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Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Inside Ms. Rachel's rollercoaster rise to fame: How YouTube star made millions despite backlash and controversy
If you have a child under five years old, than you've probably heard of Ms. Rachel. With her signature pink headband, pink T-shirt, and blue overalls, she has become a staple in the homes of millions of families across the globe. The star, 42, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, has been transformed into a massive phenomenon thanks to her educational videos for children - wracking up billions of views on her YouTube channel, Songs for Littles, and earning her millions of dollars along the way. Her sudden burst onto the scene in 2019 was certainly an unexpected one. Before she became the internet's most trusted voice for toddlers, she was a preschool music teacher. She started posting videos online after she struggled to find resources to help her own son when he developed a 'severe speech delay' - and she certainly didn't expect it to take off the way it did, nor for it to transform her into a star. But her journey has not been easy, as the internet sensation has faced a slew of scandals and setbacks along the way. She has openly struggled with the sudden fame and attention and has had to take multiple social media breaks over the years due to the immense pressure of being thrust into the public eye practically overnight. The mother-of-two has also faced severe backlash over a few controversial comments that she made over the years. In fact, Rachel has been in the news for something other than her catchy songs over the last few months: her unwavering support of Palestinian children in Gaza. The educator also recently made headlines when she lashed out at critics after actress Olivia Munn shunned her show, slamming the news for not covering the people in Gaza instead. As Ms. Rachel's brazen comments continue to put her in the hot seat, has taken a look back at her rollercoaster-ride rise to fame. How Ms. Rachel used her music and education backgrounds to launch her groundbreaking YouTube channel after her son developed a speech delay Rachel was born on November 30, 1980, in Biddeford, Maine, and was raised by a single mom in the small town of Sanford. The YouTube star previously explained on the The Drew Barrymore Show that she likely wouldn't be where she was now had it not been for her mother's strength and determination. '[I was raised] by a super strong wonderful single mom who - she's just incredible,' she explained on the show. 'She would set her mind to something and just do it, it's such an extraordinary example to watch her and it's why I think through my life I've been like, "I want to try this. I want to make this show and I'm just going to do it." 'She went back to finish college she worked at a daycare during the week, and at Pizza Hut as a waitress on the weekends. 'She went back and got a master's, and viewing that was extraordinary as a child. I was like, "I can do anything."' Regarding her own education, Ms. Rachel graduated from the University of Southern Maine. She went on to receive her master's degree in music education and a second master's degree in early childhood education from New York University. The internet personality worked as a music teacher at a preschool in New York City during the early years of her career. She started dating her now-husband, Broadway music director and composter Aron Accurso, sometime in 2010 after they met at a Unitarian church on the Upper East Side, according to The New York Times. They tied the knot in 2016, and welcomed their son Thomas in 2018. After becoming a mom, her passion for child development, paired with her music background, led her to a groundbreaking career shift. 'When my son was born, I stayed home with him for a year and saw how much music helped with soothing, bonding, play, and language development,' Rachel previously explained. 'I created an in-person baby/toddler music class informed by my music education teaching skills, which I then moved online to YouTube because I wanted the classes to be more accessible.' She started her YouTube channel Songs for Littles in 2019, after she said she struggled to find online resources to help her son when he had a 'severe speech delay.' 'His first word was at two years and eight months and it was "mama" and I had waited for that for so long,' she detailed to NBC News. 'As a parent, you want to do anything you can to help them and it's not our fault when our child has a speech delay. 'A lot of things I teach are things I wish I had known for my son. I thought, "Wouldn't it be great if there was a show that really encouraged language development and worked on these important milestones and was slow-paced and a real person and very interactive?"' After her YouTube channel became a massive success - earning her $15.7 million per year - she struggled to adjust to the sudden attention As the COVID-19 pandemic kept families indoors, Songs for Littles began spreading quickly amongst parents looking for meaningful screen time for their children. Her videos consist of her singing a combination of covers and original children's songs that help youngsters with their pronunciation and language skills. Unlike many bright, flashy kids' channels, hers felt calm, purposeful, and soothing. Dressed in her signature pink T-shirt and overalls, she looks directly into the camera, speaks slowly and clearly, and repeats simple phrases like, 'Can you say, "ball?"' The results were staggering and