The young woman behind a viral pizza-making social media campaign says she has become the target of harassment from obsessive men online and over the phone.
Aleaa Rose, known online as the “Florida pizza girl,” has helped Ian & Kye’s Pizza in Stuart, Fla., amass more than 500,000 social media followers over the past month through videos of herself making the shop’s Chicago-style thin-crust pizza. But the attention has taken a darker turn.
@frankielapenna Aleaa Rose, also known as “pizza girl” has amassed hundreds of millions of views online for her pizza videos. This is what she had to say about all the attention. @ianandkyespizza #pizzagirl #gyat #glutes #builtdifferent #pizza
♬ original sound – Frankie LaPenna
Rose said the barrage of unwanted contact from strangers has become a regular occurrence at the shop.
“We’ve been getting a lot of phone calls, people calling and asking for me, and it’s funny because they’ll call and everyone that works there will tell them something different,” she said.
One caller in particular has become especially persistent. “We have a guy that calls constantly. He’ll call, and it got to the point where I would just answer it and hang up,” Rose said.
She also described receiving deeply inappropriate messages from strangers. “There was this one guy that was like, ‘I wanna eat pizza girl,’ just super off-the-wall stuff,” she said.
Despite her sudden fame, Rose said the spotlight does not come naturally to her.
“I’m definitely an introvert, this is definitely out of my comfort zone,” she said. “When I filmed the first video, I was so nervous. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, everyone is going to see this.’ I was more self-conscious, I guess, but now I don’t really read the comments.”
Rose’s videos have transformed the small Florida pizzeria’s online presence, though the unwanted attention that has followed has presented new challenges for both her and the staff at Ian & Kye’s Pizza.
