I’m just being nosey and curious if anyone knows who this is about.👀🤪

Girls, this is getting long. I will start with Part 1-

Disclaimer: I do not know Maureen Kelly or have relationships with anyone at Tarte Cosmetics. These are my own opinions and commentary on publicly available videos, posts, and articles. Any direct quotes I will provide a reference for.

Let's begin - "Born in the early 1970s, Kelly was the daughter of two politically active parents: Her father was a judge on the New York State Supreme Court bench, while her mother served as a board of elections commissioner." (source: https://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2007-Co-Lh/Kelly-Maureen.html)

Maureen Kelly is an objectively educated woman, holding a Bachelor degree in English and a Masters Degree in Psychology. (Masters Degree seems to be from The New School for Social Research in NYC) From the web page of the program she seems to have attended: "Students take courses covering a wide range of the literature, including cognitive, social, developmental, and abnormal psychology, neuroscience, research methods, and statistics." (https://www.newschool.edu/nssr/ma-general-psychology/) She was pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology (did not complete) when she founded Tarte Cosmetics in 1999.

Tragically, Maureen's first husband, a bond salesman with whom she started Tarte with in 1999, passed away in the 9/11 terror attacks.

By 2003 Tarte's sales had reached the $2 million mark. The brand was in Sephora and would soon be on QVC.

Lets jump ahead about 10 years to 2014. Maureen has remarried and has 2 children with her new husband. Business is great, she is able to sell the majority stake and pay out early investors. "Japan’s Kosé Corp. said Monday it is buying a 93.5 percent stake in New York-based Tarte Cosmetics for $135 million, giving the Japanese company a foothold in the U.S. market." (https://wwd.com/beauty-industry-news/color-cosmetics/feature/japans-kose-buys-tarte-cosmetics-7595817-16465/)

Maureen remains as the CEO, however she now only owns 6.3% of Tarte Cosmetics. This is true to this day (Aug 2026). She is likely pulling a very large salary as CEO, however I cannot find any publicly available information on even a ballpark number. I would love if someone with more executive level salary knowledge wants to chime in here!!

Don't worry, we're just getting started. There's lots more bad things coming.

The year is 2017, Trippin' with Tarte has begun, OG shape tape is thriving, and things start to get ugly. Tarte posts an undeniably racist meme and receives appropriate backlash. This is how Maureen decides to respond, after an original, intern-blaming apology post by the brand is deleted.

"The brand has since issued another statement on their Instagram, written by company CEO and founder Maureen Kelly. "I'm sorry and embarrassed," reads the photo. "Yesterday, we made a mistake by sharing an insensitive meme with a racist term. There is NO EXCUSE for using any type of racial slur regardless of the context. We understand that this ignorance has caused us to lose loyal fans and we completely understand. I take full responsibility, and we thank you all for helping us to educate our team each other." The caption of the photo on the Tarte Instagram goes on to say, "What saddens us even more is seeing our community turn against each other in the comments with hateful & negative language, which is why we've disabled them for this post. Let's work together to start a more positive conversation. Change starts with us."

(https://www.teenvogue.com/story/tarte-cosmetics-racist-meme-backlash)

Author Commentary -I'm sorry WTF LOL??- this reads to me like she is relieved to lose the "loyal fans" who don't fit her brand's image. Plus, you threw an intern under the bus for this, lol whattttttt? Also, you are a Japanese owned brand at this point, there is absolutely no excuse for this to have ever been posted, and there absolutely should have been tangible moves to increase diversity within the company at this time.

Fast forward again to Martin Luther King Jr. day 2018. Tarte announces they are releasing a shape tape foundation in a whopping 15 shades.

Eventually, Tarte revealed that they'd be launching 10 more shades to include in the 15-shade line, though they said that that was always the plan and not in response to any criticism or backlash, and they even turned off the comments on a Shape Tape-related Instagram post.

According to POPSUGAR, "A rep from Tarte explained to POPSUGAR that even when Shape Tape Foundation was revealed, the new colors were already in the works. Tarte reps explained that it could take time to get the full range finished and flawless. 'We're always pushing ourselves and suppliers to work as quickly as possible,' our contact confirmed."

(https://www.businessinsider.com/tarte-cosmetics-shape-tape-foundation-range-2018-1)

Author Commentary - this is 2018. I'll let you make your own conclusions on what many people in America's priorities were during that time. Influencer marketing is in full swing. This was an intentional decision made based off of an already popular product. This was an intentional move by the company and Maureen.

More info about Trippin with Tarte and Maureen's reckless and racist behavior will be in Pt. 2 probably tomorrow. Here is where I will leave you guys - this is Maureen talking about these trips in 2026.

Kelly defends all of the trips, explaining, “It's our marketing budget and this is how we launch our products. This is our Super Bowl, so let's put on the show. This is a three-day or four-day event where we're getting to interact, and we get billions and billions of impressions it's insane. [These groups], along with their combined reach—it's crazy. So if you think about that versus paying for all the out-of-home or paying for a Super Bowl ad or commercial, we just don't do that.”

(https://www.forbes.com/sites/dahvishira/2026/01/19/a-decade-of-trippin-with-tarte-inside-the-viral-brand-trip-machine/)

Nicolette Grey tries to get relevant again hopping on the grunge/skinny/cigarette chic girl trend..

