She is the little sister of McFly’s Tom Fletcher and sister-in-law to Giovanna Fletcher (known for Happy Mum, Happy Baby and winning the 2019 series of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!).
Carrie is most known for performing in musical theatre roles such as Eponine in Les Misérables, Veronica in Heathers and the lead in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella.
Carrie first appeared in the West End as a child, playing child Eponine in Les Misérables, Jemima Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Jane Banks in Mary Poppins. She often emphasises these were all before the age of 11 years old. She often refers back to her childhood performances as if they were more relevant than the major roles she's played as an adult.
She started a YouTube channel in 2011 (originally titled ItsWayPastMyBedtime) off the back of her brother’s fame, before starting her adult career on the West End stage. Some speculate that she only got her agent and Les Mis role because of her YouTube follower count. She used to showcase her theatre life in her vlogs, and has spoken about how this was part of her contracts, but these vlogs have significantly dwindled over the years. The videos she does upload now involve a lot of shouting.
Carrie has repeatedly said she’s always treated social media as a side-line to her "real" career as an actress and author. However, she started her channel at least a year before she landed her first professional adult role, and long before she'd ever published a book. She used to be active across several social media channels but now only regularly uses Instagram. She’s repeatedly deleted (and reactivated and then deleted again) her Twitter and Facebook and permanently deleted her TikTok after getting into multiple arguments on them.
She is the author of several romance novels, children’s books, and released a memoir about her early life and career. She produces books very quickly and they’re not exactly well written. Many Tattlers speculate she has a ghost writer, others disagree as they say the quality of her books would be a lot better if she did. She regularly self-inserts herself and her current boyfriend into her books.
She is best known for her YouTube and stage career but seems to favour being an author over these. She's asked her Instagram followers how they best know her, and author only got 2% of the response.
She also answered a Q&A on her Instagram stories saying she would rather lose the ability to sing over losing the ability to read and write.
Carrie's daughter with Joel, Mabel Hope Montague was born on 1st March 2024. Tattlers have speculated as to whether Carrie might morph into a generic mum influencer, although she has indicated she wants to continue her career in theatre.
Why Does She Have Tattle Threads?
Well, her online behaviour leaves a lot to be desired. Many Tattlers are former fans who have either been blocked by Carrie, received snotty messages from her or noticed how she treats her fans/other people and sought out places like this to see if anybody else has noticed the same behaviour.
Many noticed she will ignore the hundreds of complimentary comments (not even taking a second to like them) but will always reply to the one or two negative comments and then continue to reply and escalate the situation. She constantly says she “ignores the haters” but her behaviour states otherwise.
She is what we call the Queen of the Clapback because she constantly snaps at her fans for even the slightest hint of criticism and then goes on a multiple stories rant on her Instagram. Her block button is always at the ready, even liking comments she deems as coming from “haters” will get you blocked. If she doesn’t like a question you’ve asked in her numerous Q&As? Blocked. Many fans have contacted her on other social media platforms (when she’s not deactivated them following arguments, that is) to say they’ve been blocked on her Instagram, asking her to unblock them as they don’t know why it happened, and they miss seeing her content.
We’ve lost count the number of times she’s deactivated her twitter because one of her rants has backfired on her. She regularly deletes comments on YouTube and Instagram to control the narrative, but you can’t do that on twitter.
Carrie likes to centre herself as the victim, even when she’s the one bullying others and her behaviour is rightly being called out. She seems to think having brown eyes and blonde hair is incredibly rare as well as the name Carrie. She's made a couple of references to this over the years, including saying she was bullied for "having brown eyes and blonde hair”.
She regularly underplays her privilege and makes out as if she comes from a struggling working-class family. When the truth is her mum didn’t work when she was growing up, Carrie and her brother went to private schools and the family took multiple trips to Disneyland Florida during their childhood (and continue to do so now).
She has this tendency to rewrite history when her relationships end. When she’s in a relationship she constantly posts about how she’s the happiest she’s ever been. Once the relationship ends, she starts changing the narrative and insinuates she was actually very unhappy and NOW she’s the happiest she’s ever been. She has accused Pete of being violent following their break-up. Following her separation from Oliver she started claiming she wasn’t able to wear the type of outfits she really wanted to, dye her hair, or get tattoos.
Her Online Presence
In more than ten years as an influencer, Carrie’s content and posting style has not evolved much. This limits her appeal to teens/tweens, who were her original fanbase and are outgrowing her, as her style feels very dated, and is being surpassed by other stage performers.
She also doesn't seem to realise the behaviour that might be expected from a 20-year-old influencer just starting out isn't appropriate for a 30-year-old professional woman. At any given time, expect Carrie to post dozens of Insta stories about the minutiae of her life, including TMI about needing to pee or feeling sick etc. At the end of 2021, she shared an entire 99 stories for her "Year in Review" (100 is the maximum limit) including unflattering pictures and trivial moments that you wouldn't expect her to see as a highlight of the year. She did the same at the end of 2022.
She likes to make passive-aggressive posts/vlogs/tweets and throw tantrums over perceived slights. Her fans (and her mother) frequently rally to her defence whenever something upsets her online. She’s also admitted to creating a profile, posing as a fan and posting on a previous gossip site about herself. You can read (and see screenshots) about her Moonshine profile on Guru Gossip in this section.
