The next case we are going to discuss here is MESSY. It involves Texas influencer Brittany Dawn.
Brittany currently has 465k instagram followers and her bio says:
Her website is brittany-dawn.com and this is the bio from her website:
hey girl! I’m Brittany Dawn. a Jesus loving, workout chasing, coffee drinking gal from Texas. for those of you who know of me through the fitness realm, allow me to reintroduce myself — as fitness is merely a sliver of my life in its entirety. outside of the social media world, I am a wife, a daughter, and a God-fearing soul protected with a shell. I am a Kingdom-chaser, a passionate believer, and madly in love with Jesus. above all else, I am a daughter of the Most High King. nevertheless: I am sometimes organized on Monday’s, and always carrying a dose of awkward with me. I laugh so hard that I get smile lines, and somedays, cry enough tears to the point my eyelash extensions fall off. but guess what? that’s what makes me, me. I know all things are made beautiful in God’s image, including the imperfect, messy, rough around versions of myself. I stumble, make mistakes, and learn hard lessons… always choosing to relentlessly pursue Christ in the midst of the chaos. I’ve seen the highest highs and the lowest lows, weathering seasons of chaos, heartbreak, and utter devastation. from the bright, sunny days… to the darkest of nights, I am here to simply say this: you are never alone and you have not been forsaken (Hebrews 13:5). no matter what season you’re in, and no matter the battle you face: God is, even still, orchestrating something beautiful in your life. let His refining fire, chisel you. welcome to imperfect, most days messy, slapped together with lash extensions and foundation… but oh-so beautiful life.
She also has a fitness website – bdawnfit.com.
As a bit of background into Brittany, she is around 30 years old, from Texas obviously and has been married twice. She married her first husband Zach Griesen in Celina, TX in April 2016.
Their divorce seems like it was messy – Zach posted this in July 2021 on his twitter:
She married her second husband Jordan Nelson in September 2021. Her instagram wedding post is basically just tags of everyone who I am assuming gave her free stuff.
Jordan is a former Kansas City Police Officer.
There is a lawsuit that I believe is still ongoing in regards to Jordan. The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri is suing him for excessive use of force against Joshua Bills in 2013.
This info is from an article by kcur.com:
A dash cam video shows Bills immediately stopped walking and extended his empty hands outward. As five officers approached him, he turned around slowly and stood still. Within seconds, Nelson pulled him by his hand and kicked his legs out from under him, causing Bills’ face to slam into the concrete.
ACLU Legal Director Tony Rothert told KCUR this “takedown” caused physical injuries to Bills’ face, including a busted lip and loose teeth, and a momentary loss of consciousness.
“As you can see from the dash cam, Mr. Bills was posing no threat whatsoever to any officer,” Rothert said.
Rothert said they’re suing Nelson, as an individual, and not the department as a whole because Nelson appeared to be “out-of-control” officer acting outside of the KCPD’s policies.
The lawsuit seems like it was started in 2018 and as far as I can tell, as of February 2022, it is still ongoing.
This video is a clip of Brittany and Jordan from just a few days ago
Anyway, back to Brittany. Things started to turn against her in October 2021, not longer after her wedding.
She announced in a YouTube video to her over 250k subscribers, that her husband had shot their dog dead.
Brittany said that she let her dog Brodie out of their fenced yard as he liked to go ‘adventuring’. He was consequently struck and seriously injured by a car.
“I wish I could unsee what I saw. He got hit so hard. There was no saving him.”
They decided to not take the dog to the vet, even though he was still breathing. Her husband took the dog inside the garage and shot the animal.
Brittany said –
“I knew what was about to happen… all I heard was his truck rev its engine so loud,” she said. “That’s when the gunshot went off and poor Jordan had to do that for Brodie so that he wouldn’t suffer. There was no saving him, it was so bad.”
There was a LOT of backlash about this decision.
So why is Brittany actually an influencer? For years, she called herself a fitness influencer. She apparently became well known after competing in “bikini competitions”, bodybuilding events where the contestants stay in swimsuits. She launched her business, bdawnfit.com, in March 2014 claiming it promoted a holistic approach to health, including “flexible dieting, effective training, balanced living, and community support”. Brittany had been under fire before for using tags like #skipdinner and #skipdinnerwakeupthinner.
Brittany promoted personalised nutrition and coaching plans to her instagram followers.
