An Australian fitness influencer has received a flood of negative feedback after blurring her son’s face in a video.
Steph Claire Smith took to Instagram last week to share a fun clip from a family outing to a Monster Truck show.
Smith, 30, who shares fitness and diet tips and updates on motherhood, had previously shown her three-year-old son Harvey’s face but decided to hide his identity from now on.
Some fans of the KIC co-founder questioned her sudden decision.
“Now! You’re blocking his face?! Glad he had a good time! Looks great!” wrote one commenter.
“Oh my god. No that’s it, I’m done. Blurred face did it for me,” wrote another.
“We’ve seen it a million times,” replied a third. “That’s why it’s weird.”
Shortly after the comments were posted, Steph took to her Instagram Stories to explain why she started pixelating her son’s face, saying she was so tired of the “judgment.”
Influencer Steph Claire Smith (pictured) has received a flood of negative comments after blurring her son’s face in an Instagram video, after previously featuring the boy on her social media
Shortly after the comments were posted, Steph took to her Instagram Stories to explain why she was now pixelating her son’s face, and lashed out at critics who said she was “so sick of the judgment.”
“I can’t believe I’m even taking the time to talk about this,” she began in the now-expired video.
“But honestly, some people… I’ve talked about this before on my stories and on my podcast.”
Steph said young Harvey was “at an age where he wasn’t always in our care and he looked like a little boy.”
Steph claimed that young Harvey was “at an age where we’re not always looking after him and he looks like a little boy” and that he’s much more relatable now that he’s an adult.
“He’s much more relatable,” the influencer said.
Steph, who has more than 1.5 million followers on Instagram, added that strangers have come to the family who already knew Harvey’s name, which has confused the young man.
She said that she and her husband Josh Miller decided to hide the boy’s face when he was about to start school.
“It baffles me how people think that they can absolutely influence your life and your choices,” Steph lamented in the Instagram video.
“I understand that there are photos and things of him from the past on the internet. It wasn’t our intention to completely erase it from the internet.
“It was to stop him from posting anything from now on as he grows up because he looks like a little boy.”