parents flooded the comments with emotional messages about how their children were finally speaking after watching Ms. Rachel. Her videos quickly started to go viral, and soon, her channel had taken off. By 2023, she had become a household name among families with young children, and now, Ms. Rachel's channel has now amassed 15.2 million subscribers and billions of views. According to Social Blade, her catchy tunes have earned her yearly earnings of up to $15.7 million, raking in between $77,000 to $1.2 million per month. And in January, Netflix signed a deal with Ms. Rachel for an undisclosed amount. But the star - who went on to welcome a daughter, named Susannah, with her husband in April 2025 via surrogate - struggled to adjust to the sudden attention. She has been open about the difficulties of managing her booming career with parenthood. 'It's been hard to balance everything, which I think a lot of parents feel, but it was really important to me to have all that knowledge and early childhood to being in this field,' she told People in 2023. 'I felt that it was crucial for me to have that and I feel more confident. I just feel like I have a lot of tools. 'I've learned to help parents and I think I have a good work-life balance. Sometimes it takes us a while to get things out, but it's important to me to have that.' In early 2023, Rachel made headlines when she took a brief step back from TikTok and other social media platforms, citing the toll that negative comments had taken on her mental health. 'I'm taking a break from TikTok for my mental health,' Ms. Rachel announced at the time. She added in the caption: 'Hurtful videos and comments, no matter how much attention they get, will not bring you want you want. Only love can do that.' Around that time, a nasty troll had commented on one of Rachel's Instagram videos saying she should 'lose weight and try to be prettier.' She clapped back: 'Finishing my second masters in education while someone comments I've gained weight and should lose weight and try to be prettier if I'm going to have a show teaching toddlers.' In early 2025, Rachel took another long absence from the platform, later revealing that 'family issues' were the reason. Her sudden disappearance raised eyebrows and sparked concern from parents who depend on her videos. At the time, Ms. Rachel wrote in a social media comment: 'I'm sorry. We've had some family things to attend to.' She has since returned to social media. Ms. Rachel has faced a slew of backlash over her comments about Palestinian children in Gaza and her inclusion of a nonbinary musician in her videos Over the years, Ms. Rachel has become embroiled in controversy multiple times. In 2023, the child educator received backlash from parents who called her content 'inappropriate' after she featured nonbinary musician Jules Hoffman in a video. Rachel including someone who uses they/them pronouns started a fierce debate online, and led to some of her fans announcing that they will no longer be watching her content. In the past year, Rachel has also angered some with her outspoken advocacy on behalf of Palestinian children in Gaza who have been under consistent violence by Israel. She has used her platform to raise awareness about the conditions faced by children there, including lack of access to food, education, and medical care. Ms. Rachel has even made videos with Palestinian children who were able to escape Gaza - including three-year-old Rahaf who was left a double amputee after Israel's siege of the region. She has repeatedly said that her advocacy is non-negotiable - even if it comes at the expense of her career. 'I am fully willing to risk my career for this,' she stated in a video shared earlier this year. 'It is more important to me to speak out than to remain silent.' Her advocacy has included re-sharing posts from humanitarian organizations, educating her followers about the crisis, and calling for an end to the violence. She posted a song on Instagram in prayer for all of the people involved in the war, begging, 'Please stop hurting them.' Some have praised Ms. Rachel for speaking out, while others have accused her of anti-Semitism. Most recently, the educator hit out at Olivia after the actress shunned her popular kids show. While chatting with People last week, Munn - who is mom to two kids - explained her personal preferences when it comes to the kind of children's content she allows in her household. 'I know kids love [Ms. Rachel], but the thing is, if I can't watch it, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life going crazy,' she said, in part. While Munn's comments appeared to be more about her personal viewing preferences than criticism of Ms. Rachel specifically, it did not stop online speculation that she was throwing shade at the YouTube star. In response, Ms. Rachel commented directly on a social media post discussing Olivia's comment, writing, 'I'd rather you cover my advocacy for kids in Gaza.' She later followed up with a post on her own Instagram account, sharing screenshots of those comments alongside a caption that read: 'WHO CARES?! 'I'd rather you cover me advocating for kids in Gaza who are literally starving, [the] largest cohort of child amputees in modern history, thousands and thousands killed – no medical care, no education, no homes… do better,' she added. She emphasized that her frustration was directed at the coverage - not at Munn. 'Not against her at all and don't care that she doesn't want to watch the show - all my love to her and her family - disappointed in the outlets,' she wrote.
