Overview

Stormy Wellington also known as Coach Stormy is a millionaire lifestyle coach, entrepreneur, investor, reality TV personality and founder of Girl Hold My Hand Inc., a charitable foundation, movement and group that looks to support women who have experienced adversity and put them on a path to success. Wellington is known for her intense coaching style and wealth, which she claims to have earned through multi-level marketing and direct sales. In October 2022, she became a topic of discussion and criticism on TikTok after a video of her calling someone's plate of food a low vibration plate went viral, inspiring some to call her a scammer, using the variety of products and services she sells as evidence of this and, accuse her of running a pyramid scheme.

History

Before she was a millionaire, Wellington was an exotic dancer. She made her first appearance on TV in the 2011 reality series Amateur Millionaires Club, which lasted for one season.^[1] The series follows several Black women who have recently become millionaires, documenting their rise to wealth and how they have to adjust to their newfound lifestyle. Wellington is one of the women showcased (trailer shown below). According to the "My Story" section of Wellington's website, stormywellington.com,^[2] she made her money through "multi-level marketing and direct sales."

Over the following years, Wellington started Girl Hold My Hand Inc. and began offering her services as a lifestyle coach with the goals of helping women, particularly women of color, thrive through adversity and become millionaires. Wellington sells numerous products through her website, including CBD products, a weight loss plan, skincare products and a $490 USD annually subscription to her "Girl Hold My Hand + I Am WOKE Community," which includes access to life coaching resources from Wellington.^[3][10] In January 2022, The Washington Note^[4] posted an article claiming Wellington is worth $3-million USD.

Beyond the Pole

Between 2018 and 2021, Wellington hosted the show Beyond the Pole, where she coaches strippers in an attempt to find them success outside of dancing (scene shown below). The series lasted for two seasons.

Blackout Tuesday Controversy

On June 3rd, 2020, Twitter^[5] user @lmTheReasonWhy shared a video of Wellington claiming she lost $100,000 in product sales during the Blackout Tuesday campaign. In the video, she blames Black women for being followers, saying they silenced themselves by participating in the campaign (shown below). The post gained over 38,000 likes and 1.5 million views in two years (shown below).

Million Dollar Hustle

In March 2022, Wellington's new reality series, Million Dollar Hustle, began airing on Lifetime. The series follows Wellington as she coaches a circle of women, known as the Circle of Bosses. That January, a trailer for the series was posted to YouTube, garnering over 160,000 views in nine months (shown below).

Low Vibration Plate Controversy

On October 2nd, 2022, TikToker @tammyprice_, an inspirational speaker and life coach, posted a video where she sits with two other women, including Stormy Wellington, eating barbecue food off of paper plates. Wellington's plate has much less food than Price's, whose plate is piled high. In the video, Wellington tells Price that she would not eat the plate of food she's holding, saying, "You can’t pay me to do that to myself." Price tells Wellington that someone else gave her the food and Wellington responds, "I don’t do what they do, I do what I do[…] I would never eat a plate that look like this[…] It’s low vibration. My thought process is if you put it on my plate I don’t have to eat it, I got to be disciplined." At the end of the video, Price explains, "There’s a lot of people that just let people give them what they want them to have and they accept it[…] Coach Storm is teaching me don’t accept what they put on your plate." The video garnered over 500,000 views in two days (shown below). "Low vibrations" in this context essentially mean "bad vibes" or negative energy.

The video was posted in October 2022 and went viral over the following days, inspiring videos reacting to it and posts using the term "low vibration plate" as a slang term on Twitter synonymous with messy plates of food piled high. It also inspired criticism towards Wellington for shaming the other woman's plate of food.

Scammer Accusations

Following the low-vibration plate video, people began digging up past controversies about Wellington and sharing potential evidence of her being a scammer. On October 3rd, 2022, Twitter^[6] user @IYSKold posted, "That 'low vibrational plate' statement had me interested in what was going on and it was a retreat with whoever this Stormy Wellington person is," along with photos of the sign-up page for a retreat hosted by Wellington that shows a total entry cost of nearly $10,000 for the full experience, garnering over 7,100 likes in four days (shown below).

Numerous videos exposing Wellington as a potential scammer were posted to TikTok that month, as well as clips painting her as a rude and self-centered person. For example, on October 4th, TikToker @desdhabaddess posted a clip from the reality series Beyond the Pole where she talks down to another contestant, gaining over 100,000 views in three days (shown below, left). On October 6th, TikToker @hotweirdg0rl posted a video deep diving into Wellington's various businesses, accusing her of running a pyramid scheme, garnering over 247,000 views in a day (shown below, right).

Appearance on FOX Soul's Tea-G-I-F

On October 12th, 2022, Coach Stormy appeared on the FOX Soul podcast Tea-G-I-F to discuss the low vibration plate controversy. During the interview, Stormy says that "there’s a history" between her and the woman, Price, whose plate she said had low vibrations, saying, "I have been a mentor, her coach, and her friend. She literally calls me her angel." Stormy then says that Price “dishonored and disrespected” her with the plate, saying, “It was just low vibration. It was thrown together. It was very tacky and distasteful.” Funky Dineva, a gossip commentator and co-host of the podcast, tells her he thinks she's making things worse and that she told Price the plate is low vibrations because if she eats all that food, it will make it seem like Stormy's CBD tea doesn't work, as she will gain weight. He then says, "Stormy, you give more hoodrat daily than that woman’s plate did."

Online Presence

Wellington has been posting on TikTok,^[7] where she has over 260,000 followers, since November 2020, often sharing motivational posts and clips of herself coaching other women (examples shown below). Her earliest Instagram^[8] post dates back to June 2022, where she has over 1.4 million followers. She also has a YouTube^[9] channel where she posts similar content to over 85,000 subscribers.

Search Interest

External References