Woman refuses to homeschool kids during lockdown, wants them to become Insta stars: 'That's where the money is'
Carla Bellucci, the 38-year-old mother who made headlines last year after she admitted to faking depression to trick the NHS into paying for her nose job, recently opened up about how she is not bothered about homeschooling her children during the coronavirus lockdown and is instead focusing her energies on making them social media stars.
Speaking to the Sun's Fabulous, she said "books are boring" and slammed teachers for not offering virtual Zoom lessons. She concluded her rant against the teachers by saying that if they could not be bothered to be concerned about her daughter's studies then she was not going to bother either. Apparently, Carla, her 15-year-old daughter Tanisha and 12-year-old son Jayden, sleep late into the day and spend the rest of the time either playing computer games or practicing poses for Instagram.
“The only thing Tanisha has read since lockdown is Instagram updates and the only maths she's done is working out how many more followers she's got on Instagram," said Carla. "She's not interested in school work and I'm not going to push her. When lockdown hit they were given lots of school work to do at home. All their friends' parents were complaining about how long it was going to take them to do essays in English and history, difficult maths lessons and art projects."
"I saw the amount of work and told my kids to put it in the corner." She said she decided that it would be more worthwhile to teach her kids how to be famous on social media rather than making them "book smart".
"I decided my kids were going to use this time to focus on becoming famous and helping me with my career by taking snaps of me," she said. "I don't care they haven't done a scrap of home learning since lockdown was called. They have matured, become more self-confident, and focussed their goals on being TikTok, YouTube or Insta stars and that’s a proper career and where the money is. It makes sense — they are bright kids but not book smart."
Lockdown had given her the perfect opportunity to groom and train her children to become future social media influencers, Carla said - something she aspired for her son and daughter's future. "I'd rather they were famous Insta stars than lawyers or anything like that. My kids have the looks, sass and imagination to make it big on social media and I’d rather spend all day doing lives on Instagram, uploading pictures, updating their stories and doing TikTok dances."
"For me lockdown is the perfect time to ditch the books and with my help spread their wings and experience the real world via social media. They need to learn to market themselves and gaining followers is what matters. Books are for boring people," she explained. While her daughter was more into posing for pictures while sunbathing in the garden, her son was serious about devoting his time playing video games and binge-watching Netflix.
“I help her put on her make-up and hair extensions and we do photoshoots and learn poses for her social media accounts," she said. "They’re still important skills. Tanisha and I love sunbathing together in the back garden and we spend at least two hours today doing photo shoots with Jayden taking pictures. When Jayden isn’t doing marathon gaming sessions which can last 18 hours with his friends online because he wants to be a professional gamer or actor he will be binge-watching the latest TV shows on Netflix. He’s so happy gaming and relaxing and is flourishing."
To defend her parenting skills against haters and critics, she cited the example of Kris Jenner, who built a reality TV empire by making her daughters social media-ready.
"Tanisha’s aim in life is to appear on 'Love Island' and she doesn’t need any GCSEs to do that. I want her to be famous as I feel it's the best way to get on in life. Jayden wants to be an actor or gamer, so he’s watching films and box-sets every day. Kylie and Kendall Jenner were pouting and posing all over social media at Tanisha’s age and look at their success. Their mum focussed on social media fame and they’re billionaires and millionaires. I am sure people will claim I am a terrible mum," Carla said.
However, Carla thinks that the people who point a finger at the kind of upbringing that she was subjecting her children to were just mad her because she was able to score a free job on the NHS. "NHS is under pressure but that's not my fault," she added. She thinks she was a "fantastic mum." "I know how the real world works and wasting time home-schooling will get us no were. The teachers should be doing it not parents. My kids are using lockdown to get the jump on other kids their age with social media profiles and fame. I have no regrets and don’t care what people think; they are just jealous," she concluded.