Following her break-up from Oliver, Tattlers discovered a finsta account of Carrie’s. Despite still having this finsta, Carrie still posts an overload of personal content to her main account that is essentially a professional account. These highly personal posts and rants will be mixed in with sponsored brand deals, contracted content for her theatre jobs, and book promotion (including children’s books).
As part of job also she is supposed to post content about her show. It’s like me running the M&S Insta and one day posting about Colin the caterpillar and Percy Pigs and the next posting passive aggressive posts about the customers who ask when the opening times are, or randomly revealing personal details about my heartbreak.
Highly unprofessional. I can practically hear eyes in the industry rolling from here
Carrie regularly does Q&As on her Instagram stories. Tattlers have often wondered if she uses these questions to answer topics we have regularly been discussing on here. Her responses to questions (that she chooses to answer herself) can be quite rude and unprofessional at times too. These include snapping at her fans (as usual) as well as tagging her former boss in discussion of a rumour that she'd slept with him to get cast. She’s also used her Q&As to promote businesses close to herself/her now husband Joel without marking them as AD, sponsored or a close link to her.
So Carrie writing a herself a question on perfume to promote Joel’s friend Nadeem’s perfume company.
Her Q and As are a joke at this point. They’re so obviously questions posed by her and used as:
A device to tag companies to get freebies
A method to promote friends businesses
A way of defending herself against legitimate concerns here
A way of controlling the narrative on her relationship.
She must have such a low opinion of her followers. She clearly thinks they’re stupid.
Her tendency to lash out at others got markedly worse during Cinderella. She repeatedly argued with fans online, criticised Andrew Lloyd-Webber (her boss at the time) and complained about negative reactions to the show. Her unprofessional behaviour was noticed by posters on theatreboard and other social media platforms.
There is some speculation as to whether Carrie buys followers. Analysing her stats shows spikes of new followers who do not appear to engage with her content; and a lot of her Twitter followers have empty accounts.
Her behaviour on social media has only got worse since she and Joel got together, as he has even less restraint than she does - see wiki page 3 for more on that.
Hopefuls / Hatefuls
Carrie's fanbase call themselves the Hopefuls but Tattlers have nicknamed them Hatefuls because of the way they gang up and attack anyone even slightly critical of Carrie.
This is why Tattlers have a problem with Carrie doxing people on her Instagram stories. She knows as soon as she shows a comment or account on her stories, her Hatefuls will go straight to their page and bombard them with nasty comments, far exceeding the original “rude comment”.
In December 2022, Carrie floated the idea of setting up a subscription service on her Instragram account. Some Tattlers had access to this content through people they know who were paying because of their love for Carrie, guess what Carrie did when that follower commented something she didn’t like? Blocked them. Before that account was blocked, we discovered Carrie wanted a name for the subscriber group and she picked “The Sonder Society”. She promised to regularly post on this subscription service, but Tattlers noticed she wasn’t keeping to this agreement within weeks of setting it up.
She has a Cameo account that she opens and closes depending on her work schedule. She used to have a monthly subscription service on that too but shut it down when she failed to stick to the level of interaction she promised her subscribers and they started to complain.
Her fans can be quite childish in theatres and disrupt other members of the audience, especially during her run in Heathers. They regularly cheered and clapped at inappropriate times, so it was often difficult to hear the music or dialogue. This was noted on other sites such as theatreboard and seemed to frustrate others too.
Carrie receives a lot of fan mail but is notorious for taking a long time to reply…like YEARS to reply. There’s been instances of her replying to fans who have been blocked on her social media accounts in the years between sending their letter and receiving her response.
Carrie has asked fans not to send her presents but then proudly showcased them on social media. She has said she doesn’t need fans to buy her things but then goes over-the-top on her stories/YouTube videos showing presents from fans such as Lush bath/body products and food/sweets. Tattlers have an issue with this as things could easily be tampered with and some young fans may see buying her gifts as the only way to get attention from her so go out of their way to spend money on someone who is rich enough to buy her own things.
Tattle detectives found this unfortunate tattoo a fan of Carrie's got on their leg. It's supposed to be Carrie as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family Tour.
We Don't Dox!
Carrie regularly says on her social media accounts how Tattlers have doxed her and shared her house address online. This never happened.
When she bought her house, there were discussions on GG (another gossip site but we have since moved over to Tattle) about how much her house cost. Carrie was regularly posting things such as very distinctive wallpaper, train stations and shops in the local vicinity, how close her house was to where Tom was living at the time and how they bumped into each other in the local woods on runs. Using this information (that Carrie was freely posting about), commenters were able to locate the Rightmove listing for the sale of her house. The house price was discussed but at no point was the address freely shared.
Carrie spun this on her social media as “the meanie haters” doxing her and compromising her safety. She said she was seeking legal advice and talking to the police, but nothing ever came of it.
Carrie has continued to accuse Tattle of doxing her, but we argue that she does that all on her own due to the type of content she posts. Before moving into her house, she said she would never give away any information about where she lived; but has since shared numerous photos of her neighbourhood as well as identifying features inside and outside of her house. Examples of her taking vast liberties with her own safety include:
Tagging her exact location on Instagram whilst she is still there
Letting Joel share a photo of her car licence plate
Showing the luggage tag on her suitcase - only editing this out as an afterthought
Giving details about her schedule such as where she'll be at given times and what hotels she's staying in whilst on tour/holiday
Posted a video during Chitty Chitty Bang Bang of herself walking to her hotel room, clearly showing what room she was in and where in the hotel it was
Announcing the route she takes home from the theatre including bus stops/train stations
Sharing a photo of her baby scan including her full name and the name of the hospital
Carrie and Joel registered a business for their teaching workshops. They used their home address as their registered business address - meaning it will be on all documentation and is publicly available for anyone to view at Companies House. Upon realising this they then changed it to an address in Crewe (where Joel's family live so he may have doxed them too!) The previous registered address will still be visible. Carrie is listed on Companies House as a director of two other businesses that use a shared office address. Couldn't she have used that one for this business?
