain host is now "eager to set the story straight" in an exclusive statement about the situation obtained by E! News— and turns out she was just as confused as everyone else.

"A few days I started seeing comments asking why I was selling a DM for $10k. I assumed this was an online scam, as I had never offered to sell a DM for any amount of money, let alone $10k," the social media personality said. "People were saying this was for sale on my merch site, so I checked the site to see if it had been hacked and couldn't find anything out of the ordinary."

Perplexed by the listing, Chamberlain said she "immediately got in touch with my merch company Cozack" to investigate the listing, which the company went on to claim was leftover from an "internal test" performed in 2018.

"There have been false and inaccurate claims that Emma Chamberlain was offering DM's in exchange for $10k," Cozack wrote on her site, while explaining that it had been "testing a prospective reward program related to Emma's Merch without her knowledge" back in 2018. As part of this, the company said it created "an outrageous, never activated reward level that was not intended to be active or purchased" before adding that "these reward ideas were never run by Emma since they were not meant to be available for sale or reward."

"What we suspect is that data was activated ... discovered by an individual who then began spreading false information to press outlets," Cozack continued. "This was never made public, and certainly was never planned to be sold or purchased. The test program was never discoverable on the main page or product listing site, which is another reason that Emma had no knowledge of this."

The company added, "With the internet's tendency to create false narratives around sensationalized stories we wanted to provide you with the truth firsthand and from the source."

You can read both Chamberlain and Cozack's statements here.

Photo via Getty / Karwai Tang / WireImage