Overview

#SaveLiaMarieJohnson is a hashtag used by concerned fans of YouTuber and singer Lia Marie Johnson which began trending in May 2019 due to the 23 year-olds behavior during her Instagram livestreams. Many Twitter users assumed she was suffering from drug use or mental health issues due to her slurred speech and erratic behavior. In January 2020, fans expressed their concern again after Johnson went live on Instagram while her much older producer Steven Wetherbee was shown groping and kissing her without the 67 year-old producer's knowledge. She also exhibited the same behavior as in previous livestreams.

Background

On May 8th, 2019, following a long absence from YouTube, Lia Marie Johnson took to Instagram live for about an hour using slurred speech and speaking incomprehensibly.^[2] During the livestream she responded to several comments and mentioned that she was not on drugs. The live stream was re-posted to Youtube by YouTube Xplict91 that same day (shown below). The videos gained over 100,000 views each in eight months.

On May 9th, Twitter user @mmmelani3^[1] was the first Twitter user to use the hashtag #saveliamariejohnson when reference her streams (shown below)

Development

On January 2nd, 2019, early in the morning, Lia Marie Johnson started another Instagram live in which she hinted that she was drinking. During the stream, viewers could see her producer Steven Wetherbee in the background and hear his distinctive voice. Wetherbee could be seen kissing and groping Johnson. The full stream was re-posted to YouTube that day by YouTuber Julia Sanchez and garnered over 100,300 views that day (shown below).

That day, Twitter user @BCB_G posted a clip from the stream with the caption, "UH CAN WE SAVE LIA MARIE JOHNSON,??" (shown below). The video received over 9,600 likes and 1,900 retweets that day.

Later that day, Johnson revealed in another stream that the police came and detained her.^[3] Twitter user @radioheadsng reposted the clip (show below).

On January 2nd, Keemstar^[4] tweeted, "An anonymous source reached out to me from LA who was close to Lia Marie Johnson & said the poor girl was diagnosed schizophrenia. Claims when the girl mixes her meds with alcohol you get what we all seen. Sorce was in tears heartbroken over this. #DramaAlert #saveliamariejohnson" (shown below, left). The tweet gained over 4,500 likes in a day. Twitter user @CelebteaMemes,^[5] continued to release information on Steven Wetherbee in a thread (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References