Trisha Paytas

Born in Riverside, California, Trisha completed her graduation at the‘Pecatonica High School’ in Illinois, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. However, the road didn’t prove as smooth as she expected it to. Chances were few and far between and Trisha spent her initial years as an extra, with blink-and-you-miss-it roles that went unnoticed.

Struggling to find her feet in the industry, Trisha began working as a stripper to support herself, whilesigning up for minor modeling assignments and foreign commercials. That’s not to say that the initial phase was entirely devoid of bright spots.

In 2006, she made her television debut as a presenter in the much-hyped yet short-lived ‘Greg Behrendt Show’. In the following year, she contested in the second season of ‘Who wants to be a Superhero?’, a reality TV show hosted by the legendary comic book writer, Stan Lee.

A little further down the road, Trisha started v-logging proactively on YouTube. The initial V-logs consisted mostly of tributes to acclaimed filmmaker Quentin Tarantino – whom she idolized – and short, random sketches. But the added advantage of being an eye-candy with a sense of humor and a strong personality helped Trisha gain followers steadily. She was too smart to let the opportunity slide.

So, what is her YouTube channel primarily about? Well, it depends on the whims of the ever-so-volatile Trisha. From fashion and beauty tips to relationship advice; from intensely personal confessions to meltdowns; from incredibly silly bantering to naïve rants, Trisha’s channel has all the ingredients to whet the appetites of the audience.

2014 was the golden year in many respects for Trisha. Besides crossing the one-million followers mark on YouTube, she conceptualized, co-produced and starred (opposite Richard Grieco) in a 15-minute short film titled, ‘Viral Video’, which surpassed the million-views mark quite soon. But that was not the end of the story. The ever-so ambitious Trisha soon forayed into music – a bold move that paid off quite well.

Though she had appeared in a few music videos before, Trisha had never ventured into the music world as a vocal artist until 2015. However, the release of her debut EP, ‘Fat Chicks’, in 2015, was a game-changer. In the same year, she released two more Extended Plays – ‘Superficial Bitch’ and ‘Under the Covers’. Whereas ‘Under the Covers’ featured covers to hit songs across every genre, ‘Superficial Bitch’ was one of the first original songs recorded by Trisha.

Most of these songs had accompanying music videos starring Trisha, which ensured that they reached a wide audience and got featured on websites like ‘Cosmopolitan’ and ‘The Huffington Post.’

In 2016, Trisha her fourth EP, ‘Daddy Issues’, which reached No. 6 on the iTunes pop chart and made it to the Billboard Charts. This was a first in Trisha’s budding music career, and the No. 25 on the Billboard Charts for Up and Coming Musicians remains the high-point of her journey.

A flamboyant persona, coupled by the fact that she is constantly in the spotlight, has made Trisha susceptible to controversies. And unsurprisingly, she has embraced the scandals rather than shy away from them.

The worst of it remains her mid-2015 video supporting Donald Trump, which resulted in a huge backlash. Within days of her pro-Trump campaign, she lost close to 50,000 followers and was at the receiving end of a public outrage.

The more recent of these scandals is the ongoing war of words between Trisha and her (ex-)superfan, Daniel E Carroll. The feud started in early-2016, when Trisha v-logged about an online stalker who has been harassing her for years. According to Trisha, the autistic Daniel had been bestowing “unwanted attention” upon her for the past five years, and what she initially supposed to be a case of ‘super fan crush’ soon turned out to be obsessive online stalking. don't care what u did ...as long as u love me baby A video posted by trishapaytas (@trishapaytas) on Aug 15, 2016 at 12:25am PDT

Daniel, however, has a different story to tell. In rebuttal, he has posted two videos detailing his relationship with Trisha. While admitting to being a little carried away by his admiration for Trisha, Daniel reiterates that she was initially very much chummy with him and encouraged him to be her de facto defender against online trolls and haters.

The online stalker story, according to Daniel, is a construct of Trisha’s wild imagination, calculated to regain her waning popularity following the Trump fiasco and win a few followers at his expense. Whatever the truth of the matter is, things have turned pretty ugly between the two.