Gi was performing in the national tour of Everybody's Talking About Jamie, and Carrie and Joel announced what day and time they were going to watch it - letting the world know where to find them and when their house would be empty.
Carrie says that she will never show Mabel's face on social media for privacy and safety reasons, but she has no problem with:
Joel sharing a photo of Tom holding newborn Mabel, where her face was fully visible. Again this was a couple of months after he self-doxed himself and Carrie and told the world where their child would be living.
Posting subscriber-only content of herself breastfeeding. It's difficult to fully hide Mabel's face when feeding her, and there is no way to vet subscribers, so anyone can see this.
Bringing Mabel to Beginners Call workshops and introducing her to the guests - so basically you're welcome to see the baby if you've paid!
We have censored these screenshots to remove as much identifying information as possible.
When on holiday, Carrie and Joel have repeatedly posted the name and location of their hotels in real time. On their Disneyland Paris holiday, Carrie posted recap reels at the end of each day once they were back in their hotel. Joel posted real time stories showing their exact location.
She has had “fans” turn up at her house, but Tattlers have always condemned this behaviour and empathise with Carrie on how scary this can be. The problem is she still tries to spin this as Tattle doxing her information when that has never happened. There are multiple steps she can take to remove her information from the internet and also change how she posts to protect her privacy.
Controversies
This section will give a brief overview on the recent controversies surrounding Carrie, with links to further details in other parts of the wiki.
Many people (and not just Tattlers) have an issue with her now husband Joel Montague. Their relationship progressed incredibly quickly, especially given Carrie had only recently separated from her previous partner, Oliver Ormson, whom she’d been with for over 5 years.
Joel has repeatedly displayed worrying behaviour such as love bombing, defending sexual assault allegations, arguing with Carrie’s fans, courting the attention of Carrie’s fans, and exploiting her family name to gain attention.
She decided it would be a good idea to plug her own (poorly written) book to a dying woman on twitter. She posted about it on her Instagram stories so of course her Hopefuls bombarded the thread with comments in support of Carrie and attacking others. Carrie ended up deleting her Twitter account (again) following this.
Her former boyfriend, Alex Day, is a YouTuber who is accused of sexual misconduct. At the time of the allegations, Carrie initially supported him and blamed the women (and young girls). One of his accusers was a friend of Carrie’s at the time and she initially accused her of lying. She ended up breaking up with Alex and then demanding to not be included in his tell-all book.
Carrie describes herself as an incurable romantic who dreams of a fairy tale romance and big white wedding. Appropriately, she goes on at least one Disney holiday with each boyfriend.
Her major relationships have all been with other musicians/performers. She is now married to Joel Montague after they got engaged within 5 months and married within 9 months.
Past romances include:
Charlie Yang - Carrie was dating Charlie at the time she started out on YouTube. They recorded some music together and he appeared in early vlogs with her.
Alex Day - Carrie's boyfriend between 2013-14. They broke up around the time of allegations of sexual misconduct against Alex.
Pete "Echoist" Kingston - Carrie and Pete (then known as Pete Bucknall) dated between 2015-17. This relationship ended when she met Oliver whilst starring in The Addams Family tour with him.
Carrie has spoken negatively about Pete since their break-up. An example of this is under the spoiler tag below, it shows a screenshot from her website where she implies a holiday with him was so traumatic that she blocked out the memory. She always referred to him by his full name, which may be part of the reason for him changing his name after their break-up.
Oliver Ormson - Carrie met Oliver when he was playing her love interest in TheAddams Family tour. Though Oliver was a heavy presence on Carrie’s social media, they didn’t officially announce their relationship for some time. Both Carrie and Oliver were in other relationships when they met (Carrie with Pete, Oliver with Summer Strallen) and they have repeatedly changed their anniversary dates which has led to speculation of them cheating.
When Carrie's relationships with Charlie, Alex, and Pete ended, their social media presence mysteriously died out very quickly (although in Alex's case, this was probably because of his alleged sexual misconduct) and has never recovered. We call her the black widow of social media. It remains to be seen if the same will happen with Oliver whose career continues to rise.
All the Soulmates
Her husband refers to Carrie as his soulmate, and though Carrie does the same (eventually), she also has a long list of other soulmates.
She's also referred to her best friend and past boyfriends as her soulmate.
This is something Tattlers regularly joke about.
Tattoos and Rings
Following her break up from Oliver, Carrie started to imply she couldn’t get the tattoos she wanted so it was something she did once she was single. This is the sunflower thigh tattoo she had done:
Carrie had a tattoo done shortly after meeting Joel that many people think relates to their catchphrase “in all the universes” from the Dr Strange film they saw on their first date.
These posts give some information about the engagement ring:
This is Joel's wedding ring and the sweat band he uses to cover it up when on stage in Hamilton.
