How did the anti-LuLaRoe movement start? Much of the pushback began with women sharing their stories online after receiving defective products.
How did the anti-LuLaRoe movement start? Much of the pushback began with women sharing their stories online after receiving defective products. And after the company changed their bonus structure, there was a mass exodus of retailers. Many organized largely via Facebook groups and blogs, including the “LuLaRoe Defective” Facebook group, which at one point had over 75,000 members. Former LuLaRoe consultant and anti-MLM advocate Roberta Blevins describes how the group galvanized women to take a stand, and ultimately take down LuLaRoe.
Want more of the LuLaRoe story? Stream "The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe" documentary on discovery plus. Go to discoveryplus.com/lularoe to start your 7-day free trial today. Terms Apply.
Find episode transcript here: https://the-rise-and-fall-of-lularoe.simplecast.com/episodes/ep4-building-the-anti-lularoe-movement
Episode 4: Building the Anti-LuLaRoe Movement
THEME IN
Intro
Stephanie: Hi everyone! This is The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe. I’m your host, Stephanie McNeal - I’m a senior culture reporter at Buzzfeed News. And in this podcast we are diving deep into the world of LulaRoe - we speak with retailers who were impacted by these schemes. We also talk to experts who can shed light on how these MLMs work...including the red flags you should keep an eye out for.
This week, I’m talking to former LulaRoe consultant Roberta Blevins about building the movement against LulaRoe. Roberta was a successful seller before she chose to leave LulaRoe. She’s now an anti-MLM advocate, and hosts her own podcast, Life After MLM, that explores many of the same issues we’re talking about today.
Let’s get into it.
THEME OUT
Stephanie [00:00:00]Roberta, I am so excited to have you on this podcast because, you know so much about this world of LuLaRoe and you're truly one of the experts. //
Roberta [00:00:22]Yeah, of course.
Stephanie [00:01:01] //I can't remember exactly the first time we talked, but it was at some point when I was reporting my articles for BuzzFeed News when I first started hearing about LuLaRoe around 2017 2018. And I feel like from the very beginning you were one of the people who was so helpful to journalists like myself in getting this story out to the bigger world.
Roberta [00:01:45] // I didn't want anybody to fall prey to this, and I figured the best way was education and talking to reporters who were actually willing to listen was a huge part of that, so I thank you for even being willing to listen to us at all.
Stephanie [00:03:37]// let's take it back to the very beginning for those who might be listening, who don't know anything about your story? Tell me where you were at when you first heard of LuLaRoe and when you first said, Hey, maybe I'll buy some of these clothes, or maybe if I want to get involved myself //
Roberta [00:04:08]Yeah. So I was a young mom. My daughter was probably two or three years old when MLM came into my life, and LuLaRoe wasn't the first. It Works was actually the first, cringe. Sorry, but that came in. And so I was familiar with multi-level marketing as somebody that was selling it. I didn't like the way that it works was. It felt very pyramid schemey. It felt very scammy. // So when LulaRoe came around and it looked different, and that's important to note when it looked different. I fell prey to it. // I could sell leggings in my living room. I could be home with my daughter. I could make a substantial income because it was a 50 percent commission, which is most MLM’s you're going to find like 15 to 20 percent. And then that's and then you have to rank up and build a team. If you want higher percentages and LulaRoe right off the bat was around 50, and I was like, That's really good. //
Stephanie [00:06:17]// What were some other things that made a LuLaRoe seem like such a more legitimate business opportunity than say an It Works or one of these other companies that were always being pitched on Facebook?
Roberta [00:06:36]Right, OK, so one of the things that was so unique to LuLaRoe was that they had different prints. And in the beginning, the prints, I mean, there was always weird prints, let's be honest. But in the beginning, the prints were better than they were at the end. And so like this whole unique like there's only a certain amount of prints, there's only 2500. You're only going to, you know, if you see it, you got to grab it. There's like that sense of FOMO, that sense of urgency, which in sales is good, you know? I mean, it's predatory, but it's a sales tactic. // with LulaRoe I felt like I could create outfits. I could pair things together and make. Sometimes we did like mystery boxes or we would do like raffle. It just fun things, and I felt like I had a lot more control than in a different MLM. //
Stephanie [00:09:50] //So let everyone know how successful you became at LuLaRoe because you were very successful for a while, correct?