Brittany’s personalised plans were priced between $92 to $300 dollars, and each purchaser was told they would get personal advice from Brittany. I have seen some screenshots where people paid over $500 dollars to Brittany.
Someone posted one of Brittany’s personalised meal plans on Pinterest:
Breakfast on this plan is some variety of “1 scoop isolate protein, 1/2 cup of oats, and 1 whole egg.” Lunch and dinner is a protein like chicken or fish and “green veggies”
As Brittany’s followership was so large, I think that some of them began chatting amongst themselves and realised that their ‘personal’ plans were actually not so personal. And they got mad.
The Guardian has a great article on Brittany and this info is from that article:
Cori Reali, one of Davis’s clients in Wisconsin, who suffered from an eating disorder, told Dallas’s WFAA that she paid $115 for one of Davis’s customized plans but said she never received specific guidance. “The red flags started to go up. I was not individualized. I was not part of this ‘Team Brittany Dawn’. It set me back. It actually pushed me back into my eating disorder.”
Once her former followers started to voice their concerns publicly, Brittany made a YouTube video to apologize (this has now been deleted). She said:
“I apologize to anyone who feels like they got scammed from me … I now realize that I should have had more help and that this is a lesson that I am having to learn the hard way, and for that, I am sorry.”
She also said that her intentions “from the start were pure” as she hoped to positively “impact as many women as possible,” the fitness and beauty influencer sniffled as she read her apology statement promising to “put this all to rest.”
Brittany also spoke about apparently receiving death threats:
“thank you for listening to my statement — I am so sorry. unfortunately with being human, comes learning from making mistakes. this is my heartfelt apology, to move forward and make things right. and I please ask that the death threats end, and for my family/friends to be left alone from here on out.”
Brittany clearly wasn’t that sorry because she refused to offer refunds to many disgruntled customers. She said she would give partial-to-full refunds to some customers, but first asked them to sign non-disclosure agreements.
Once Brittany began to realize that people had cottoned onto her fitness scams, in November 2019 she posted this youtube video, announcing that she was moving away from the fitness side of influencing and that she would be focusing on christianity and lifestyle.
This is the caption for the video:
this starts the beginning of a new pivot, a new chapter, a new direction. I hope that this message speaks to you in some way, shape, or form today, sister.
Following her move to refocus on Christianity, Brittany now hosts Christian retreats in different cities across Texas and charges $125 for admission. These retreats promise a “gospel centered day with other God-fearing women”, according to her website. Her website says the event will see attendees “sharing our hearts on preparing for difficult seasons, staying faithful on your walk with the Lord, and how our seasons of difficulty often lead to our Kingdom calling”.
As of the time of recording, Brittany’s next event is scheduled for April 2022, in Fort Worth.
It seems like Brit Brit thought she may have gotten away with her scam, until February 2022.
The State of Texas announced that they were suing Brittany. Texas attorney general Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit against Davis and her company, Brittany Dawn Fitness LLC, in the Dallas County Court on Feb. 1. She has been accused of misleading customers who had eating disorders.
The attorney general alleges that the plans were not personalized as promised, and claims Brittany and her company “largely ignored consumer complaints,” including from one “who almost passed out from inadequate nutrition.”
The Texas attorney general alleges that Brittany and her business “engaged in false, misleading, and/or deceptive acts or practices,” violating the Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA). It is seeking between $250,000 and $1 million for civil penalties, attorneys’ fees, and costs.
Customers have also filed consumer protection complaints with the Texas attorney general’s office, according to the Dallas Morning News. The complaints are about transactions from between 2014 and 2017, and at least one mentions that a class action lawsuit is in the works, according to the Dallas Morning News.
After the lawsuit was filed, Brittany addressed her followers on instagram: “Do you ever just start laughing at Satan’s tactics? They are so petty and so obvious to us that are in the kingdom of God that you can literally just start audibly laughing.”
Since the lawsuit was filed, Brittany has lost several sponsors on Instagram and YouTube. She was dropped by nutrition company Tropeaka and clothing brand TimelessLabel. Mattress brand Helix said it asked her to stop using affiliate links in her social media accounts.
Brittany has also recently come under fire for making a post urging people to ‘pray for Christians’ in the Ukraine.
This blog will be updated with information about the upcoming lawsuit against Brittany, as info becomes available.