Joel Relationship
Carrie started dating Joel Montague (fellow West End actor) in May 2022, they were engaged by Oct 2022 and married early February 2023. They admitted in their Hello magazine article that Joel moved into her house on the night of their first date. Joel has become such presence in Carrie's life that we have been flying through threads since he arrived and he now has his own page on Carrie's wiki. You can read all about their whirlwind romance, how they fight with "haters" in their comment section and DMs, being STRANDED in the CAPTIAL OF FRANCE, their OTT social media posts and Joel defending SA allegations against Cristiano Ronaldo on page 3 of her wiki.
Comparisons
Tattlers have noticed a lot of changes in Carrie over the years.
Many Tattlers say her smile doesn't seem to reach her eyes any more and compared her wedding pictures to old pictures of her.
Tattlers have also discussed the difference in the way she looked at her ex boyfriends. This is how she looked at Pete:
This is how she looked at Oliver:
And this is how she looks at former co-star Jamie Muscato.
And this is how she looks at Joel:
This is a comparison of her ex-boyfriend and her husband.
And this post shows you the difference in the way Carrie and Joel post about their relationship online vs Oliver and his current girlfriend Alessia.
People often mentioned on Carrie's threads
Family
Mabel Hope Montague = Carrie and Joel's daughter, born 1st March 2024 Debbie = Carrie's mother, known to be very defensive of her on social media. Tom Fletcher = Carrie's older brother, pop star known as a singer/guitarist in the band McFly. Giovanna "Gi" Fletcher = Tom's wife and Carrie's sister-in-law, who is known as a writer, actress, TV personality, and podcast host. Buzz, Buddy, and Max = Carrie's nephews, Tom and Gi's children Edgar = Carrie's long-suffering cat Gail = Joel's mother and Carrie's mother-in-law
Partners
Joel Montague = Carrie's current husband, whom she married in February 2023 after just 9 months together. He moved in with her after their first date. See wiki page 3 for the full sorry saga. Oliver Ormson = Carrie's boyfriend from 2017 until January 2022 when he suddenly broke up with her Pete Kingston = Carrie's boyfriend from 2015-17. Alex Day = Disgraced YouTuber/musician with whom Carrie had a relationship until 2013. Upset Carrie by writing about her in his memoir, see above. Charlie Yang = Carrie's boyfriend at the time she was first on YouTube.
Friends
Scott Paige = Carrie's best friend and "soul mate" as proclaimed by her. Also housemate, as he's been living with her the whole time she's been with Joel. Matt McDonald = Carrie's other housemate, also an actor. Rob Houchen = Another friend in the theatre industry who appears on her social media fairly often Celinde Schoenmaker = Old friend of Carrie with whom she has co-hosted a podcast and performed in a vocal group, see wiki page 2. Mollie Melia-Redgrave = Was ostensibly a good friend of Carrie at one point but now they never mention each other, although Mollie was at Carrie's wedding. Jamie Muscato = Carrie's co-star in Heathers and Once that she has often publicly lusted over. Lauren Byrne = First cover Cinderella in ALW's Cinderella on the West End. She appeared to be Carrie's closest friend among the cast but little has been heard of her from Carrie since the show ended. Danny "With a Camera" = Was hired to do the photos/video for Carrie's solo tour and her second wedding with Joel.
Others
Summer Strallen = Oliver's ex whom he left for Carrie Alessia McDermott = Oliver's current girlfriend. Tattlers speculate as to how Carrie feels about her, because Oliver seems to give Alessia all the PDA and cute photos on social media that he wouldn't do for Carrie. Bradley Jaden = Mutual friend of Joel and Carrie and was her co-star in Treason. Joel says he and Bradley are best friends, but then made an OTT Insta post about how Bradley's wedding was all about Joel and Carrie who at that time had been dating for a month or so. (See wiki page 3.) Bradley's response was not recorded.
Oliver Relationship
Carrie was dating Pete when she met Oliver during The Addams Family tour and Oliver was dating Summer Strallen.
Carrie posted on her blog about breaking up with Pete, only saying it happened a “couple of months ago”.
Oliver started appearing in a lot of Carrie’s vlogs. They were flirtatious and always sitting close to each other. Hopefuls started to notice and speculate if they were together in the comments of her videos. She also posted photos with her usual "hand on chest" pose she likes to do with male co-stars. Carrie seemed to enjoy teasing her fans about the possible new relationship. Carrie has since admitted they had a friends-with-benefits relationship during the tour and she viewed The Addams Family tour as her uni experience.
Oliver moved into Carrie’s flat following the Addams tour and then into Carrie's new house. They lived with her brother Tom and sister-in-law Gi for a couple of months whilst her house was being renovated. Carrie continued to show Oliver in her vlogs and on Instagram, regularly referring to him by his full name. Sometimes Oliver looked uncomfortable to have a camera in his face.
She wrote a book with a character that many Tattlers believe to be an Oliver insert. It was discussed on GG when Oliver booked another panto job (Sleeping Beauty) as there were multiple panto disses within the book.
They called each other "pumpkin", constantly referring to each other with this nickname in posts and videos. Tattlers have found it strange how Joel had a pumpkin inscribed with their first date for their engagement party as pumpkins were always something she and Oliver shared.
Carrie threw Oliver a surprise 30th birthday party at her new house.
Like with Pete (and now Joel too), Carrie sang songs with Oliver and had him duet with her on her solo album. They performed Suddenly Seymour during the lockdown. This is a song Joel has talked about singing with Carrie on multiple occasions.