Roberta [00:14:17]Yeah, I have a personality that I think certain kinds of people gravitate toward. I'm cheery and I make jokes and I'm real and I'm authentic, and I think people just liked following me and watching me go live. And it was easy. It was really easy. The entire community was all online, and it wasn't even until probably 2017 that people started coming up to me and saying, Oh, are those LulaRoe? And I'm like, Yeah, they're like I sell em, here's my card. And I was like, Me too, like. But even that community, like, was growing. // everything, just it was just growing exponentially. I couldn't I couldn't keep up with it. //And it literally became my entire life.
Stephanie [00:15:28] // So you were a LuLaRoe trainer for those who are not familiar with the LuLaRoe tiers, how many people did you have under you? How big of a deal was that in the LuLaRoe world, how many leggings were you selling? Give us a number.
Roberta [00:16:10] // my success happened pretty quick because like I said, like, I was personable and people just wanted to follow and the community followed. That's sort of how I've always been like, I'll just create a fun environment people will want to join. And that's exactly what happened. I never actually had to recruit people. They came to me. They were like, I want to be a part of this, and I saw that you're selling and I think you're great and I want to be on your team. // But yeah, I hit trainer within three months, which is really fast // in the beginning, you'd get a box of like, you know, 60 leggings or something. I could sell 90 percent of the box within the first 24 hours or so //
Stephanie [00:29:24]OK, so you were in there, You were LuLaRoe Trainer. You were die hard. What was your lightbulb moment? What was the moment that you realized, Oh my god, things are not right with LuLaRoe?
Roberta [00:29:40] // it was it two things One that was LuLa related and one that wasn't, but it was inadvertently the first one was I realized I had been gaslit. I realized and I knew that they were lying to me because I actually had the proof in my hand //this was the returns. When people were doing the 100 percent buyback and LuLaRoe was like, We're not going to send you returns. I'm literally holding things that I had actually sold a year prior that had they had notations on the tag, had inventory stickers on them, and it was proof to me, I'm like, You're doing this, what else are you lying about? //I decided in that week I need to rest. // And Leah Remini had a new aftermath episode. Leah and Mike had a new Aftermath episode. It was on my DVR // And it was a survivor episode, but i was wholly not prepared for it.
Stephanie: and just for our listeners Aftermath is the netflix show about Scientology, right?
Roberta: Yeah //I'm sitting there on the couch and I'm just crying in a way that I can't control, like it's just coming out of me. It's like, Here we go. It's time and it's just pouring out of me and my emotions, and I'm shaking. And it's very visceral. And I was just like, I don't know what's happening. And I'm watching this and there's people that are like, Oh yes, you know, I am a survivor of Scientology. And when I was in Scientology, this happened to me and I was like, Oh my God, that happened to me in LulaRoe, too. And then someone else would say something, and I'm like, That happened to my friend, // And all of a sudden I was like. My eyes got so big, I just said, Oh my God, I'm in a cult. And it was just that light bulb moment. //
Stephanie [00:36:22]// it' s interesting because I think a lot of people don't really understand if you just say LulaRoe felt like a cult. But when you really break down the different things, it's really, you know, especially one thing leading to one thing that sounds so much like when people leave religions. // So after that moment, it sounds like things really shifted for you. Is that when you joined the LulaRoe Defective Facebook group? and what were those first days like?
