Calling bullshit on the YouTuber who says she’s living ‘completely off-grid’ in a South American jungle

A sinister YouTube star is almost definitely lying to you about moving to the South American jungle to live an Instagram-friendly off-grid lifestyle. Freelee (formerly Freelee the Banana Girl, real name Leanne Ratcliffe) is an Australian YouTuber with a huge following of fans eager to watch her videos about going vegan. And now I swear she's peddling a new lie about living off-grid deep in the Ecuadorian jungle.

"I chose the off-grid lifestyle because it just feels right," says Freelee in a video called Why I moved from the City to the Off Grid Jungle. "I love being surrounded by nature, rather than cars, people and shops." She's even been praised by the Daily Mail as a "public activist" who enjoys a wholesome jungle existence.

Which sounds lovely! If only it were true!

The first thing that made me smell a rat was when she railed against "cars and shops." Yet she clearly 1) owns a car and 2) goes to shops! Here's a screenshot of her driving through the streets of Quito in an earlier video called What is it like to live in Ecuador? A Day in the life.

And here she is filming her partner buying food in a shop.

Next is where she actually lives. She would have you believe from looking at her Instagram that she literally lives nude in the jungle, sleeping on trees and bathing in rivers.

I'm not an expert but aren't there like, ants and mosquitos and gigantic hairy spiders waiting to bite your ass in the jungle? She can't actually be sleeping in the trees, can she?

So maybe she lives here, as this thumbnail from her video suggests:

Or wait – maybe it's here, as this photo in the Daily Mail article suggests:

Or is it actually this shack that looks like something straight out of a luxury hotel, complete with kitchen and lacquered floorboards? The home where she keeps her enormous computer to edit HD videos and upload them to her viral YouTube channel? Off-grid my ass!

"So generally for dinner we will just sit down and talk about our day and enjoy each other's company," she says in her video describing her extremely off-grid life. "Or else we might actually watch an educational documentary or something like that."

She goes on: "I gave away most of my possessions and embraced a minimalist lifestyle." What a wonderful minimalist lifestyle it must be to shed excess possessions, unplug from society, and only keep the bare essentials that matter – essentials like an expensive computer screen, a high-speed internet connection fast enough to maintain a YouTube channel, yoga mats, a car…

Also – check out these screenshots from her videos. Can you please tell me if the first one is actually some sort of five-star hotel tiki torch and the second is just an electricity pylon?

If you have any info about Freelee's off-grid lifestyle actually being a scam, or any other fake YouTubers, please email [email protected] with receipts.

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@hshukman