Lawsuit alleging North Texas influencer scammed fitness plan customers settled with state
The North Texas fitness influencer turned spiritual vlogger who was accused in a lawsuit filed by the state alleging she scammed customers has settled out of court, according to Dallas County court records.
Brittany Dawn Davis was accused in the Deceptive Trade Practices Act lawsuit filed by the Texas Attorney General’s Office in February 2022 of scamming followers on her Instagram, YouTube and TikTok accounts where she falsely advertised she would sell them customized fitness and nutrition plans, according to the suit. Davis charged her customers anywhere between $92 and $300 for the plans.
But, the lawsuit alleged, Davis actually only provided generic plans to most customers. Some customers reported in complaints that the diet plans they were sent did not contain adequate nutrition and 14 noted that they chose Davis’ plan because they had eating disorders, something she promised she had “special training to address,” according to the lawsuit. Instead, the customers said the plans worsened their eating disorders.
Court records do not show how much Davis agreed to pay in her settlement with the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
In 2019, after largely ignoring customer complaints that had shown up on her social media platforms, Davis posted a video apologizing to her 250,000 YouTube followers in which she read a statement from her phone apologizing “for any harm that I’ve caused anyone.” She took down her fitness website and said in the video that she needed more help running the program and would give refunds to customers.
Davis also apologized on “Good Morning America,” according to WFAA-TV, saying she was “doing the best that I can to the best of my ability.” She continued to post fitness and diet advice to her approximately 1 million TikTok followers and half-a-million Instagram followers.
Davis and the state came to a settlement through mediation on April 25, according to letters from the mediator and the attorney general’s office to the court. The letters do not say what conditions the settlement contained. The original lawsuit asked for Davis to pay damages between $250,000 and $1 million. The case had been scheduled to go to trial in two weeks.
More recently, as a spiritual influencer, Davis has organized Christian retreats including one in Fort Worth last April where tickets were $125 a piece. She advertised the event as “a gospel centered day with other God-fearing women,” according to her new website, brittany-dawn.com.
This story includes information from the Star-Telegram’s archives.
This story was originally published May 3, 2023 at 4:09 PM.