Oliver Calling Us C*nts
Back in October 2018, Carrie had an active page on a site called Guru Gossip. Oliver ending up tweeting about the site and called the people who participated C U Next Tuesdays...if you know what I mean.
Mermaids!
In March 2020 Carrie uploaded photos of her and Oliver as Mermaids by photographer Linda Blacker. It was done over Skype due to the pandemic and was the first time Oliver had been involved in one of these shoots. The pictures were... something. Oliver ignored it as much as possible and didn't link or post it on his social media account.
They did a YouTube series called “Good Morning World” on Oliver’s YouTube channel and “Good Evening World” on Carrie’s YouTube channel during the lockdown. Carrie has since deleted most of these videos following their break-up.
Guardian Article
In October 2021, The Guardian published an article about the “Fairy tale couple at the heart of West End’s revival”. The photos from the article were...interesting.
Here are screenshots of the full Guardian article:
In mid-December 2021 Carrie and Oliver went to Finland. Many Tattlers speculated if they were going to get engaged given the length of time they’d been together and Carrie previously insisting she wanted to be married by 30. Tattlers also noticed Carrie had a fresh manicure but there was no engagement announced and the couple were quite quiet following their trip.
Oliver breakup
In early January 2022, Carrie and Oliver unfollowed each other on social media and she "logged off" from Instagram for several weeks. Tattle detectives found a finsta account that appeared to be Carrie due to who started following it. She accidentally shared a story to her main account about being "heartbroken" and eating a full Terry's chocolate orange but quickly deleted it.
A couple of days later she announced on her main account that she and Oliver had broken up and that he had walked out on her without warning. She reposted it to stories a couple of days later after getting multiple questions about it.
Carrie shared a post later on with a picture she took with Scott on January 16th 2022 and said her break up happened two days before. She met up with Scott on his latest tour stop (he was performing in The Addams Family at the time) then went back to his family home with him for a couple of days.
After the breakup, Carrie shared endless "inspirational" quotes about how she's sooo over Oliver and implying he needs therapy. These are only a tiny amount of the inspirational posting she uploaded.
She posted on her Instagram about struggling following her break up, especially as she was starring in a show (Cinderella) where her character is "constantly put down" and called ugly. (In context of this show, Cinderella clearly isn't intended to be ugly, she just hasn't had plastic surgery like everyone else in town.) The Daily Mail, aka the Daily Fail, picked up the story and wrote an article about her heartbreak. It wasn't very well received in their comment section.
She posted about her heartbreak on her subscription account too (this was posted after she was engaged to Joel by the way).
She's continued to randomly post about her break up. This has included posts on her main feed and also multiple posts on her stories, especially during her yearly recap.
She dyed her hair Ginger post break up and has implied she couldn't do this whilst still with Oliver.
And she went on a WILD holiday with friends to show Oliver what he's missing (and was all over her gay friends)
She would randomly post about being sad and having difficult days. Even after she was "plunged into happiness" with Joel.
She posted some drunken and flirtatious photos with her Cinderella co-star.
In April 2022, Oliver indicated he had moved in with his new girlfriend, leading to speculation of "overlap" with Carrie. She announced just a week or two later that she was dating Joel. Carrie has now alleged that Oliver was very controlling during the relationship and would not let her get tattoos or dress the way she wanted.
Oliver still follows Gi on social media and responds to some of her posts, including one about the death of her cat (an obviously sensitive matter.) We find this interesting; Oliver is clearly comfortable expressing condolences with Gi, and if he had treated Carrie badly you would expect her to have blocked him.
Cinderella Debacle
In 2019 Carrie took part in the workshop for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella, and then in early 2020 she was announced to have been cast as the lead. It was due to open in 2020 but was delayed multiple times due to the COVID-19 pandemic and eventually opened over a year later. The show re-imagines Cinderella as a Doc Martens-wearing loudmouth with a huge "not like the other girls" complex - who does that remind you of? Her ego rose further by being praised as ALW's latest leading lady, despite his long history of fawning over the lead of a new show and then dropping them as soon as it finishes. However, the West End run of Cinderella was plagued with numerous problems and was a seemingly endless source of drama for Carrie.
Cinderella's Missed Performances
Carrie regularly withdrew from performances of Cinderella at short notice. She had much more time off than normal for a West End lead, and reached the 100 performances mark over a month later than the male lead, Ivano Turco. At the time Carrie claimed the producers kept changing the schedule and it was up to them. Her absences could have been for a number of reasons such as vocal strain, mental health, or conflict with Andrew Lloyd Webber. In early 2022, Cinderella received new branding and publicity that marketed the show as an ensemble piece, with much less focus on Carrie. This was likely an effort at damage control over her absences.
Carrie would regularly get tweets from fans saying they were disappointed to have missed her performing. This lead to her "there is a not a single poster of me" and "they sell tickets to Cinderella, you will always get Cinderella" tweets. Her tweets received a mixed but mostly negative reaction.
Carrie had an alternate, Georgina Onuorah, for her run as Cinderella in the West End. This also caused confusion with her fans as they regularly booked expecting Carrie when it was actually the advertised performance for Georgina (or it was switched last minute). The Broadway version of the show also had an alternate Cinderella, but they clearly advertised that she led two specific performances each week, and they stuck to that schedule - the lead actress performed all other shows (unless sick or on holiday).
At one point she was off Cinderella with a cold, only to perform at the Diana Awards and then call out sick the following day at Cinderella.
