Influencer Recalls Walking Downstairs Naked to 30 Police Officers After Being Swatted

• Kelsey Darragh recounted on her podcast her experience of being swatted, where as many 30 armed law enforcement officers showed up to her house in the middle of the night.
• She found herself to be the victim of swatting, where a stranger reports a false violent incident at the residence of a celebrity or influencer.
• It’s been more than a year since the swatting incident, but Darragh said it’s left her with some lasting trauma.

One influencer is sharing her harrowing experience of being swatted.

“As a creator that's your worst nightmare,” said Kelsey Darragh, who’s best recognized as a former member of BuzzFeed’s video team, when recounting her experience of being swatted on her podcast Confidently Insecure.

Swatting is a form of criminal harassment in which a person falsifies an emergency situation at another person’s residence, prompting either police or emergency services to respond to the fake call. These “pranks” have been done to various celebrities, like Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber, though various influencers and live streamers have also been subjected to some of these dangerous false emergency reports.

Darragh gave a brief rundown of the situation, which happened more than a year ago, in a TikTok teasing the podcast episode diving into the event. After hearing a “rukus downstairs in the middle of the night,” Darragh recalled how she went downstairs in her California home to find the place surrounded by more than 30 armed law enforcement officers.

“They throw me in cuffs and raid my house,” she continued in the TikTok text overlay. “Turns out I’m getting SWATTED.”

The experience was one that left Darragh with some trauma, as she explained in her recent podcast episode. Prior to the swatting incident, Darragh said she’d previously dealt with a home invasion situation that left her with PTSD and a lingering feeling of being unsafe inside her own home. Because of this, she explained she’s now a licensed gun owner and sleeps with her firearm next to her in her bedroom every night for additional safety.

The night of the swatting incident, Darragh explained she was sleeping upstairs while her partner, who she refers to as “the athlete,” was sleeping downstairs in his own bedroom.

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“I'm kind of asleep and I hear [my partner] yelling and I thought I heard him say ‘You're not supposed to be here.’ I thought I heard him yelling that at someone so I immediately go into like fight or flight,” she recalled, noting it was only 5 a.m. and still dark outside. 

As Darragh noted, she sleeps naked “because I’m an adult and I can do that,” though decided to investigate what her partner was yelling at. She grabbed her firearm and proceeded downstairs in the nude.

By the time she came downstairs, her partner had already opened the door to find “25, 30 people” surrounding their apartment, all with bright lights and guns pointed at their home. She stuck her head out of her front door, still naked, to see her partner in handcuffs.

“The first thought that goes through my head is is this man not who he says he is. Like is he getting deported? What did he do? I was so confused,” Darragh recalled. “And I'm like in what world would it make sense that he is handcuffed up against a police car like nothing makes sense for that to be happening.”

As she was trying to make sense of the situation, an officer instructed her to put some clothes on and then come outside. Darragh said she set down her gun and grabbed the closest articles of clothing she could find before leaving her house.

“I go outside with my hands up, and they're giving me instructions, and I just remember like I'd never been more dialed in — like adrenaline, fear, like having that many [firearm] barrels pointing at me was so weird,” she continued. “I've been on set before with action sequences, I've been around [guns] growing up in my life, but like you almost want to like duck like my instinct if someone's like pointing a [gun] at me is to move out of the way.”

“Suddenly I'm like roughed up, my arms are grabbed. [The officer] pushes me up against the concrete wall and I noticed that she's shaking and the first thing I say out is ‘Why are you shaking?’ “ Darragh recalled.

While Darragh and her partner waited outside their home in handcuffs as armed officers searched the rooms, she learned that a shooting at their address was called in. An officer informed them, “Somebody called saying they were a man that just [killed] his wife and he was going to do the kids next.” As the pieces began to get put together, Darragh realized she’d been swatted — but there was little she could do while still in handcuffs.

“I'm starting to get f—--- angry and I'm angry at the cops because I'm like why am I roughed up pushed to the ground with handcuffs thrown up against a police car being ignored when I am the victim of a crime?” she said. That’s when Darragh said she “went full Karen” and “told the FBI that I wanted to speak to their manager.”

Ultimately, the officers on duty recognized that the active shooter situation that was called in was not real, and let Darragh and her partner out of their handcuffs. The number that originally called in the situation was traced back to a Google Voice number, ultimately leading to a dead end.

Though Darragh and her partner were ultimately safe, there was no further recourse they could take in that situation.

Darragh reflected on how so many things could have gone wrong in the situation. “God forbid they thought [my partner] was holding a gun or like that I had bought mine out or — there were so many ways had we not complied correctly… there were so many things that could have gone wrong,” she said.

Darragh noted that she waited a year to share the story because she was advised by the officers to not talk about it on her platform, as it would’ve confirmed to whoever made the initial call that they had caused her harm — something the officers suspected was their original goal.

“It's upsetting and it's so just intrusive and scary…  I got so nervous nervous every night thereafter of like is it going to happen again? I was like how am I supposed to go to sleep tonight and just like hope it's not happening?” she said.

Since the swatting incident, Darragh has also moved houses. She hoped both the time and the space from the house it happened in would help ease her mind, though her new place has increased security as an additional safety measure.