Roberta [00:38:08]Hmm. So I joined the group because I wanted to get answers // and //I spent the first week just sort of like watching and crying and like this catharsis of, Oh my god, what? What is this? After that, I started to get kind of brave and I was like, You know what? I was a leader. I was I was almost a coach, so I was pretty high up, sort of like right in the middle. And so I had a unique vantage point and was friends with certain people and and had heard things off the record and had been privy to things. And so I knew all of these, you know, dark secrets, and I would read these comments and people would say something, and I knew the answer. And so I would respond, and I would say I could answer that. I know why that happened and I would respond. And for me, it was like I knew I had been part of something really bad and I knew that I had been deep and I had gotten people involved. And I think at the beginning, just because for me, it's also like I'm very much like karmic balance. And so I was like, OK. At the height of my team, there were 75 women, not all I recruited. They were recruited by others and underneath like they were not all underneath me, but the total team tree, which is what LuLaRoe calls it was 75 women. And so I thought to myself, OK, you just have to get 75 women out, and then your karma is clean // And, you know, I started working on helping getting those 75 women out. And here we are four plus years later.[1]
Stephanie [00:43:43]It's just an amazing story and one thing that I've been really struck by by the group from the beginning is. How honest people are about such difficult times in their lives and how the catharsis that everyone's clearly getting from sharing their LulaRoe experiences in a group of people who are unwaveringly supportive. Are there any posts that you remember being really struck by when you first joined the group or first started helping people?
Roberta [00:44:15]I don't think posts specifically. It was more like comments. It was just more like I was. I could feel the comments like I could feel the pain. And I was like, Yeah, no I relate to that. I feel that pain, too. I went through that, too. //]That's the thing like for us when we left LuLaRoe, when I left LuLaRoe, I had so many questions I only knew like two percent, maybe five, but when I shared my five percent of knowledge. Someone else that had three more percent to my story went, Wait a second, I can actually fill that gap. I know why that happened. Wait, what? OK, here's the thing I don't think LuLaRoe ever thought that there would be over 50000 of their victims in the same group, comparing and contrasting their victimization and stories with each other. //
Stephanie [00:47:24]there's power in numbers, I think // with this kind of stuff.
Roberta [00:47:29]Absolutely. This podcast, this interview wouldn't even be happening if it wasn't for all this. There wouldn't have been a rise and fall. // There wouldn't have been a BuzzFeed series. None of it.
Stephanie [00:47:39]No, absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Roberta [00:47:43]You know there's so much strength in numbers.
Stephanie [00:47:44] // I know that // there was a lot of tension about LuLaRoe's executives knowing about the group, about current LuLaRoe retailers knowing about the group. I remember the group got deleted a few times and then I was like, Oh no, I lost it and I had to go find it because you guys were worried about lawsuits or threats. Can you explain a little bit what this tension was at the time?
Roberta [00:48:22]Yeah. So I actually talk about this a lot in my advocacy. It's called fair gaming. That's a Scientology term, and it's basically fair. A fair game policy in Scientology for those who don't know is a policy that says any detractor of the church or group, we're talking about LuLaRoe here, too. So any detractor of the high demand group, if they speak out against that high demand group in a negative way. //that that group has basically the utmost authority and power to go after that person in any manner to silence their criticism. And it's fair game. //I've been fair gamed multiple times. The group was fair gamed. And basically what it is is the people in LuLaRoe. They don't like us telling the truth. //They like to silence the truth because it hurts their bottom line. If I'm out there letting everybody know that MLMs are insidious, cultish scams that will take ninety nine point seven percent of everybody's money and they'll lose. No one's going to want to join. //
Stephanie [00:56:28] // So can you explain what it was like to actually pull the trigger and leave LulaRoe?//