There was also a comment on a theatre forum saying they had seen Cinderella and Carrie was really struggling with her voice. She was doing workshops during the day and performing as Cinderella in the evenings at this point, and had just completed her book tour.
West End Live 2021
At West End Live, Carrie was late / off-key at some parts of the Cinderella set, due to sound issues (which are common at WEL.) She made numerous social media posts about it, complaining about WEL and apologising for the performance. Also trying to suggest that the WEL staff were to blame and that she had incriminating information about them. The official YouTube upload of the set was taken down, but Carrie wouldn't let the matter die and repeatedly brought it up over the next few weeks. She claimed she has always hated WEL, even though she chose to do it rather than asking for Georgina or one of the cover actresses to stand in for her. The following year she happily took part in a set with the cast of Treason without a word of complaint.
Daily Fail Heartbreak Article
Following her separation from her boyfriend, Oliver Ormson, Carrie repeatedly posted on her instagram account about how heartbroken she was. She posted about how she was struggling to perform following her break up, especially as her character is "constantly put down". The Daily Mail, aka the Daily Fail, picked up the story and wrote an article about her heartbreak. It wasn't very well received in their comment section, so more bad publicity for the show.
ALW Frictions
During the West End run of Cinderella, there were rumours of Andrew Lloyd Webber being very harsh on the cast and crew. In late November there were multiple articles written about ALW berating the cast of Cinderella. Apparently his call was broadcast over theatre speakers whilst the cast sat on the stage preparing for that night's performance. ALW was reportedly in his holiday villa at the time. His outburst was apparently in response to a savage review of Cinderella in the New York Post. There were reports of multiple cast members crying and voting for strike action, though they admitted this was done when emotions were high and didn't follow through with it.
In response to these rumours, ALW did interviews stating he merely told the 'young cast' that 'nobody has a right to be on the stage' and they must recognise that they work in the 'service industry'.
Carrie was one of several cast members who took offence to this and made snide comments on social media, she also liked several tweets critical of him.
Carrie uploaded social media posts and liked other posts and tweets that alluded to pressures working at Cinderella. She spoke about having panic attacks and how a job is not worth sacrificing your mental health.
Reports of Bad Behaviour
Carrie would regularly joke about (and post videos of) her jumping and gyrating against her male co-star in the wings of the stage during the bows. People started mentioning it and calling her out for her unprofessionalism but it only seemed to make her double down in her antics. There were also rumours of the cast misbehaving and being unprofessional. The screenshot with the joke about chocolate bars and drinks comes from Carrie setting up a "tuck shop" full of sweets, crisps and fizzy drinks in her dressing room for her fellow castmates.
WOS Speech
Carrie won the What's on Stage Award for best actress for her role as Cinderella (it's voted for by the public). During her speech she said "I am a stepping stone for more women who want to play princesses one day". This was supposedly in response to fat-shaming she had received since being cast as Veronica in Heathers and Cinderella. She wasn't happy with how it was being reported so posted a screenshot of the WOS with clarifying comments.
Closing Announced
On Sunday 1st May, the cast and crew of Cinderella were told, within minutes of finishing that day's performance, that Cinderella would be closing less than a year after it opened. Carrie was not performing that day so she found out from messages from the cast and crew. The current cast (or at least the ones in the theatre) were told 30 minutes before the press release hit publications. There was due to be a cast change in July, and the new cast members had already started dress and wig fittings just days earlier. They were incredibly angry at going to these appointments only to find out via the press a few days later that their job was gone. Some of them had messages left with agents who weren't working because it was Sunday; others just weren't told.
Summer Strallen (who happens to be the ex-girlfriend of Carrie's ex-boyfriend Oliver) was due to take over as the Queen at the July cast change. She went on an Instagram live to discuss the problems with the industry. Carrie joined partway through and left some comments.
ALW wasn't present for the closing of the show 'due to personal reasons' so the Director read out a letter he had written. The letter was quite poorly worded and included the phrase 'costly mistake' which some in the cast perceived to be a dig at them. ALW issued a statement following the backlash clarifying his comments.
Post-Cinders Tantrums
It was announced in October 2022 that Cinderella was going to Broadway in February 2023 and had been renamed as Bad Cinderella. Carrie posted on her stories saying she wished nothing but the best for the new cast but Tattler detectives spotted she was liking tweets predicting the show would perform badly and close early.
She has continued to slyly throw digs at the show. She's responded to Q&As asking "Have you ever regretted a role?" and her response was 'only one'. She's never said this before Cinderella. She has used the Disney princess filter on her stories and joked about being disgusted when Cinderella came up. She and Joel did a "this or that" reel on Instagram and she had to be dragged to the Cinderella option. Joel also uploaded a reel onto his Instagram with the caption 'no matter where she goes she always follows her!' in response to the Cinderella character actress when they were in Disneyland Paris. She also responded to a Q&A asking if she'd been 'asked to stay quiet'.
In November 2022, Carrie appeared in the pantomime Sleeping Beauty at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury where her character was renamed from Carabosse to Carriebosse with henchmen named Lloyd and Webber. There were several jokes about ALW and Cinderella, with some quite mean-spirited. Carrie said she didn't have anything to do with writing the 'jokes'.
Annoyances
Here's a breakdown of things that Carrie does that aren't exactly controversies but annoy a lot of Tattlers.
The Face
Carrie's lack of acting talent is what we call The Face. It's an all-purpose expression that is used for any emotion Carrie may wish to portray: love, hate, anger, sadness, joy, fear, jealousy, arousal, etc. It's useful even when she's not acting!