Daily Mail
11-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
I felt fit, healthy and was running 10km a day before I started experiencing a strange feeling in my legs. I had stage four lung cancer and I'd never smoked
It's commonly assumed that people diagnosed with lung cancer must have been smokers. This was not the case for single mum, Carly Magnisalis, who is one of an increasing number of women who have never smoked but are suffering late stage lung cancer. Prior to her life altering diagnosis, the preschool teacher, from Newcastle, New South Wales, described herself as 'healthy' and 'fit' with an active lifestyle. 'I was running 10 kilometers a day and I was involved in surf lifesaving and netball. Sports and fitness had always been a big part of my life,' Carly, 45, told FEMAIL. On top of that, Carly had a full-time job and was a busy single mother of four children - and she was studying an early education degree at university. Everything changed in April 2021 when out of the blue Carly said she suddenly started experiencing 'really sore bones'. 'My bones were hurting, especially my leg bones. I thought it was just from all the running I did,' she said. As a precaution, Carly had a chat with her GP, who was on the front foot about sending her off for blood work and scans. Initially, the results didn't indicate anything sinister. 'Everything came back fine - but the bone pain kept getting worse,' Carly recalled. 'I had to be on painkillers all day to the point where I thought I was going crazy because I couldn't work out what was wrong.' Early on, Carly showed no classic signs of lung cancer because none of her symptoms affected her chest. 'There was no cough, no wheezing, no shortness of breath - nothing that would allude to something going on with my lungs,' she said. However a more revealing symptom emerged about a month later, with Carly explaining she started to feel extreme pressure underneath her fingernails. 'It felt like my nails were going to pop off,' she said. The new symptom triggered alarm bells for Carly's doctor, who advised her to have a chest X-ray. But at that point, Carly admits she was puzzled by a potential connection between her bone and fingernail pain and her lungs. So much so that she even took her time arranging to get an X-ray done, eventually booking it in a fortnight later. When she finally did the scan, Carly heard back from her doctor within hours – and the news wasn't good. A follow-up CT scan confirmed there was large mass around Carly's left upper lung. 'The doctor said it was presenting as lung cancer,' she said. The news floored Carly given that she was a healthy, fit, non-smoker in her early 40s. But it was at this point she learnt that lung cancer was increasingly prevalent in non-smoking women. Although the specific cause is unknown, there are a number of contributing factors for lung cancer in non-smokers, which include genetics, environmental factors, specific mutations, hormonal factors and inflammatory responses. 'If you have lungs, you can get lung cancer,' Carly said. From that point onwards, some of the more hallmark lung cancer symptoms started to emerge, including a 'raspy voice' and 'coughing up blood'. Carly was referred to a local cancer hospital in her hometown of Newcastle where she was seen by a lung doctor. A nervous Carly took a friend along for support during the appointment. Frustratingly, the doctor that delivered the bad news was lacking in bedside manner. 'He just flung around the computer screen showing my X-ray and goes, "Yep, it's a big one here,"' she recalled. 'He then said, "You'll probably just have some sort of medicine and go into palliative care. Do you have private health insurance?"' Looking back with frustration, Carly says the doctor didn't properly explain that the frightening term 'palliative care' at that stage referred to arranging ongoing medications. Follow-up appointments with a local private oncologist didn't fare much better and eventually Carly advocated to be referred to someone else for a second opinion. That person ended up being her now long-term oncologist, who is based in Sydney. Under his expert guidance, Carly, then aged 41, was confirmed to have 111 Non Small Cell lung cancer NSLC EGFR 21. Breaking the news to her four children Elsie, Ruby, Nic and Coen was daunting but necessary. The children, aged at the time between six and 19, were gathered by Carly for a family meeting, where she honestly explained what was going on with her health. 