Influencer Brittany Dawn’s Trial Is Finally Starting

Davis lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers and followers after she was accused of selling bogus fitness plans, but she has gained back much of her following as a Christianity influencer, according to analytics platform Social Blade. For instance, her Instagram following dropped from 573,000 at the peak of her fitness career in August 2018 to 420,000 in February 2021 when the lawsuit was filed. Now it’s back up to 472,000.

Davis now runs a ministry called She Lives Freed that offers $125 tickets to weekend religious conferences she leads, where horse trough baptisms and speaking in tongues are encouraged. BuzzFeed News attended an April 2022 one-day retreat at which she addressed a crowd of devoted followers during a Q&A session. She alluded to her alleged deceptive business practices and the ensuing backlash by saying “that’s not who I am anymore” and “you cannot cancel what God has called.” When BuzzFeed News asked Davis individually, she declined to comment on the allegations against her, but mentioned that she had experienced suicidal ideation in the past. 

On social media, Davis now posts religious lifestyle and marriage advice alongside her husband, Jordan Nelson, a former police officer who was sued by the ACLU in 2018 for excessive use of force against a Black man. In October 2021, Davis tearfully announced via monetized video that Nelson shot and killed her dog, Brodie, instead of taking him to the vet after he was hit by a car. They both faced backlash. Neither responded to a request for comment on the incidents from BuzzFeed News. 

On Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, Davis has posted extensively about her relationship, having a miscarriage, and adjusting to life as a foster parent — and shared debunked conspiracies like the Wayfair child trafficking theory and a hoax blaming the 2021 Astroworld tragedy on “demonic activity.” 

Concerns About GoFundMe and Foster Parenting

Through those controversies, Davis has amassed a following of people who critique her posts on a 38,000-member subreddit called r/BrittanyDawnSnark. It has more than tripled in size since the fitness plan lawsuit was filed. Members of the subreddit discuss Davis’s content, both noting alleged hypocrisy and making fun of her spray tan. At Davis’s religious conference, one of her volunteers warned that she would be keeping an eye on me because she knew I was a member of the subreddit. 

And redditors are champing at the bit for Davis’s trial, though the subreddit rules say that people should refrain from attending in person.

“The Superbowl of Snark is upon us!” one Reddit user wrote in a Feb. 25 post outlining the upcoming legal appearances Davis would make. “CAN’T FUCKING WAIT,” one commenter responded. “I 👏 am 👏 so 👏 PUMPED 👏” another wrote. 

Beyond the fitness plans, two major concerns with Davis have emerged from the subreddit. The first is an allegation that Davis and Nelson raised $25,000 via a now-deleted GoFundme page to send a man named James with substance use disorder to a rehabilitation center, but pocketed some of the money. In a January 2023 YouTube video, Nelson called the allegations a “fictitious witch hunt.”