Roberta [00:56:41]I'd probably been in Defective for like a week and a half, maybe. And I had these two friends and they're like, Let's go get pedicures. And I was like, OK. So we went, got pedicures and I had talked my upline and I said, Look, I think I texted her and I was like, I'm not feeling it. I'm not sure. // It's not really working for my family anymore. I was experiencing a lot of anxiety and a lot of depression, a lot of mental anguish, lots of pressure. // And she's like, Can you talk? and I was like, I can't even enjoy a fucking pedicure without this stupid cult trying to control me. So I finished my pedicure. I was like, I'll call you when I'm done and I go outside and my friends were still inside, getting their their toes finished and I had like a 45 minute conversation with this woman, like sat there in tears, like sitting outside the pedicure place in the grocery shopping center, where the Albertson's is // being like, I don't want to do this anymore. This is affecting me. It's really hard on me, like crying, like pouring my heart out to this woman. And she goes but You're going to miss so much stuff and like, you're so great and your team is growing like you're so close to being a coach, which was not true because so many people were dropping out that I was nowhere near coach. Like, I was almost like having to restart completely over. //And she was like, But you're so close and I'm thinking, No, I'm not so like, but you're going to miss all this great stuff. And I'm thinking, No, I'm not like, Have you seen the shit they're putting out? There's holes in everything, like, there's so many defects. I have to check every piece because I don't know if there's going to be a hole or a stain or a sun bleached spot on it. Like, No, I don't want to do this anymore. It's not full time pay for part time work. It's part time pay for full time work even more than full time. And I'm done. I didn't want to do it. She's like, Please, like, think about all of this. //And I was like, OK, fine, Jan., I'll stay till January. And I got home. I had the conversation with my now ex, which is not related to LuLaRoe at all. And we had the conversation and he was like, So you didn't quit. and I was like, I tried and he was like, You either quit or you don't. You know, like, whatever you want to do, it's affecting you. Like, you need to make the decision. This is your decision. And I sat there. //And I type something up like, this doesn't work for me, and I'm so sorry, but I'm ending my LuLa business and like, will still be here going out of business and I'll, you know, transfer you to other pages if you still want to shop. But basically, like, I'm ending this, it's just too much. // I saw the forest for the trees. I was like, This has not gotten better ever. It's only gotten worse. It's only gotten cultier. It's only gotten nastier. And I don't want to do this anymore. //
AD BREAK HERE
Insert Audio Cue
Stephanie [01:03:50]I want to go back to the moment where you posted on your group that you were leaving. Do you have any memories of what it felt like to just cut that cord?
Roberta [01:04:03]Yeah. It was probably the most freeing moment of my entire life is that weird to say //
Stephanie [01:05:33] //What do you what do you feel like in that moment you felt so free from the control or what?
Roberta [01:05:41]Yeah. Literally, the control, like there was nothing I can do without everybody knowing about it almost instantly. Like even posting that I'm leaving like spies. Always. Did you see what Roberta is doing? Screenshot, screenshot, screenshot Look what Roberta said. Look at what the what does this mean? What do you think she means by this? Like, I even remember this before I left I I was feeling this way and I wanted to talk to my team heart to heart, to just be like anyone else feeling this way. Let's talk about it. And so I made a post when I was at work, or I don't even know I wasn't at work because I wasn't working then, so I don't know where I was. I'd made a post somewhere and I said, We're going to go live tonight. I have a couple of things on my mind. I want to talk to you guys about, you know, we'll go live around this time or whatever. My up line immediately messaged me, she goes, What what are you going to talk about? What does that mean? I said what do you mean? What does it mean? She's like, What does your post mean? I said, it means I'm going to go live and talk to my team tonight. She goes, Yeah, but about what? I said about the things that are on my mind, and she's like, well, what's on your mind? I feel like you and I should talk about this before you go live because I don't know if that you should be talking about this live like you. And I should talk about this first. And I'm thinking, I need to run my thoughts by you. I need to run my thoughts by you. Before I talk to my team about how I'm feeling about my business, I need to run it by you. I need you to give me the thumbs up and the green light. No, absolutely not. And I think what I did at that moment, because that was probably one of the first like feelings of like triggering like what? I think. I canceled the chat and I was like, I'm just not going to do it then //
Stephanie [01:08:30]It's so insidious.