'I could see tears welling up in their eyes,' she recalled. 'But I assured them, I was going to fight it.' As an added layer of difficulty, Carly's treatment and team of medical experts were all based in Sydney, meaning she needed to regularly do a four-hour round trip to the capital city and back, and spend significant periods of time apart from her family. At this stage, the suggested course of medical treatment was a targeted therapy tablet taken daily, which Carly says 'shrunk' the cancer significantly within the first three months. By February 2022 a thoracic surgeon was able to operate to remove the tumour, along with other affected parts of the lung. After a tricky recovery, it took a full year post surgery before Carly started to feel like her old self. But during that time she admits there was also the added financial stress of having to stop working and trying to manage the loss of household income. By 2023, Carly finally felt she was starting to claw her life back together again. She had returned to work in a reduced capacity and was once again busy with her active family life. Even though her follow-up appointments showed no cause for concern, Carly couldn't escape the niggling feeling that something wasn't right - and so she once again advocated for herself and insisted on having new tests. In June 2024, Carly's worst fears were confirmed after scans showed that the she now had stage 4 metastatic lung cancer with a small cell transformation. This meant she now had two types of cancer - non small cell and small cell lung cancer. 'I was gutted because this changed the game,' Carly said. 'My survival rate became less than 5 per cent.' Once again, Carly upended her life and was separated from her family in order to be in Sydney for the duration of her treatment, which included four rounds of chemotherapy and five rounds of radiation. Understandably, this period took a toll both financially and emotionally. Post treatment, the prognosis of stage four cancer continues to loom large over Carly's head. 'Now, these next two years are really crucial.' Carly now continues to take a targeted therapy drug while also being regularly monitored with PET scans and MRIs as her doctors keep a watchful eye for any changes. 'I'm living three months to three months scan,' she said. 'You're just hoping you get through the next five years. Living in a world of a lot of hope is where I'm at.' Despite it all, Carly remains focused and optimistic in the face of a tough diagnosis. She is passionate about doing advocacy work with organisations like Lung Foundation Australia and is determined to destigmatise lung cancer and make others aware that it doesn't discriminate. Carly also wants to raise awareness for much-needed research into treating and preventing lung cancer, which will hopefully benefit future generations. The single mother is also concerned by her own experience of having to make a four-hour round trip to a major city in order to receive quality cancer treatment - even though she lives in a major regional city. 'My post code or finances shouldn't determine the standard of treatment I receive or how quickly I am able to get it,' she said. 'Having have to travel to Sydney for my treatment has had a direct impact on my ability to work and be there for my children. 'We do have a good health care system in Australia and I'm grateful for that – but we can always do better.' This July, a National Lung Cancer Screening Program will roll out across the country in an effort to diagnose lung cancer and lung diseases earlier. As Carly looks towards her own future, the preschool teacher admits that she does have 'moments of doubt' that creep into her mind. But she refuses to let it dictate the way she lives her life in this moment, with Carly saying she's determined to take each day as it comes and keep things 'really simple and enjoy the small things'. 'Spending that really good quality time with my kids and just being totally available to them is a gift,' she said. 'As long as there's hope, one per cent hope, I will keep trying.
