A US Instagram influencer has been forced to defend herself after accusations she staged a professional photoshoot following a motorbike accident earlier this year.
Tiffany Mitchell, who has over 200,000 followers on Instagram, originally posted a series of quite stunning shots of the 'aftermath' of the accident in July.
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In the caption on a now-deleted post, she claimed the accident happened after she "misjudged a curve".
"My bike went off the road... and I hit the pavement," Mitchell said.
"I had my helmet on so my head was fine, but I scraped up my left side. I was in absolute shock laying on the side of the road."
As is totally normal when your friend has been in a horrific accident, professional photographer Lindsay Grace Whiddon started snapping photos, allegedly only after making sure Mitchell was okay.
In one of the shots, Mitchell appears to be crying, while her friend gently cradles her - it's a scene which looks straight out of a Nicholas Sparks movie.
But suspicion was almost immediately raised over the authenticity of the pictures due to their posed nature and, most incredibly, the bottle of Smartwater placed candidly throughout.
Comments on the post ranged from concerned to confused, to downright suspicious, with some fans questioning if it was a sponsored post.
"If my friend continued to take photos while I was lying semi-unconscious in the road, I'd be furious. I love your photos, but it's a little weird to include those," one wrote.
"This is an insult to people who get into accidents. Put a helmet on [and] quit glamourising accidents," wrote another.
"Super powerful with the #sponsored water," scoffed another.
In a more recent post on her Instagram Story, Mitchell defended herself, saying the idea she staged the post was "absolutely horrific".
"I've been sharing raw life stuff ever since I started my Instagram. The post I shared was another moment in my life that was very significant to me for a lot of reasons," she wrote in white text on a black background.
"If you've been following me for a while you know I lost my partner in a motorcycle accident [in] 2016 and have since shared my grieving process in detail."
"Nothing about it was sponsorship."
Newshub.