Roberta [01:08:32]Yeah, and it's love bombing right from the beginning. You get love bombed and you feel so wonderful. Just like a toxic relationship. Like, Oh my god, you love me, I've only known you for two days. This must be true love if you love me already, oh, you're going to buy me a thing. They bought me Teeks. Those are like $100 ballet flats. They bought me a pair of teeks. They took me shopping to buy a stupid hun hat. I want to buy you your first hat. It's a felt hat with a chain on it. Like we went to a hat store and she bought me a hat. Like, These are all things where I feel I'm included. I get to go hat shopping. I have the matching shoes. It's all cult tactics. //And so like, even when you feel like you have legitimate concerns that you want to talk about, you also have this feeling like, who can I trust? Like, who's not going to be so overly platitudinous that I can actually give them genuine concerns and have them give me genuine concerns back. And it was really hard. I felt like I couldn't talk to anybody because I didn't know who I could trust. And that sucked, too.
Stephanie [01:10:22]And I feel like that's that's why defective was so great for you guys was because you finally had that outlet.
Roberta [01:10:29]Absolutely. Absolutely. //
Stephanie [01:11:38]That's why your advocacy is so important, because people need to understand all of the layers that go into this, going back to the defective group now, like you said, it's been four and a half years. We've all been in the defective group for a really long time and we've seen so many things happen. There have been multiple lawsuits. There was the lawsuit by the attorney general of Washington state. there have been multiple documentaries, podcasts, everything. What impact do you think that that the defective group had on not just the media coverage, but on the legal ramifications against the company since you guys started?
Roberta [01:12:25]That group is amazing. That group saved my life. Those women in there, that admin team are some of the truest friends I've ever had. We have been through so many ups and downs, and I know that they always have my back and I always have theirs. //I don't know where I would have been without that group. it was the place I went every day, the first place I went to check what's going on, what is everybody talking about? What's the news? It was right when I was, you know, when I was in the thick of it, when I was what I was focused on. LuLaRoe specifically, I was in there and very, very active in exposing as much LuLaRoe as I could to get the proper eyes on it, right? Eyes like yours // eyes like the attorney general of Washington, Bob Ferguson. And we created something that couldn't be stopped. There are so many people in that group joining every single day talking about things, adding new puzzle pieces to this massive puzzle that I don't even think we have the entire picture of yet it's close to being finished, but there's still people trickling in, going, Wait a second that corner piece. Yup, I've got it. //
Stephanie: So how exactly did the attorney general get involved? Did you speak with him?
Roberta [01:15:12] // I was a lot more heavily working in that group. And and that's when the attorney general reached out to me, actually, their investigative team reached out. I want to say it was in 2018, and they said, Hey, your names come up a couple of times in people that we should definitely talk to. Would you be willing to talk to us? And I said, Abso fucking lutely. This sounds amazing. And I was able to work with the Washington Attorney General's Office for three years on the back end, helping their investigator, who is absolutely lovely //And it was my honor to work with Bob and his team on that lawsuit. It was my honor to be deposed for 12 hours on a Thursday and to talk to LulaRoe and to talk to Washington and to share my story, which. Is so integrated in everyone else's story, and to be able to be a little bit of a voice that made the change and I was fully prepared to take the stand, I was supposed to take the stand via Zoom, thanks COVID. I didn't get to go to Washington, but I was supposed to take the stand via Zoom. I think February 16th of 2021 and I got a phone call like February 3rd or something. And it was the night before the press release came out and it was Joe, the lawyer // and he goes, Hey, I have some good news. And I was like, OK, and I went outside I’m like, What's going on? And he goes // We settled for four point five million and I broke down into tears. I was so ready to take that stand. But there was also that release of I don't have to do that again.
Stephanie [01:17:48]What a full circle moment for you. // I feel like. Your story is so inspirational because you really were able to take something that was really hard and traumatizing in your life and turn it into this amazing new career and advocacy, and you're not the only person who has really taken on this mantle of anti-MLM advocacy. I feel like around the same time I started reporting on LuLaRoe, there really started to be this backlash against MLMs on the internet. There's the sounds like MLM, but OK on Reddit and Facebook. What was it like being a part of that movement, and why do you think that finally people started standing up, especially on the internet and being like, MLMs are bad, not just LulaRoe, but all of these MLMs?
