What Happened to the YouTuber Behind the 'Leave Britney Alone' Video? All About Cara Cunningham's Continued Career Online

Mar. 15, 2025

Cara Cunningham.Photo:Cara Cunningham/Instagram

Cara Cunningham/Instagram

Cara Cunninghamleft a lasting impression on the internet in 2007, when she postedan emotional vlog defending Britney Spears on YouTube, famously begging viewers to “leave Britney alone.”

In the video that made her an online icon, then-19-year-old Cunningham addressed invasive media coverage of Spears and sobbed through a list of hardships the singer had recently endured.

The original upload racked up millions of YouTube views before it was eventually deleted from YouTube. In 2021,Rolling Stonereported that the creator sold the video as a non-fungible token for about $44,000.

Though Cunningham doesn’t regularly post on YouTube anymore, closing her account in September 2015, she still creates content online today.

Here’s a look back at her early career beginnings and where she is today.

What is the ‘Leave Britney Alone’ video?

“Leave Britney Alone” is a 4-minute rant Cunningham posted on YouTube in 2007. In the video — which garnered millions of views — the content creator addresses media outlets, reporters and paparazzi and questions their intentions to attack or hurt the “Toxic” singer.

“All you people care about is readers and making money off of her. She’s a human!” Cunningham said of Spears. “What you don’t realize is that Britney is making you all this money and all you do is write a bunch of crap about her.”

As the video progresses, Cunningham becomes increasingly emotional as she questions what critics have said about Spears' professionalism.

“When is it professional to publicly bash someone who is going through a hard time?” she asked the camera through tears. “Leave Britney Spears alone right now! I mean it. Anyone that has a problem with her, you deal with me.”

Over a decade later, Cunningham reflected on the original post and its continued relevance today amid the"Free Britney"movement.

“I made this video as a gender-bending teenage high school dropout in my grandparent’s bedroom,” Cunningham, whocame out as transgenderin August 2021, toldBusiness Insiderthat same year. “I had no idea the impact its message would have, years later, maybe society is finally starting to get it.”

What happened after ‘Leave Britney Alone’ went viral?

As a result of becoming a widespread joke, Cunningham claimed that she was physically assaulted on “numerous occasions” after being recognized in public.

“There were situations where like, there were men trying to chase after me to beat me up and I got away. And there were other situations where I was literally just standing there and someone walks up and smacks me across the face,” she alleged to NPR.

After Cunningham sold her video as an NFT, she addressed the general rise in sympathy for Spears in a conversation withBusiness Insiderin 2021. Cunningham noted that while her 2007 video delivered that same message, she believes it was dismissed due to transphobic and homophobic biases.

“Because it was such a different time, no one could understand why I would make that and be sincere,” she said in 2021. “I was just defending her as a person, not a pop star and I just wanted her to be happy, that’s all.”

What happened to the creator of the ‘Leave Britney alone’ video?

Cara Cunningham is still a popular social media influencer today, with over 1.1 million followers betweenInstagramandTikTok. She regularly posts day-in-the-life, short-form vlog content and food reviews.

In 2021, Cunningham took to Instagram toannounce her transition after dealing with gender dysphoriafor years. She explained that she was beginning hormone replacement therapy.

“It’s been 33 years coming and I’m happy to be in a place where I can embrace who I am. I have put my identity and personal happiness aside for so long, out of fear and rejection or me not wanting to embarrass my family,” she wrote on social media. “Then I realized anyone who actually loves me for me, won’t be embarrassed and would’ve shown genuine interest in how long I have felt this way in the first place.”

Cunningham was previously engaged, but confirmed to PEOPLE in February 2025 that she called off her engagement “to focus on myself.”

“I realized that after the passing of my Mamaw who raised me in November of 2023, I haven’t had time to properly grieve, so I’m focusing less on relationships and more mine with myself and my emotional healing after losing her,” Cunningham told PEOPLE exclusively.

She revealed that she also filmed a reality series in 2024, which has yet to be released, but will “showcase a lot of what I’ve been dealing with in the past year.”

What has the creator said about the ‘Leave Britney Alone’ video since it was posted?

However, at the time, Cunningham said she was preoccupied with caring for her “Mamaw,” the person who raised the creator, being at the end of hospice.

“I am being tagged in hundreds of videos on Instagram and TikTok, and people want me to talk about things that are from a video I did when I was a teenager,” she explained. “At the end of the day … [Spears'] voice needs to be heard. I don’t need to speak for her and no one else should either.”

Cunningham also admitted that she “was not a perfect fan” of the artist. “I believed back then when the tabloids said she didn’t like my video, and so I got bitter and resentful,” she said of Spears. “Years later, when I grew up, I just got to this point where I was like, ‘You know, I was 19 years old. Okay?'”

“I meant every word in that video but it took years for me to realize that I was seeing myself through the eyes of others,” she added. “I just don’t want to always talk about that video from back then, and I know people are like trying to be nice and whatever, but it’s just a lot.”

source: people.com