For Caroline Calloway, everything is content.
In the 2010s, she rose to fame as an early Instagram influencer, attracting hundreds of thousands of followers with pictures of her supposedly idyllic life studying art history at Cambridge University in England.
But her fame turned to notoriety when it was revealed that she had purchased followers and that a friend had ghostwritten her evocative captions.
Calloway moved from New York City to Sarasota, Fla., two years ago to care for her grandmother. Edward Linsmier for The New York Post
Calloway developed an Adderall addiction, lost a lucrative book deal and went broke.
Now, she’s back in the spotlight for self-publishing a new book, “Elizabeth Wurtzel and Caroline Calloway’s Guide to Life,” and controversially weathering Hurricane Milton — she’s been living in Sarasota, Fla., since 2022 — with cheeky social media posts.
“So if you’ve been following Hurricane Milton, um, I’m going to die,” the 32-year-old Calloway said in a video Tuesday on Instagram, where she has 676,000 followers, one day before the deadly storm made landfall.
Despite living in an evacuation zone, Calloway, who previously called the West Village home and moved south to care for her grandma, stayed put.
On Wednesday, she posted a photo of herself in a tube top sitting crossed-legged in front of a sliding glass door with her cat, Matisse, on her lap inside her home.
“If I actually die in this storm, my books are going to go WAY UP in price. Order now,” Calloway shamelessly wrote on Instagram. Edward Linsmier for The New York Post
“If I actually die in this storm, my books are going to go WAY UP in price. Order now,” she shamelessly wrote on Instagram.
The next day, in a viral text exchange riffing on a meme, she declared, “I lived, b—h.”
Her hurricane antics outraged some.
“Caroline Calloway refusing to leave a mandatory evacuation zone (right on the water, right where landfall is expected) and dying in a hurricane would be the perfect ending to her narrative tbh,” wrote a follower on X.
In a viral text exchange about Calloway riding out the hurricane she declared, “I lived b—h.” Katie Notopoulos /X
The influencer defended her actions to The Post.
“I decided to stay to help my elderly neighbors and because evacuating for a hurricane is always a difficult and nuanced decision for any Florida resident,” she explained. “I’ve been making content in my down time because we’ve been trapped indoors, but it’s not why I stayed.”
But she also noted that it has been a boon to sales for her new book, and said the money would help her mom fix her car.
The new memoir mixes essays by Calloway with excerpts from the late Wurtzel’s 2001 advice tome, “The Secret of Life.”
“I decided to stay to help my elderly neighbors and because evacuating for a hurricane is always a difficult and nuanced decision for any Florida resident,” she explained. “I’ve been making content in my down time because we’ve been trapped in doors, but it’s not why I stayed.” Edward Linsmier for The New York Post
“[It’s a] never-before-seen type of conversation between two depressed downtown darlings across time and space,” she said of the book, which also features lines from Julia Fox and Cat Marnell.
Her path from disgraced Internet ‘it’ girl to self-help author has been a winding one.
In 2013, the Falls Church, Va., native, started an Instagram account (@CarolineCalloway) to showcase her picturesque British academia life — castles, the River Cam, flower crowns.
She spent $4.99 on to get 40,000 followers early on — a common practice in those days, now looked upon as a tactless faux pas.
Behind the posts of the popular Instagram account that made her an influencer in the early 2010s, Calloway was struggling, battling an Adderall addiction. Edward Linsmier for The New York Post
By 2015, she’d amassed some 300,000 followers, a massive fan base for the time.
“I had no idea about the gilded cage that I’d lock myself in by catering to the algorithm. What the algorithm likes is wealth, happiness, aesthetic, beauty,” she said.
In 2016, she used her following to broker a book deal with Flatiron Books, an imprint of Macmillan, for half a million dollars.
But behind the posts, she was struggling, battling an Adderall addiction. She soon realized she couldn’t deliver.
