Her video gained even more attention when it was reposted to X on Wednesday by media figure Colin Rugg. He added the caption “The professional victims are relentless” to the clip, which quickly went viral. Since then, the post has received 10.6 million views and has triggered a flood of criticism from users across social media.
“This was probably just a grift by her to get everyone to tell her she is pretty,” added Rugg, who has built a following of 1.8 million users on X.

In her video response, which has pulled in 284,000 views on her Instagram account @payalforstyle and another 88,000 views on TikTok, she opened up about how growing up in a “predominantly white community.” made it harder for her to feel confident in her looks.
“I really wasn’t gonna weigh in on this, but here we go. It is so difficult to grow up as a person of color, specifically a woman, and view yourself as beautiful in any sense of the word growing up in this country,” she said in the video, speaking directly to her 441,000 Instagram followers.