After five years of maintaining anonymity, the person behind one of YouTube‘s most popular drama channels has finally unveiled their face to the world. Spill Sesh, known for dissecting the internet’s biggest controversies and scandals involving top celebrities, disclosed her identity in a video posted last Friday. The real name behind Spill Sesh is Kristi Cook, affectionately known as Spilli. In the video, the beauty guru Manny Gutierrez, also known as Manny MUA, does Cook’s makeup as she explains how he was the subject of her very first video in 2018. For her, having Manny participate in her face reveal felt like a “full-circle moment.”

Kristi Cook manages the YouTube channel, boasting over 700,000 subscribers and more than 1,300 videos. Her meticulously researched and near-daily videos, delving into the unfolding online scandals, have covered a wide range of topics, including Colleen Ballinger, David Dobrik’s Vlog Squad, and the Try Guys, accumulating over 350 million views. Over the course of five years operating Spill Sesh, Cook, a former TMZ employee, kept her identity hidden, sparking speculation among fans and followers about who was the mastermind behind the channel. Some even guessed it might be Shane Dawson or his sister-in-law, Morgan Adams. Cook’s decision to reveal her face now was to set the record straight.

In the video, Cook and Gutierrez chat while he applies her makeup, discussing why this moment was chosen to reveal her identity. Cook likened it to her “Hannah Montana wig-off moment” and stated that it felt like the right time, given her five years of channel management. “I also really want to expand and make new content,” she expressed in the video. Going forward, Cook won’t be showing her face in the videos, but she will be using her real voice from now on.

In an interview with The New York Times, Cook revealed her fascination with the public’s interest in YouTuber news when mainstream media seemed to overlook it at the time. She mentioned that she had tried various YouTube channels that failed to gain traction until she started the drama channel. Her first major video, which she appears to have since deleted, focused on Trisha Paytas’s response to the Vlog Squad following her breakup with Jason Nash. Another video about the college admissions scandal involving Olivia Jade Giannulli and Lori Loughlin didn’t perform well, but a video showcasing Giannulli’s flaunting of wealth for six minutes became her most-viewed content. Spill Sesh quickly became a go-to channel for analysis and breakdowns of the biggest online dramas, with videos bringing in an average of $20,000 per month through ads, as Cook shared with The New York Times.

Remaining anonymous for such an extended period was no easy feat, Cook admitted. She recounted a frightening moment when a stranger messaged her claiming to have discovered her identity, prompting her to erase her personal information from the internet. In her Friday video, Cook expressed her gratitude to her fans, acknowledging that they had “changed [her] life.”

Source: The New York Times