The REAL reason behind influencers Flossie Clegg and Olivia Neill's bitter fallout, insider reveals

They were the British ‘It’ girls beloved by their millions of TikTok and Instagram followers. So when Flossie Clegg, 24, and Olivia Neill, 23 – both internet stars in their own right – joined forces and became best friends, the pair became Gen Z’s answer to Monica and Rachel from Friends. Both shot to fame for their candid YouTube video blogs – also known as ‘vlogs’ – documenting everything from makeup routines to heartbreak.

When they split from their respective boyfriends, they moved into a flat together in London in 2020 and soon began chronicling every moment of their lives, from dancing in the kitchen and trying out new takeaway menus, to make-up tutorials and diet challenges. The then-19-year-old svelte double act were nothing short of a social media sensation, making hundreds of thousands of pounds from promotions and attracting more than a million followers to their 30-second videos.

Even when Olivia nearly got cancelled by her fanbase in 2021 for attending an illegal lockdown party, her loyal best friend Flossie stood by her. Until the unthinkable happened. Less than a year after Olivia’s lockdown scandal, the young influencers, once joined at the hip, stopped speaking entirely. Suddenly, they vanished from each other’s videos. When Flossie released a clothing collection with the sports brand Slazenger, Olivia didn’t post a word of congratulations to her ‘best friend’. We have been told the girls cut each other out of their lives in the years since.

Olivia Neill and Flossie Clegg began chronicling every moment of their lives online in 2020. The then-19-year-old svelte double act were nothing short of a social media sensation. Naturally, their legions of fans – and friendship group – were stunned. The mystery surrounding what happened between Olivia and Flossie has become the subject of podcast discussions, teenage group chats and internet forums.

Even now, the comment sections on Olivia and Flossie’s TikTok accounts are flooded with fans asking: ‘What happened with Flossie?’ and ‘Where is Olivia?’. The duo have always kept the reasons behind the demise of their friendship a closely guarded secret – refusing to address questions from fans in YouTube videos and social media posts. But, four years on, the Mail can reveal the real reason behind the bitter feud, according to sources close to the pair.

And it’s a tale as old as time. At the heart of the rift was allegedly a boy the pair both liked. A friend of Flossie and Olivia told the Mail: ‘They cannot be in the same room together any more, which is crazy. Back in the day, you wouldn’t have got one without the other and they were best friends. ‘Social media is a cut-throat industry and it’s really hard to find people you can trust, but Flossie and Olivia entered the scene together and had each other’s backs.

‘But that being said, things were already getting tense between them for months. Olivia was itching to climb the ladder. She’d started making a new set of friends in London, which meant leaving Flossie behind. The girls cut each other out of their lives after a fallout in 2021. Olivia’s career has risen to new heights since the rift, attending events such as the Brits. She has also been seen rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kate Moss’s daughter Lila.

‘So when the boy came into it, that was the final straw.’. To compound Flossie’s hurt, Olivia has replaced her with a new ‘bestie’: New York socialite and YouTuber Ruby Lyn who, with her long dark hair and slim frame, looks remarkably like Flossie. Olivia and Ruby now frequently post videos together – end even documented their recent trip to Thailand. Fans, however, are still missing the original duo. ‘I miss your friendship with Flossie so bad, nothing hits the same,’ read one comment on Olivia’s TikTok. ‘[Ruby] will never be Flossie’, said another.

The chances of a reunion seem slim. Since the breakup, the girls have moved in very different directions. Belfast-born Olivia’s career has risen to new heights since the rift; she’s signed with London-based agency Elite Model Management and become a fixture of the west London social scene, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kate Moss’s daughter Lila and Jude Law’s daughter Iris. Three months after their fall-out, she traded YouTube for red carpets and was spotted at society parties in the company of A-listers including Leonardo DiCaprio and Victoria Beckham (rumours swirled online that Olivia even had a romance with the Titanic actor, 50, after meeting him at a nightclub in Paris in 2022).

Meanwhile, Flossie, from the Cotswolds, lives alone in north London, with her dachshund Ida – and leads a much more low-key lifestyle. Since the days of her friendship with Olivia, she has lost almost 50,000 subscribers to her YouTube page. And after shedding a dramatic amount of weight in recent months, she was forced to make a video from her kitchen earlier this month insisting she is not on Ozempic after fans bombarded her with concerned comments.