Lauren Whelan has finally addressed The GOAT House fallout.
Following in the footsteps of content creator houses in the US, including the Hype House and Sway House – ten Irish TikTok stars teamed up to form their own content creation hub back in 2020.
The members included Shauna Davitt, Andrea Camila, Lewis Kelly, Thomas Arnold, Jake Brown, Ryan Mar, Lauren, Leila Ecker, and Nia Gallagher.
Marty Guilfoyle was previously announced as a member of the house; however, he later left the group after receiving backlash on social media – as some people pointed out the age gap between the radio DJ and some of the younger members.
The 31-year-old later released a statement, which read: “Around two weeks ago, I was invited by someone my own age to join a collaborative TikTok project inspired by ones like it in the UK and America.”
“Whether you’re familiar with with TikTok or not, it’s responsible for the biggest shift in music distribution in the last decade, and it can make or break a career. You might only know me as a radio presenter, but my passion is my own music.”
“The project sounded like a bit of fun, but if it went well it could have a huge impact in my work. There’s still lots of room for innovation around TikTok, so even if it came to nothing at least I’d get to meet some like-minded people in that space,” he continued.
“When I signed on I had no idea who was going to be in the house with me, and I took a leap of faith. Fast forward three days and suddenly I’m the number one trending topic in the country, which absolutely wild to me – it’s a content collaboration project, and it’s not like there’s nothing else going on in the world,” Marty continued at the time.
“Maybe you think it’s stupid. Fine. Maybe you think I’m stupid. Fine. I can take a slagging as well as the next guy. But what’s really upset me are suggestions that signing on for a work project with a group of adults was somehow weird or even predatory,” Marty wrote.
“Like I said, I can take a slagging, but not everyone can, and especially not to this extent. At this stage, my concern is that it might start to affect other people involved, so I have left the house and no longer have any connection to the project.”
“I wish everyone there the best of luck, I hope they have an amazing time, and I can’t wait to see what comes out of the collaboration,” he added.
Robert Zujan later joined The GOAT House, filling the position Marty left.
During her appearance on the Hold My Drink podcast, Lauren addressed fallout of The Goat House, which disbanded in early 2021, for the first time.
The TikToker revealed that the nine social media stars were “kicked out” of the €2 million mansion that they started in, as a new series of RTÉ’s Kin began filming.
The 21-year-old said they moved to a new house which wasn’t fit for all nine of them, and resulted in her “sleeping in a pull out bed”, while “Shauna was sleeping on a couch”.
“We were only there for like three weeks and then we were like ‘We can’t do this’,'” Lauren admitted.
Lauren revealed that they were later moved to the ground floor of an abandoned hotel, which was located directly behind the original €2 million mansion.
Explaining how The GOAT House worked, the 21-year-old told podcast hosts Charleen Murphy and Ellie Kelly: “We lived in the house for free. What it was originally was you’d live in the house for free, then brands would sponsor the house and you’d do the ads for them – you’re not getting paid for it.”
“But what ended up happening was we didn’t do any ads while we were living in those houses at all.”
“Then the second we left, they were like ‘We need to do this, this, this and that’ while I was at home.”
Lauren continued: “I did [the ads] for free at home ’cause I kinda felt bad. It all just kinda fell apart.”
Revealing why The GOAT House disbanded, the TikToker admitted: “There was a lot of fighting.”
When asked whether all of the members got on, she said: “No, not even slightly. Me and Shauna and all, we got on grand.”
The 21-year-old continued: “But it was like, I’m not gonna speak for other people, but it ended ridiculously badly like people were threatening each other.”
“At the start it was bickering, we’d fight over stupid things like with your siblings ‘You didn’t pick up this’.”
“Then towards the end it was a bit more serious,” Lauren concluded.
