Influencer Kylan Darnell Breaks Silence After Stepping Away from Bama Rush: ‘Protecting My Peace’

Influencer Kylan Darnell explained why she declined to take part in the University of Alabama’s sorority rush for her senior year.

“I have personally decided to take a ‘Mental Health Day’ [during rush week] these next three days … because whenever I first came to the University of Alabama, I had no idea that my life was going to turn into what it has,” Darnell, 21, said in an August 11 TikTok video. “I was just a girl who thought it was so neat what I was doing, because being a girl from Ohio, I had no idea that you shouldn’t post on social media. I had no idea it was frowned upon [by sororities]. [I didn’t expect] the backlash or the positivity I would get for it.”

Darnell shot to fame with her Bama Rush viral recruitment videos in 2022, which documented her joining Zeta Tau Alpha and featured tips for other students. She subsequently amassed over 1.2 million TikTok followers by branding her social media around her guides for rushing sororities.

She has been no stranger to controversy in the past, including claiming in December 2024 that her mother bought her fake luxury goods for Christmas. Earlier this month, her spokesperson clarified to Us Weekly that Darnell had not posed next to a Nazi-era World War II fighter jet, as many speculated. (Instead, her rep clarified that the plane was a “North Americans P-51 Mustang” with Swastika emblems to symbolize “the number of enemy Nazi planes that were shot down by the United State Military.”)

Despite these controversies, Darnell assured her TikTok followers that she was “so grateful” for them giving her “a voice,” yet she felt she’s “grown” and that her life no longer revolved around sorority life.

“I’ve decided to take a couple of steps back to protect my own peace,” she said. “I am somebody that I love sharing both sides, but to be completely honest, I feel bad because I’ve had so many girls [reach out] through the years, saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to go to the University of Alabama because of you.’ … I personally feel that if I were to post this year and promote [rushing], I would be promoting those girls an injustice.”

Darnell encouraged young women to rush sororities if they were passionate about the Panhellenic lifestyle, though she admitted to “struggling” with her own experience recently.

“I won’t lie to you, I’ve just not been enjoying it,” she explained. “I’ve not been having fun and I noticed that my mental health has just gone down. I feel like if I was to go on [social media] and show off these cute outfits, I would be lying to you guys and myself.”

The Bama Rush alum later elaborated on her decision to step back from rush week, revealing to People that she was especially disappointed with social media speculation about her younger sister, Izzy, taking part in freshman recruitment.

“I saw a video of somebody saying that my sister didn’t even get accepted to the university,” Kylan recalled. “It was a bit ridiculous. I’ve got comments where people are going in on my sorority sisters and creating more drama for me.”

Kylan suggested that her social media branding as the “Bama Rush Queen” definitely made it “harder” for her younger sister to go through the pledging process.

“The University of Alabama, the sororities and fraternities, it’s very secret,” Kylan pointed out. “They don’t want anybody to know, and Izzy is a big liability. So, it’s been very hard for her and what people are saying on the Internet just because she wants her own voice during this process.”

Despite branding herself around sorority life, Kylan advised that young women shouldn’t post about the process at all until they are accepted to a house.

“For the future PNMs [Potential New Members], I just wouldn’t post,” she said. “I feel bad that I’ve posted this whole time online and made girls think that they should, but I’ve just realized that the talk around sororities and universities, if girls post online and they’re not picking them, I just feel like that’s very disheartening.”

Kylan is expected to graduate from the University of Alabama in spring 2026 and said she’s excited to find “a big girl job” in the sports media sector.