Steph Claire Smith has lashed out at online followers who post in influencer gossip threads about her to complain about the things she posts.
The fitness influencer, 31, who is currently pregnant with her second child, took to her Instagram Stories on Thursday to rant about her ‘rude’ fans.
She said she often has to ‘delete’ comments which complain about her sharing images of her son Harvey, three, with his face covered up.
‘It still baffles me people feel like they can have such an opinion and have a say on what you do and do not share on the internet,’ Steph began.
‘I’ve deleted some of these comments because they were just effing rude.
‘People saying I can’t post anything of Harvey now when I cover his face because I was showing his face a year ago. Why?’
Steph Claire Smith, 31, has lashed out at online followers who post in influencer gossip threads about her to complain about the things she posts
‘Why is it bothering you so much you have to make a comment? Why can parents not make this decision for themselves on their own platform?’ she added.
‘If you don’t like it, just unfollow me.’
Steph went on to say she discovered a thread on a gossip forum about her which discussed the mother-of-one’s choice to cover her son’s face online.
‘There has been a gossip thread about me and the way I share about Harvey,’ she said.
‘[It says] because I don’t show his face anymore, all they hear is me talking about rough nights with him.’
She continued: ‘But I posted something today [with Harvey] that made me smile so much… but because I covered his face apparently it’s pointless to post.
‘I am over people thinking creators have to curate their feed to suit [their followers]… That’s not how it works. Let me tell you. I’m so sick of it. I’m so over it.
‘I am going to post what brings me joy and what makes me feel good… that is how I’ve posted for the past 13 years.
The fitness influencer who is currently pregnant with her second child, took to her Instagram Stories on Thursday to rant about her ‘rude’ fans
‘Nothing has changed except my lifestyle and if you’re not into it, if you’re not into authenticity, if you’re not into motherhood s***, move on.
‘Just stop with the judgement about what people share on their own bloody platforms.’
It comes after Steph recently revealed the reason she no longer shows her son’s face on social media.
Fans have recently asked Steph why the previously open internet personality has begun hiding Harvey’s face in family photos shared to her public account.
Steph, who shares her son and current pregnancy with husband Josh Miller, previously documented several details of Harvey’s life online.
Her Instagram page still has two ‘highlight reels’ dedicated to her firstborn called ‘bump’ and ‘Harvey’ which contain hundreds of videos showing his face.
‘Just curious why have you just started hiding his face? I’m sure in your stories I used to watch his face wasn’t blanked out?’ one fan commented on a set of family photos.
‘Why do you keep covering his face when you have shown his face loads of times?’ another person asked.
She said she often has to ‘delete’ comments which complain about her sharing images of her son Harvey, three, with his face covered up
Taking to her Instagram Stories, Steph shared a screenshot of her response to the frequently asked question and hit back at the ‘judgemental tone’ of the questions.
‘This question comes up a lot. And quite often in a judgemental tone, not a curious one,’ she wrote.
The KIC app co-founder has one of the largest online followings in Australia, with an audience of 1.4million on Instagram and 136,000 on TikTok.
In her reply to the second commenter, Steph penned: ‘The older he’s gotten, the more he’s settled into what he’s going to look like as a kid.
‘He was getting recognised when he was out in public with other people like my mum, not even with me, and I was uncomfortable with that.’
In recent posts, the influencer has covered Harvey’s face with emojis, scratching it out, or only sharing photos in which her toddler is turning away from the camera.