Author Carrie
Despite being an author of multiple books, Carrie isn’t the best at spelling and grammar. She has issues with correct placement of apostrophes, articulating her point so it doesn't confuse or upset people and spelling the words dessert and Colosseum. This regularly annoys Tattlers as Carrie has been given her book deals because of her YouTube following but acts as if it's because of the standard of work she produces. Like with her musical theatre talents, she hasn't taken the opportunity to expand her writing skills and the only writing qualification she has is GCSE English. So if you see Tattlers joking about Author Carrie, this is what we're referring to.
Joking About Red Flags
With the speed at which Carrie and Joel's relationship has gone, as well as the way Joel posts online, many of her fans have been leaving comments talking about red flags in their relationship. Rather than taking the time to acknowledge it, reassure fans that she's okay and signposting them to resources if they need help in their own relationships, she's arguing with fans in comments. She and Joel are also joking about red flags.
This is what she posted about red flags before her relationship with Joel:
Acting Workshops
For years Hopefuls have been asking Carrie if she would do workshops and this has always been her response:
Then she gets together with Joel, her career takes a nosedive, and she realises how much of a cash-grab putting on workshops can be.
She started asking what people would want from an "acting through song" session. She then said she'd start "gently" with two 30 minute sessions for £45 each.
Carrie started these "lessons" without any training, qualifications or teaching experience. She also didn't have a DBS check. Following the success of those two "acting through song" sessions, Carrie announced she would be offering a one hour zoom workshop for 100 participants at £25 a ticket.
A Tattler followed the link and discovered there were 380 customers ahead of them.
Her handling of the technicalities really made you feel like she was in complete control.
She made 8 pages of notes for the workshop and wanted to reassure people that she wasn't looking at her phone if they caught her looking down a lot.
The workshop consisted of Carrie talking about the emotions behind On My Own from Les Misérables and then doing The Face during her performance.
Edgar joined during the zoom too.
Following the success of her own workshop, Carrie announced on her subscription service first that she and Joel would be offering a joint workshop. It was for 100 participants again at £25 per ticket but there were 20 free tickets available to her subscribers. This workshop would allow 6 singers to perform a song of their choice for Carrie and Joel to offer feedback on.
Joel was reposting multiple Instagram stories throughout the zoom workshop.
And the newly married couple looked so in love during the session.
Subscription Services
Carrie had a monthly subscription service on Cameo where she would offer extra content to subscribers but failed to keep up with the promised schedule so ended up closing it. Now she has an Instagram subscription, for £2.59 per month, and is once again falling behind on what she promised to post. There’s also the added danger of still paying for the service even after she’s blocked you (we're aware of at least one subscriber who has been blocked).
She started promoting the subscription on her stories and then started arguing with people in comments on her post about the cost of the service.
Her subscriber posts? Some of them include these riveting stories from her Disneyland Paris holiday, including out-of-focus fireworks, Five Guys burger and hugging characters.
Some of the grid posts on her subscription include singing part of She Used To Be Mine from Waitress, more character hugs, strange mirror selfies and info about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that she's told before.
She posts links to her YouTube videos an hour or so before they go on her main feed.
She decided to set up a book club on the subscription service. Then she started talking about a name for the group and in true Author Carrie style, confused people as she was actually talking about a name for the whole subscription service not just the book club side of it.
She settled on The Sonder Society for the name of her subscription group.
She also announced a live gig with her husband, Joel Montague, that was only available to subscribers.
Losing Her Fans
Many Tattlers are former fans of Carrie who have noticed how she treats her fans and how she's driving some of them away. Some have had to stop engaging with her content because the subscription service became too expensive for what she offered, others have been turned off by her OTT behaviour with Joel.
Carrie and Joel's behaviour has also impacted on Joel's appeal and possible ticket sales for Hamilton.
One commentor said how it was sad they never got a response for all the years they supported her but the second they leave a slightly critical comment they get multiple responses.
This commentor got in touch with Joel on his twitter account to ask why he had been blocked on Instagram.
She's also determined to be seen as an author and would give up singing in a heartbeat but doesn't seem to realise her fanbase mostly comes from YouTube and musical theatre, which are things she doesn't seem to enjoy as much now.
In January 2024 Carrie and Joel announced they had set up a business called Beginners Call that will host their acting workshops, and workshops relating to other aspects of theatre such as costume, stage management, and so on. This is when they gave their home address as their registered business address, see "We don't dox!" section above.
Underplaying Her Privilege
Carrie often talks about class and privilege, and says that she is from a struggling working class family. In fact her parents could afford to support her stage career, to send her and Tom to private schools (Tom went to Sylvia Young), and take annual holidays to Disney World in the USA. Carrie does not seem to understand that being middle class, owning a home, and having a job is still more privilege than most - even if you are not wealthy and still have to work hard and save for things.
She has enough income from brand deals, royalties, and assets (including renting out property) that she doesn't have to take a "normal" job between stage contracts. She has never had a regular job, nor has she ever had to do things like cruise ship work. She didn't have to take another job during the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns when theatres were closed. This puts her at a vast advantage compared to most other West End performers, who have to work as shop assistants, cleaners, Uber drivers, couriers, and so on when they are "resting." E.g. Ailsa Davidson, who succeeded Carrie as Veronica in the London production of Heathers, works for 12+ hours a day when not performing and has two jobs to survive.