In 2016, she used her following to broker a book deal with Flatiron Books, an imprint of Macmillan, for half a million dollars. Edward Linsmier for The New York Post
“I was dumb as rocks . . . I sold a book that I didn’t want to write,” she said. “The book I sold presented a fairy tale version of my life. It was a cross between what I wanted it to be and how I wanted to be perceived.”
But, Calloway admitted, “I signed the paper — no one held a gun to my head.”
She quickly blew through her $100,000 advance — in part to pay her $30,000 tuition for her senior year at Cambridge — leaving her on the hook to the publisher.
“I needed to find a way to make money,” said Calloway, who described herself as a “manic pixie nightmare” at the time.
In 2019, desperate to make a buck, she sold $165 tickets to a “Creativity Workshop” that never came to fruition and hawked a $210 homemade “fountain of youth” concoction she cheekily named Snake Oil.
Calloway had quickly blown through her $100,000 advance — in part to pay her $30,000 tuition for her senior year at Cambridge — leaving her on the hook to the publisher. Edward Linsmier for The New York Post
(It was actually grapeseed oil and other miscellaneous oils. A dermatologist told VICE UK that it could cause a sensitizing reaction.)
Her troubles mounted throughout that year.
First, her former West Village landlord sued her for $40,000 in back rent.
Then, she reached a new level of fame when New York magazine’s The Cut published an article by former friend Natalie Beach claiming she’d ghostwritten her Instagram captions.
Calloway reached a new level of fame when New York magazine’s The Cut published an article by former friend Natalie Beach claiming she’d ghostwritten her Instagram captions in 2019. Edward Linsmier for The New York Post
It went viral, and Calloway was branded a grifter and a “one-woman Fyre Fest.”
“My reputation was in tatters,” she said.
Just days after Beach’s piece ran, Calloway’s father, William Gotschall, took his own life, overdosing on pills. He had struggled with depression and bipolar disorder for years and was on the verge of bankruptcy.
“I was just dealing with so much pain. My depression, his depression, his credit card debt and on top of that my Adderall addiction,” she said. “I like to think without the drug addiction I never would have [pulled out of a book deal] . . . I really wanted the validation of being taken seriously as a writer.”
At the height of her addiction she was taking 90 milligrams of extended-release Adderall per day, the “legal maximum that you’re allowed to get in New York,” she told British podcaster Grace Beverly last year.
The new memoir mixes essays by Calloway with excerpts from the late Wurtzel’s 2001 advice tome, “The Secret of Life.”
In 2017, she started a rehab program. While she still drinks, she has been off Adderall ever since.
“The truth is, I just had a lot of grief to process,” she said.
In 2020 she made an Only Fans account selling topless photos of herself dressed as famous women literary characters such as Daisy Buchanan to raise enough money to settle her debt with her publishers.
“I paid them back that summer — then I quit Only Fans,” said Calloway, who claimed she made about $100,000.
While she’s been lumped in with the likes of Fyre mastermind Billy McFarland, 32, and Anna Delvey, 33, Calloway says the comparisons aren’t fair. “I’ve never been to prison, I’ve paid back all my debt,” she said. Edward Linsmier for The New York Post
While she’s been lumped in with the likes of Fyre mastermind Billy McFarland, 32, and Anna Delvey, 33, Calloway says the comparisons aren’t fair.
“I’ve never been to prison, I’ve paid back all my debt,” she said.
(McFarland and Delvey each served almost four years in prison, for wire fraud and theft, respectively.)
But Calloway has also played up being something of a con artist.
“People already think I’m a scammer,” Calloway, who self-published her memoir by the same name in 2013, said. “I might as well get some perks out of it.” Edward Linsmier for The New York Post
In 2023, she self-published her first memoir, “Scammer.”
It was universally well received, with the New Yorker calling it “funny, engaging and full of genuine insight.”
According to Calloway, it sold 20,000 copies.
“People already think I’m a scammer,” she said. “I might as well get some perks out of it.”