Roberta [01:19:22]Right? So this is an excellent question. //And I think what happened was there was enough brave people who were willing to stand up and say, This is a thing. You're not alone. We're going to dismantle this. And you're welcome to come with us if you want. You're welcome to to ride the bus and just watch. You're welcome to help drive the bus if you want. If you have experience in this MLM, we'd love to hear it if you have experience in this. We'd love to hear it. And the community just started to grow. And what happened was, and I know people laugh about safe spaces all the time, but we created a safe space where you could talk about your cult without the backlash of the cult. Because even if there was backlash, there was an entire group that would throw down for you and be like, What block that person? You're not going to victim. Shame this person. They're a victim. And again, it gets volatile. But. For those that need it, it was incredibly cathartic //
Stephanie [01:22:24]Absolutely, //Before I let you go, I would. I feel like you again have such an interesting story, and you've built this whole new career as an anti MLM advocate. So I'd love to hear about what you're doing now and how you are continuing to fight against these sort of companies.
Roberta [01:23:14]Yeah. // I started realizing that the things that made me really feel rewarded was helping victims, and I had been working with the Washington Attorney General's Office and helping that. And it was so good to know that I was actually doing good and actually putting boots on the ground and actually making change. And I was like, OK, I don't really think of myself as like an activist. I will definitely say I'm more of an advocate because I'm more about the victims than the companies at this point in my advocacy. //and what I feel most comfortable in and what I feel I've I've been able to grow and nurture. Best has been victim advocacy because I remember leaving MLM and being like, I'm an idiot. I should have seen this. Look at all these red flags. I cannot believe it. You know what I mean? And I thought back, if there was someone like me who is telling people these things and helping them when they left, it might be easier to leave. And so I started focusing on the victim outreach. //And then 2020 and then 2020 hit and COVID hit, and I lost my job. I didn't lose my job, but my salon was shut down. And I was going through a divorce and I was incredibly depressed. Thinking, what am I doing with my life? What am I going to do? I can't cut hair like I can't even go in the salon, work shut down. What am I going to do? And I thought back that the lawsuit was over. //And I thought, you know what really always brought me joy was talking to people and asking them questions and having difficult discussions // and like learning things and going what someone else mentioned that that's crazy. And I decided to start my own podcast. //And so on. February 14th of 2021 Valentine's Day my first Valentine's Day alone in a very long time, I sat down. Excuse me, I sat down and I told my story and I recorded it. And I said, You know, either people will listen or they won't // But again, I had always been so interested in creating a community and fostering that community and having people be a part of that community and a voice in the community. And I thought I just got to do this, and I recorded it and I hit record. And then I messaged a couple of friends and I was like, I don't have a second episode. Could I interview you? And they're like, Of course, will you come on my show where you do this? Of course, I hit up all the people whose shows I had been on in the three years prior. And it was like your turn. And they all were like, Of course, of course. And I just started recording //
Stephanie [01:33:47] // Congratulations.It's it's really been very fun to watch your journey and to see your podcast grow, and I can't see where to see what you do with it. And thank you so much for coming on and talking to us and sharing more of your story. I really appreciate it.
Roberta [01:34:07]Of course, any time
End Credits
OUTRO
The Rise and Fall of LulaRoe is a Discovery Plus podcast.
From Discovery, our executive producer is Michael DiSalvo [Deh-Sall-vo]. From Buzzfeed, our executive producer is Karolina Waclawiak [Vahts-LAH-vee-ACK].
Special thanks to Shelley Sinha [Sin-Ha] at Discovery, Samantha Henig and Richard Alan Reid at Buzzfeed, and Pete Ross at Left/Right.
Our show is produced by Neon Hum Media. Jonathan Hirsch and Shara Morris are the executive producers. Our lead producer is Muna Danish. Associate Producer is Rufaro Faith. Our production manager is Samantha Allison. Sound design and engineering from Mark Bush. Our theme music is from Epidemic Sound.
See you next week!
Love this moment. I think we need to get here sooner. Her story to this point has felt too similar to what we heard from Heidi and others in the doc. I think we can trim down the interview before this moment, so we're not getting to the meat of her story too late. Roberta also feels more manic before this moment.