Entertainment

Here's What To Know About Charli D'Amelio's Viral Lookalike, Ellie Zeiler

by Jessica Vacco-Bolaños

In less than a year, Charli D'Amelio became the most famous influencer on TikTok. She not only caught the attention of avid TikTok users, but turned heads as she appeared on late night and morning talk shows showing off her flawless dance moves and her shy and relatable personality. With fame, also comes imitation, so a lot of fans, and even fellow social media influencers, began to imitate D'Amelio's style by doing their hair like her, mimicking her outfits and dance style. But just because someone looks just like her, doesn't mean they're doing it on purpose or that they're not unique in their own right. That's why people have been wondering who Ellie Zeiler is. She's gotten a lot of attention for looking like D'Amelio, but also has a huge fan base thanks to her super entertaining content.

Zeiler has almost 100,000 followers on Instagram, though she's not super active on the photo sharing app. She joined IG in July 2018, but it wasn't until about a year later that she started posting more often. Over on TikTok, however, Zeiler posts all the time, and has 2.5 million fans.

Zeiler, born in San Diego, was a basketball and golf player in middle school before finding fame on TikTok.

In April 2020, D'Amelio fans caught wind of a fake TikTok account called "charidamelio." The content on the account featured videos of Zeiler, and that, on top of the misleading name, seemed — to D'amelio fans — to be Zeiler's attempt to confuse TikTok users into believing it was D'Amelio's personal TikTok.

Zeiler quickly slammed the speculation that it was her posting the videos in the comments section of a TikTok Room Instagram post. Check it out below.

The actual imposter also created a since-deleted fake Ellie Zeiler Twitter page, but clarified it the page was not affiliated with its namesake. "This account has never been run by Ellie Zeiler,” the person tweeted. “Please don’t give her sh*t for something she has nothing to do with. It’s not Charli either.”

It seems the misunderstanding, and constant hate Zeiler gets for looking similar to D'Amelio at no fault of her own, has led her to become an advocate of online bullying.

Along with Sophie and Lola Bulkin, Zeiler helped start the Together As One movement. Together As One's mission is to "educate teens about the prejudices experienced by their peers so that we may mitigate bias."

Luckily for fans, Zeiler hasn't let the internet trolls get the best of her, and continues to entertain fans daily on TikTok.