Merritt said on his Twitch stream that he believed the decision to omit Gomez led producers to craft a new narrative around Merritt’s and other Hype House members’ testing positive for Covid-19 during filming even though they had previously claimed that they wouldn’t use his diagnosis on the show. Gomez denied the allegations, and Wright said in an Instagram post that “sexual assault is a serious matter that has real consequences,” adding that he encouraged “Sienna to get the support and help that she needs.” In May, after promotional pictures featuring Gomez had been released, a third party accused her of sexually assaulting fellow Hype House member Jack Wright. In addition, while Netflix initially announced that the TikTok star Sienna Mae Gomez would be part of the cast, she was missing from the show’s final cut.

While the Hype House first gained traction at the start of 2020, its most famous members, like Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae Easterling, had already left the group by the time the show started filming early last year. The Netflix series, produced by Spoke Studios and Wheelhouse Entertainment, follows some of the biggest TikTok stars in their late teens and early 20s.