Jeffree Star says his 103-year-old grandmother is real, but here's why some YouTube sleuths are still suspicious

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Jeffree Star says his 103-year-old grandmother is real, but here's why some YouTube sleuths are still suspicious
YouTube sleuths have picked up on a few errors in the Grandma Mary timeline.Screenshot Twitter/@jeffreestar, Instagram/@jeffreestar
  • Jeffree Star has alluded many times to his centenarian Grandma Mary, including in his most recent video, when he insisted she exists.
  • Star was addressing "rumors" about him, including the rampant YouTube theory that something is amiss with Star's now 103-year-old grandmother.
  • Star cleared up one point of confusion in his video, but YouTube sleuths have raised questions about conflicting ages, birthdays, and photos concerning Grandma Mary.
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Jeffree Star frequently mentions Grandma Mary, his very elderly grandmother who recently turned 103 years old. Or did she? YouTube sleuths and drama channels have theorized for months about Star's grandmother, thanks to seemingly contradictory posts Star has made about her age, her birthday, and his visits to see her.

But in his latest video, Star addressed the rumors, insisting that Grandma Mary is real.

"You know how I've mentioned my grandma a few times, my Grandma Mary, her real age is 103," Star said. "She turned that on July of this year. But when we did our video, I said my 100-year-old grandma, so everyone thinks that she's not real. My grandma's not real, and I fabricated her, and she's all a lie. You guys, oh my god, I can't."

There are several puzzle pieces explaining why Star's critics are suspicious about Grandma Mary.

Star has lied about his family members before, and had his aunt pretend to be his mother for 5 years

Lying about or full-on fabricating a grandmother may seem outlandish, even by beauty YouTube standards. In the context of Star, however, it's not unprecedented. In August 2018 (as drama YouTuber D'Angelo Wallace pointed out in his exhaustive timeline of Star's controversies), Star admitted that the woman he had shown and referred to as his mother for five years was actually his aunt.

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Star posed with his aunt for pictures that he later captioned as his mother and he named her as his mother, which led to the Google search results for "Jeffree Star mother" showing his aunt, Laurie Steininger. Steininger even had social-media profiles posing as Star's mother that fans interacted with.

In his video admitting that Steininger wasn't his real mother, Star said "it started out as a cute little white lie" but went on for years before he decided to tell his audience that he saw his mother one time over a 10-year period, while Steininger stood in for her.

But beyond having his aunt pose as his mother, the actual details Star has posted about his supposed paternal grandmother don't all align.

Star has posted contradictory ages and birthdays for his Grandma Mary

Star mentions Grandma Mary a lot on Twitter and in videos, but her age and birthday have shifted around a lot, too. He started tweeting heavily about her in 2019, and referred to her as 100 several times, starting in March 2019.

He also referred to her as 100 in September 2019, after when he currently says her birthday is (sometime in July).

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September 2019 is also when Star released his video following along with his "100 Year Old Grandma's Favorite Makeup Tutorial."

Star now says that him calling her 100 for the video was more of a generalization than him stating her exact age. On Twitter, in November 2019, she jumped to 102 years old.

And in January 2020, Star said she would be turning 103 in July.

However, just three months later, Star tweeted a picture of him holding Grandma Mary's hands and wrote that her birthday was in June, not July.

But before either birthday would have occurred, he also tweeted Grandma Mary was 103 in May 2020.

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As of right now, Star says Grandma Mary is 103 and her birthday was in July.

A picture of Star going to visit Grandma Mary in June also caused a lot of confusion

If you don't already have whiplash, there's another supposed Grandma Mary birthday to take into consideration. Star posted a picture of himself on a private jet on Instagram on June 26, and the original caption read: "My grandmother just turned 103 years old and I asked her how she wanted to celebrate. We're going to take her to visit the first house she ever lived in as a child. Grateful for every second I get to spend w her."

This photo caused confusion for two reasons. One, the changing birthday — again. Two, the picture Star posted wasn't from June 26. He first tweeted it on January 30, 2020. So, even if Star really was jet-setting to go see his (102-year-old? 103-year-old?) grandmother, he was reusing an old picture to demonstrate it.

Star never acknowledged the changing birthday or old picture, but he changed the Instagram caption to just a heart emoji after critics started to take notice.

There's one final thing to mention about Grandma Mary: Star tends to bring her up whenever he's been embroiled in drama or is trying to promote a product. That plane picture he posted to Instagram came right before Star disappeared from the internet entirely, because he and Shane Dawson were getting dragged for old content.

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Four of the Grandma Mary tweets starting in 2019 are to promote either Star's channel or his different makeup launches. And the one from January 2020 doubled as Star denying rumors that his ex-boyfriend cheated on him with a woman.

Having an elderly grandmother in your life that you dote on can help craft a caring, familial image. In Star's case, that may have been the intention, but Grandma Mary mostly causes confusion.

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