Picture this: You’re at a lake, enjoying the peaceful sounds of the water and the warm sunshine on your skin. All of a sudden, a woman approaches you and offers you $20 to jump in the lake – even though you can’t swim. Seems pretty crazy, right? Well, that’s exactly what happened to one unsuspecting woman thanks to an influencer named Natalie Reynolds.
Now, before we dive into this bizarre story, let’s get one thing straight – never, ever, should anyone be coerced into doing something dangerous for the sake of a social media stunt. That’s just downright wrong. But apparently, Natalie Reynolds didn’t get the memo.
As soon as the woman hits the water, she immediately starts panicking and calling out for help. But instead of coming to her aid, Reynolds does the unthinkable – she runs away. Yes, you read that right. She literally abandons the poor woman in the water, leaving her to find her way out.
She was live-streaming the stunt on Wednesday along Lady Bird Lake, in Austin, and was filmed telling the woman to “just jump in.”
Reynolds then freaked out after the woman actually flung herself headfirst into the water.
“You said it was OK… you told me to jump in,” the woman told Reynolds.
“No, I didn’t,” the streamer responded, laughing off the situation and rebuking her own friends who told her she did, in fact, tell the woman to jump.
The streamer’s fun, however, quickly ends, and she flees the scene as the woman yells that she’s struggling to get out of the water.
“I can’t swim, I can only float,” the woman yells off camera.
Reynolds then starts to tear up as her friends warn her that the situation is “really bad.”
“Stop, seriously, you’re actually freaking me out,” Reynolds says. “I’m going to f–ing kill myself. She says she’s drowning.”
The clip ends with Reynolds and her group driving away from the scene as a fire truck pulls in, with the influencers freaking out.
While the many details of the incident remain unclear, the Austin Fire Department confirmed that firefighters were called to Lady Bird Lake to provide medical assistance and that a person in the water was pulled out of the lake.
The woman’s condition was not immediately clear, nor was it clear what kind of medical assistance she needed.
Earlier in the video, Reynolds allegedly offered the woman $20 to jump into the water to retrieve an item as a part of a scavenger hunt event the streamer claimed to be taking part in.
Neither the Austin Fire Department nor the Austin Police Department immediately responded to The Post’s request for more details.
Reynolds defended her actions in a follow up stream, claiming she left at the instruction of her team and that it was the woman who first approached her and dared her to jump in the water.
The influencer also brushed back criticism, saying that the incident will be forgotten in a week.
While Reynolds garnered backlash on social media over the stunt.
“Human scum,” X power-user Colin Rugg wrote.
Another commenter said, “People taking advantage of vulnerable people are actually the worst kind of people they are. Predatory behavior. For what? Likes? Clickbaits? Views!?”
Others suggested that Reynolds should be arrested for the stunt.
It’s instances like these that really make you question the lengths some influencers will go to in order to gain followers and likes. Is it really worth putting someone’s life in danger for the sake of clout? Absolutely not.
So, let this be a lesson to all aspiring influencers out there – think before you act. And always remember that there’s a line between harmless fun and downright dangerous behavior.
Flip to the next page for pictures of the crazy stunt…
