TikTok Star Behind the Wishbone Kitchen Account Details Her Weeks-Long Absence from the Platform: ‘I’m Alive’ 

Influencer Meredith Hayden is opening up about her unexpected three-week absence from social media following ACL surgery.

In a TikTok video captioned “proof of life” on Friday, March 21, the Wishbone Kitchen account creator apologized for “ghosting” her followers before sharing that the past several weeks have been “so humbling.” 

“I didn’t really realize it had been so long,” the 29-year-old said before unbuckling her knee brace and showing fans her healing surgical wounds.

“We’re looking better than we were last week — or two weeks ago,” she explained while aiming the camera at her knee. “Two weeks ago I was in tears all day, every day. Crying myself to sleep every night. This experience has been so humbling.”

Hayden — who said she is on crutches — also shared that she’ll be in the brace for several months. She added that the “full recovery cycle is about a year” and said she won’t be able to return to usual physical activity or sports before then.

“So that’s fun,” she said sarcastically, adding, “Oh, also, I’m not allowed to wear any heeled shoes for a year. So it’s gonna be a flat-shoe, platform, sandal summer.”

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The content creator had previously shared that she tore her ACL while skiing in a video posted on Feb. 6. The injury occurred while on a trip to Big Sky, Mont. with friends.

“My body turned one way. My knee turned another. I heard a pop. I fell to the ground,” she said in her initial post detailing the injury. In the same video, she shared that she had recently been feeling as though “life has been too good to me lately and I feel like something bad is gonna happen and like the universe has to like even itself out for me [...] and, lo and behold, the universe humbled me.” 

“If this is [the universe’s] way of humbling me, though, I’ll take it,” she added.  “We’re in the net positives.”

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Hayden has been a well-known food influencer for several years. She first went viral on TikTok in 2022 after sharing videos featuring herself working as a private chef for a wealthy family in the Hamptons.

Since then, she's hosted her own cooking shows and written a cookbook, titled The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook: Seasonal Recipes for Everyday Luxury and Elevated Entertaining.