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Singapore TikTokker confesses to plagiarising eating-disorder essay: ‘I am so sorry’

  • Brooke Lim, a 19-year-old influencer known for teaching people how to write essays, was accused last week of extensively plagiarising another’s work
  • In a TikTok video posted on Monday, Lim confessed to making ‘the very serious and regrettable’ mistake of plagiarising work from other writers

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Brooke Lim, a 19-year-old TikTok influencer in Singapore, confessed on Monday to making “the very serious and regrettable” mistake of plagiarising work from other writers. Photo: TikTok/@sugaresque
Business Insider Singapore/Malaysia

Brooke Lim rose to fame as a TikTokker known for teaching people how to write essays well. This week, that all came crashing down around her when she was accused of – and admitted to – plagiarising a part of her own essay.

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Lim, a 19-year-old TikTok influencer who goes by the ID @sugaresque, also happens to head up a tuition agency known as the Classicle Club. Lim’s TikTok paints the picture of a glamorous life: with perfectly coiffed hair and carefully curated outfits, she’s built an ardent following of more than 183,000 people.
Lim – lithe, beautiful, eloquent, and social media-savvy – made more than six figures in 2022 from the agency alone, reported Singapore newspaper The Straits Times.

But on Wednesday last week, Lim was accused by a TikTok account with the ID @sugaresqueessay of extensively plagiarising an essay titled “On Being Afraid Of Eating”, initially published on her blog, Grayscale Copy, on April 18. Lim’s blog is now password-protected.

An online petition has been launched calling for Lim’s university admissions letter to be vetted for plagiarism. Photo: TikTok/@sugaresque
An online petition has been launched calling for Lim’s university admissions letter to be vetted for plagiarism. Photo: TikTok/@sugaresque

Videos – and a lengthy Google document posted by an anonymous person – accused Lim of lifting phrases and even specific plot points from at least five different books for a long-form essay, which she characterised as a recount of her own experience battling an eating disorder.

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In a TikTok video posted on Monday, Lim confessed to making “the very serious and regrettable” mistake of plagiarising work from other writers. She apologised to her students and followers, and the authors whose work she used.

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