Influencer Meredith Hayden, known online as Wishbone Kitchen, is recalling a scary incident from her past.
In a Tuesday, February 3, TikTok video, Hayden stitched a post from another creator who asked why the influencer had been sharing her worries about traveling to Japan earlier this month.
“I really want to be excited about [the trip], but I’m so anxious,” Hayden shared in the January 13 TikTok video. “And I’ve been so anxious about it for the past, like, three weeks and that’s why I haven’t really been posting.”
Hayden — who has more than 2.3 million followers on TikTok — shared that she felt “frozen” and admitted that she had been unable to stop having “panic attacks and crying” ahead of the trip.
When the user wondered about why Hayden was “crying and saying how anxious and stressed she is,” the influencer replied in her Tuesday video, “Thanks so much for bringing this up. I would love to answer your question.”
“The reason why I was crying and anxious about flying across the globe was because four years ago, I was roofied at a Hollywood premiere party in a very luxurious setting where I thought I was safe and I thought I could trust the people around me,” Hayden alleged. “And then when I went outside to try to go home because I started to feel weird, someone pushed me into their car and kidnapped me for a few hours.”
Hayden began laughing in the clip, explaining that humor is the way she copes.
“I didn’t ever talk about this online because it happened, like, right as I started getting a following on TikTok, and I was like, ‘Well, I don’t want to be the roofie girl. The roofie kidnap girl,’” she recalled. “I think I started therapy right after and I didn’t really vibe with my therapist. Waited another year, saw a psychiatrist, he diagnosed me with PTSD, anxiety, depression and a pinch of agoraphobia. Where I’m afraid to go into crowded spaces.”
She continued, “Guess what’s really crowded? Tokyo. So, yes, I was staying in very nice hotels. It was my 30th birthday and that was my present to myself. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have anxiety about your situation, about being in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language and you know nobody except for the person you are traveling with, OK? Let’s use our brains a little bit.”
Hayden went on to note that this is “not” the way she wanted her “roofie survival story” to come out on the internet. “But if the shoe fits,” Hayden quipped. “You forced my hand.”
Hayden shared that she did not report the incident to the police because a few months prior, she claimed she was robbed on the street in the West Village of New York City — which she did report, but claimed the ordeal was “humiliating” and “frustrating.”
Hayden went on to claim that there was no security camera footage at the party where she was allegedly roofied, noting that the invitation told guests they could “really let loose.”
“Such a weird red flag comment, I know. But again, I didn’t think anything of it. Apparently this is a thing at big Hollywood parties is they have these events at these popular places and they get the people to turn the security cameras off,” she said. “It’s again, disgusting. So, what was I going to do? My first therapist I told said I probably just drank too much.”
She continued, “So, no, I didn’t report it to the police. I put my big-girl pants on and I shoved the feelings down for as long as I could. So, yeah, I still get anxious leaving my house and I probably will forever.”
