Drew Afualo has never been one to bite her tongue, and she isn’t about to start now.
The refreshingly unfiltered TikTok creator and host of “The Comment Section” exclusively spoke to Us about her role under the pressure of having a platform and what people tend to get wrong because of it.
“The largest misconception is that I’m just walking around swinging on people no matter what. That’s not how I am, quite literally at all. I think people would hate me if I was,” Afualo, 30, told Us during an interview to promote her new collaboration with Popsicle.
She first rose to fame on TikTok in 2021, which was an unplanned pivot after being laid off from a digital content role with the NFL. With time on her hands, she began posting videos calling out men for misogynistic behavior, a now-signature topic of hers that would eventually launch her career; content Afualo explained she initially made “purely for the love of the game and nothing more.”
With over 8.1 million followers on the app and a recent No. 22 spot on Forbes’ 2026 Top Creators list, the content creator-turned-podcaster is well aware of the influence she holds. “There is a lot of power in exercising that autonomy as someone with a platform, as someone who has a very, very large power of influence,” she told Us. “I can influence people very quickly and mobilize them very aggressively. I am very strategic about how and when I do that.”
The viral star carries that same dominant energy into topics she discusses on “The Comment Section”, where A-list guests like Cynthia Erivo, D’Arcy Carden, and Hayley Kiyoko have joined her for conversations about public scrutiny and navigating life in the public eye. As for how the creator handles hate from male trolls, Afualo said she’s learned not to let it affect her. “I think because I’m not afraid of men saying awful things to me or about me, I think they just kind of assume because I have no fear, that I’m like rude or mean or just crazy,” she added. “They just assume I’m like constantly like attacking people out of nowhere, which is insane. Nobody does that.”
Even as one of the internet’s most candid creators, she admits holding back from addressing certain topics isn’t easy, and she said the pressure of constantly weighing when to speak up and when to stay silent has become something she’s been actively working to juggle.
“One of the hardest things about this job that I talk about quite frequently in therapy is feeling muzzled to me. When I feel like I can’t talk about things or I feel like I’m not allowed to talk about things, which I am, but I’m not,” she explained to Us. “It’s like, it’s this very invisible barrier that I’ve been learning to navigate as I’ve been doing this and growing in this career.”
Pressure or not, her mission since the beginning of her career has stayed the same — mute the manosphere and empower her audience to do the same. “When women stand up for themselves, when women assert boundaries, when women are confident and unapologetic, it almost always goes to s***,” she continued. “Whereas with men, that does not happen.”
Still, no matter what gets thrown her way, Afualo said she’s found ways to make peace with it. “I focus a lot on the many, many people who love me and have told me how much my content has changed their life. I think I just kind of lean into the wonderful testimonies that I get constantly, and then spend time with people who have known me forever, because that always helps.”
As for who’s actually bringing the heat this summer, the internet personality is coming in hot — with an orange popsicle in hand as she joins Popsicle for their Flavor Feud campaign. “I’m Team Orange Popsicle because she’s a sleeper hit, and she’s incredible and consistent and amazing, just like me.”
She teamed up with Popsicle to lead Team Orange in this year’s flavor face-off, alongside Ashlee Simpson and Stassi Schroeder repping their own flavors, exactly the female-led dominance Afualo thinks the season calls for. “I think women are at their peak in the summer,” she added. “I think women should be their most confident, their most celebratory, their most fun…But as far as men, they’re terrible 365.”
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