TikToker spent months in Thai prison after posting ‘rage-bait’ videos about life abroad

A TikToker spent months jailed in a Thai prison after posting what she describes as “‘rage-bait’ videos” about life abroad in Thailand.

Ellis Matthews, 32, was jailed earlier this year along with her four-year-old son for overstaying her visa.

She says conditions in the prison were “horrific,” describing women and children forced to sleep on concrete floors, eat rat meat, and spend over 20 hours a day locked inside cramped cells.

After her release and deportation, Ellis returned to the UK six weeks ago but says she is now in hiding due to an “online hate campaign” against her. She also left her son Cairo behind with relatives in Thailand, fearing he would be taken into care if brought home.

Originally from Lancashire, the TikToker had become a divisive figure on the platform due to content detailing how she was living her dream life abroad, supported by British benefits.

Bangkok Immigration Detention Center via Google Maps

Ellis said she had a disability and six mental disorders, with videos offering her followers advice about how they could also cheat the UK benefits system to live in holiday destinations.

However, Ellis has since insisted the videos were “just a joke”. Speaking to the Daily Mail, she said: “The truth is that I never got any UK benefits while in Thailand, not a single penny.

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“I can understand why people were angry and upset about them which is why there’s not a lot of sympathy for me. But I was just lying in my videos to get more followers and make some money from my TikTok account. It was all a big hoax, that’s all.”

Ellis insists much of her content was about her day-to-day life spent cooking, cleaning, and raising Cairo, as well as speaking openly about the harassment she faces.

“Yes, before jail I made some ‘rage-bait’ videos”, she admitted. But she feels her accounts showed the reality of life behind the scenes, and that reality is now being “weaponised” by anonymous online stalkers.

Ellis and her son spent more than three months in the Thai detention centre, with the 32-year-old maintaining she was unable to fly home earlier because she didn’t have the money for a plane ticket.

The Daily Mail visited the TikToker earlier this year, where she was being detained in the Mothers and Children Immigration Centre in Bangkok, which is notorious for its poor conditions.

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Conditions inside the centre were reportedly squalid, with Ellis sharing a cell with 16 other female inmates, who all slept on a dirty concrete floor.

Both the female inmates and children were allegedly fed rat meat and lumpy rice at meal times, with Cairo refusing to eat and regressing to breastfeeding.

Ellis said: “The conditions were horrific. There were hundreds of women and children crammed into filthy rooms, forced to sleep on bare floors without mattresses.”

She further alleged that children were locked inside all day, with only 35 minutes spent outdoors each week, and unsanitary conditions such as overflowing toilets meaning disease was rife in the centre.

Cairo, who now lives with his uncle, reportedly witnessed incidents no young child should ever be exposed to, with Ellis saying around 30 per cent of detainees suffered with mental disorders.

According to the TikToker, inmates were often beaten and left handcuffed to bars of the cells for multiple days.

“Cairo refused to eat prison food and regressed to full breastfeeding. At one point, I even breastfed another starving child because there was no other way to keep them alive,” the 32-year-old said.

Many children were also allegedly malnourished, with Cairo losing weight himself and regressing developmentally. He suffers from trauma and, since his release, has been diagnosed with multiple illnesses which require medical treatment.

Discussing why she left Cairo behind, Ellis said it was “one of the hardest things [she’s] ever had to do.” However, she explained it felt as though she had no choice because she alleges to now be a victim of an “online hate campaign”, which is smearing her as a bad mother.

“I would never allow him to be passed around suffering in UK care. He has the right to a safe childhood,” she added.

Speaking about the online hate she says she’s become subject to, Ellis said she’s too scared to leave the house because she’s received so many threats from people looking to expose her location.

“They are constantly making false allegations that I abused my son and want to destroy my life. The depths they have gone to are chilling and have left me deeply disturbed. Both my son and I are suffering.”

The TikToker said she’s wishing for “normal life” with her son in the UK, but doesn’t feel that he’s able to safely return right now.

Bangkok Immigration Detention Center has been contacted for comment but has not yet responded.

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Featured image via @mumontherunofficial on TikTok and Google Maps