‘Very Demure’ Earned Her More Money Than She Had ‘Ever Seen.’ Then Everything Came Crashing Down (Exclusive)
‘Very Demure’ Earned Her More Money Than She Had ‘Ever Seen.’ Then Everything Came Crashing Down (Exclusive)
Luke ChinmanThu, May 7, 2026 at 8:00 PM UTC
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Jools Lebron
Credit: Rob Kim/Getty
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Jools Lebron went viral in 2024 after she coined the phrase “very demure” in a video on TikTok
Behind the scenes, however, Lebron was struggling with a severe drug addiction, fueled by the money from her viral fame
In an interview with PEOPLE, Lebron opens up about the fallout and her journey to getting sober
From the outside, it appeared that Jools Lebron was on top of the world in 2024.
The TikTok star seemingly blew up overnight. She uploaded a video while sitting in her car, jokingly saying she did her makeup in a manner that could be described as “very demure” and “very mindful.” Less than a month and tens of millions of likes later, the viral catchphrase propelled her to A-list status online, business meetings with some of the world's biggest makeup brands and an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Demure was even named by Dictionary.com as the word of the year.
“It was the most money I had ever seen,” Lebron, 32, tells PEOPLE in an interview.
Behind the scenes, however, things looked a bit different. The thousands she was raking in from appearances and brand deals were financing a severe drug addiction. She would regularly go on multi-day “boy benders,” hanging out with a stranger she met online for upwards of 100 hours straight, forgoing her responsibilities.
But in March, nearing two years since she uploaded her fateful viral video, she got sober. In April, she sat down with PEOPLE to unpack it all.
Decades before her catchphrase would take over the internet, Lebron grew up on the west side of Chicago. Her family was full of boys — she was the middle child of two brothers, and she had mostly male cousins.
“I wasn't allowed to really express myself the way I wanted to,” says Lebron. “As I got older, that started to get harder and harder.”
Jools Lebron
Credit: Jools Lebron/Instagram
A few years out of high school, Lebron came out as transgender. Her friends distanced themselves from her, and looking for connection, she turned to YouTube. At the time, she was living with her mom in a tiny apartment, working days at Dunkin' Donuts and nights at Olive Garden, posting video reviews of Monster High Dolls to the platform in her spare time. Even after she transitioned to makeup content in the late 2010s, she still wasn't gaining much traction.
“In my mind, I was going to be an influencer diva immediately,” she laughs. “It didn't pan out that way.”
With the rise of TikTok in 2019, she made the switch from YouTube and finally started to get attention: Her follower count grew to around a million, makeup brands started reaching out for collaborations, and she was even able to quit her day job to start influencing full-time. But that first round of fame, she says, was also her “first downfall.”
“I started getting really addicted to partying and going out,” she says. Lebron got into a spat with another major makeup influencer, whose followers reported her videos en masse, causing her TikTok account to become demonetized, and she was dropped by her agency.
“All at once, I lost my house, lost my income, lost everything,” she says. “It was f---ing traumatizing."
Strapped for cash, Lebron moved back in with her mom and got a job at a grocery store. And one day, she was working the cash register with a girl in high school, who recognized her from her TikTok fame.
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“She's like, ‘You're like a huge makeup TikToker. What are you doing working here then?' ” she remembers. Lebron had to excuse herself for a few minutes to sob in her car over the comment. But while she was in her car, talking to herself and mourning the life she had lost, the “very demure” phrase popped into her head. Lebron whipped out her phone, recorded the clip, posted it, and then went back to work, completely forgetting about it.
A couple of days passed, and she hadn't given the clip much thought. She continued posting while on her family vacation to Las Vegas, but something strange was happening: Strangers kept approaching her on the street, repeating to her the “very demure” phrase with her exact cadence, and she could not understand why.
Jools Lebron
Credit: Jools Lebron/Instagram
“It gets to the point where I'm like, ‘Let me scroll down to that video to see,' ” she says. “I was like, ‘What the fuck is happening?' ”
The video had over 30 million views.
The next two months were a whirlwind of events and shoulder brushes with some of Hollywood's biggest stars. Lebron was getting recognized every time she stepped outside. But the new influx of money and fame also meant that she was slipping back into her drug addiction — this time without the financial barrier that had helped her quit in the past.
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Over the next two years, as the virality of the meme died down, brand deals started drying up, too. She felt undervalued, but caught in cycles of drug-fueled benders, she didn't feel like there was much she could do about it.
“A lot of this job is out of my control,” she admits. But her sobriety, she finally realized, was the one thing she could control.
Jools Lebron
Credit: Jools Lebron/Instagram
One day earlier this year, Lebron says she woke up from a “four-day bender” and had a realization: “I just remember being like, ‘This isn't fun.' This went from me being with my friends in LA, partying, having a good time, to ‘I'm in my house alone and I'm isolating myself and I hate my life and I don't wanna be here anymore.' ” It was time to get sober.
The last few months have been difficult, Lebron admits. But she already feels that her relationships with her friends and family are stronger, and she feels healthier in her own body.
Now sober, she also has new professional developments in the works too: Lebron has launched a new podcast, named Going Viral, on Patreon, and she has new brand deals coming.
“I'm just nurturing Jools as a person because she has a lot of passions,” she tells PEOPLE. “That's what I'm focusing on right now.”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