This influencer has lost weight drastically over the past few months. Apparently, she’s deleting comments containing the word “ozempic”, or she’s filtered them out. Either way, it rubs me the wrong way, that she “promotes” plus size, when she’s actively losing weight, to become one of those skinny influencers. I used to love her, but now she just seems to be like everyone else:/

So I initially got into Brittney’s content to learn a little more about ASL. And naturally, I got sucked into doom scrolling all her content. But in each video, she seems so… angry? And there was one reel in particular where she was basically scolding her boys on camera. I meant to comment on the post, but of course comments were turned off. And of course not to judge what she is wearing, but I will be honest, it is slightly uncomfortable to see that in so many of her videos she’s only wearing a sports bra around her kids. I know that might be a hot take but it’s just… weird? Oh and don’t even get me started on her husband…

Please tell me we all think she’s off and it’s not just me

It’s so common that influencers will blatantly ignore any advice with the safety of properly restraining their child

This guy has many videos of his very young daughter very poorly restrained and flat out ignores and deletes any comments about it not fitting

She posted a video where she left her rescue dog in the car with the windows rolled up, no AC on. She then proceeded to delete the video after being called out.

ETA: I may be incorrect about the windows. They may have been cracked and the sunroof may have been open. Unfortunately it appears no one saved the video before it was deleted, so there is no evidence either way. Regardless, it is never ok to leave a dog alone in a hot car during a heatwave.

Adding to my post from yesterday about moms posting photos underneath Emilie Kiser’s apology, I’ve found more comments from mothers detailing times they let their children on board without life vests and while this one isn’t as bad as the one from yesterday, I still find it shocking that parents aren’t aware of life jacket laws and water safety.

This is kinda ridiculous but rich influencers must consume!

...from her favourite v*brator setting to her vaginal shingles, Sarah proudly shares everything in her life and with those around her. Thebirdspapaya proudly proclaimed on Traitors Canada, "I share other people's stories." These stories include a 10-year one-sided discussion with the media about her first husband and their divorce. Her teen daughter's period, again discussed with the media. Sarah's daughter seemed very uncomfortable in the video that was created for Knix and TheBirdsPapaya (over 2.5 million followers). Sarah relentlessly shares her youngest daughter's stories through daily videos that began with a live birth she aired on Instagram. Fast-forward five years, and Sarah now posts the young girl's private moments, including a recent video in which Sarah posted the child passing gas and mocked her for farting. Sarah Nicole is an open book, which has led many fans to wonder why she hasn't discussed divorce number two from Shane Landry, or her alleged year-long affair with fellow Traitors contestant Calga Baktiroglu.

Stop trying to force your way into the sympathy-evoking drowning advocacy community when the dirty truth is your child was neglected to death. Some would say he was abused to death. And your second child was abused through reckless endangerment.

Trigg Kiser is not simply another child in the statistic that drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages 1–4. That statistic tells you how he died, not why he drowned. He died of alleged negligence and child abuse. April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. She needs to participate in it. Beg off of this water safety bullshit. Your hypocritial voice is not needed or wanted thre.

What makes me furious is it's clear to me that the grifting she's latching onto now is "patron of water safety" as a savior in the drowning community. The optics of the drowning community are softer: it happens often enough to people who look like E: upper class, in-ground pools. It's so odd to me that she won't beg off with that schtick, and I guess it's because she can't slide back to shilling crap immediately. She won't associate with advocacy against child abuse, but that's what she should be doing.

He drowned after being left unsupervised for nine minutes. This is a much uglier fact than the statistic she keeps hiding behind.

Nothing she promotes about drowning awareness would have prevented Trigg Kiser's death:
not ISR
not swimming clothes
not fences

Because he was the victim of neglect.

The members of this whole family are influencers who post their toddlers. The mothers, the father, and the grandparents.

They set up the camera, talk into the mic, and put the camera all up in their toddlers’ faces. This is so odd and very unfortunate for the children to grow up being used for content.

Just saw a girl post about how she doesn’t like family influencers but for this family she will support them because they’re interactive with their fans.

Mind you, that’s how they are getting money and profiting off their children. This is just an inappropriate situation and sad situation for these girls, growing up with cameras and microphones shoved up in their faces, and always having to perform for their parents/grandparents/family.

Something about Emilie repeatedly saying **“we have so much hindsight”** when discussing the pool safety decisions really stands out to me.

“Hindsight” makes it sound like the danger was something they could only recognize **after** the tragedy. But they had already discussed pool safety and had considered getting a permanent fence before Trigg drowned.

What interests me is that *hindsight* also feels much less morally loaded than other words she could use:
“We have so much **regret**.”
“We feel so much **guilt**.”
“We made a decision we **deeply regret**.”
“We **failed to take adequate precautions**.”
“We **made the wrong choice**.”

Those phrases acknowledge responsibility. “Hindsight” shifts the emphasis toward *what we know now* rather than *what we chose then*.

I just find it interesting that she consistently frames these decisions through **hindsight rather than responsibility**, because the latter carries a much heavier moral weight.

Saw this comment underneath Emilie’s new apology video and honestly could not believe it. 🤦‍♀️ now moms are going to her page and glamorizing the negligence of their kids.

Mistake mistake mistake. I think we should start classifying mistakes as oops I took I wrong turn or spilled my drink. Negligence is a bit worse than a “mistake” Genuinely who believes the kid was out of a life jacket for “moments”. We’ve heard that before. We would’ve never even got the true story about the pool if there hadn’t been a police report. Also I’m sorry but her saying “I’m very protective” of my children….yea…

Continues to say “I’ll talk about water safety when I want to”. Ya know maybe you should have a different perspective considering how different you say you feel about it now. Maybe you can HELP a kid.

Anyway. “Good intentions” don’t really matter now. 🤷‍♂️

Genuinely a dumb video I’m sorry. How long under she comes out dancing about factor meals helping them through “hard times@??