Carrie rejects the notion that any of this gives her privilege; and instead insists she pulled herself up by the bootstraps on Cinderella's Doc Martens. Or something. She uses class to excuse her own laziness e.g. she says she refuses to learn how to read sheet music because that would be an unfair display of class privilege. In reality, it's a basic musical skill which is taught in most state schools. It's also necessary for her job. Tattlers question what Oliver, who is genuinely working class, thought of this during his relationship with her.
Despite paying lip service to anti-racism efforts, Carrie has tried to suggest that bullying/teasing she was subject to at school is on a level with racism. E.g. that someone making fun of her curly hair is the same thing Black people go through when they are discriminated against for their natural hair. Or that getting her name wrong is the same as when white people don't bother to learn a Black or brown person's name, etc.
In January 2022, Carrie joined in public criticism of Molly-Mae Hague for failing to acknowledge her privilege. No comment.
Performance and stunt casting
Carrie got her breakout adult role as Eponine through her own merit, but subsequently, she has been stunt cast in other shows. She repeatedly denies that her social media following, "brand name", or relation to Tom have ever been a factor in her being cast (even though her social media presence is often mentioned in her cast bio.) All performers use their connections to get ahead, and stunt casting doesn't necessarily mean that someone won't be good in the role. But she could at least be honest about it. She once made a pointed Insta post about how casting someone who's both an exceptional performer and has a social media presence is "clever casting" not stunt casting. She wouldn't fit her own definition of this, because she often is not as strong an actress or singer as others in the cast.
She made a TikTok meme complaining that people attribute all her success to her brother, when she had three major roles on the West End as a child before he was famous. Child actors do work hard, but working in musical theatre as a child is very different from doing so as an adult. Being a child performer may well have been useful for Carrie in terms of making contacts and learning how the industry works, again she got the role of Eponine by herself. But it doesn't change the fact that her famous family connection has a huge impact on her getting work as an adult.
Carrie did not attend drama school, but trained as a child. Either way she lacks a number of basic musical theatre skills. She is not a trained dancer, struggles to sing classically without belting, attempts accents very poorly, etc. She claims she cannot read sheet music (although might have meant that she can't sight sing well.) She prefers to wear long skirts and clumpy boots during dance rehearsals, while everyone else is in fitness gear and dance shoes or trainers; as seen in rehearsal videos and her audition for Mamma Mia, where she wore Doc Martens to the dance call. By Carrie's own admission, she did not take any lessons during the 2020 lockdown when she was preparing for Cinderella. She also doesn't have the experience of ensemble/cover/swing which is an important part of a musical theatre actor's professional development. Part of her brand image is that she now only ever plays leading roles.
Over the years her voice has lost a lot of its power and original quality; likely through poor technique, vocal strain, and/or illness. Her voice was greatly harmed when she was pushed to continue performing in Heathers despite having tonsillitis. Her diction is not great - amusingly, when she sang from ALW's Cinderella on Children In Need, a number of viewers thought she was saying "fucking mad" instead of "barking mad."
She has criticised Cameron Mackintosh for suggesting that a transgender actress had been cast solely for diversity points. Carrie speaking out about this was admirable, especially since it could have cost her career opportunities. But it's somewhat hypocritical given that she herself benefits from stunt casting and has no problem with Cinderella using a character's homosexuality as a gimmick. (A plot point of the show is the townspeople coming to accept that Prince Charming is gay - treated as if it were shocking and unusual.)
In August 2023, Carrie said in an Insta video that she had just had her first "proper" audition in four years because she usually gets cast through direct offers, meetings, or being involved with the show from the early development stages. She seems to have been exaggerating about this; a year previously, she had posted another video about her confidence being low after an audition. But it's probably true that because of her name recognition she doesn't have to audition as often as other performers do.
Ego
Carrie is the star of every show, the leading lady, and don't you forget it. Rumours abound of her treating castmates poorly especially understudies or alternates. She rarely gives credit where it is due and her videos are always about her, her, her and what a great person she is. During Cinderella rehearsals Carrie frequently posted about how she'd brought in books for castmates to borrow, and started a "tuck shop" where others could buy snacks in exchange for a comment in her notepad. These are nice things to do for others, but she seemed to do it mostly to draw attention to herself.
Carrie is Not Like Other Girls. She seems to believe that she's the only woman in Britain who is curvy, outspoken, introverted, has a gap between her teeth, likes books, and so on. Taking a weird pride in her clothes and hairstyle not particularly flattering her, because she's sooooo above your oppressive beauty standards!!!!!11 (even though she's still an average-sized, conventionally pretty white woman.) She frequently talks about how she was bullied at school for things like having brown eyes and curly hair. Basically, she's the incarnation of the old Tumblr meme:
Given Carrie's age and when she started out, she probably was on Tumblr in its heyday, posting un-ironically about how unique she was.
She will often get annoyed when fans ask if she's going to appear in one of her previous roles again - don't you know she's moved onto bigger and better! But makes sure she keeps in with the current cast / the creative team so she has the option of returning in future, which is how she gets asked back for Les Mis. Meanwhile she claims that no one ever goes to see their understudy or alternate perform (patently untrue - many West End leads do this all the time) so she shouldn't be expected to.
Even though Carrie is more than happy to allow herself to be marketed as the main draw of a show, she has stated that she "doesn't have to explain herself" if she's not there at a time when people have paid to see her. We're not saying that Carrie isn't entitled to private time, etc. But if the publicity material touts her as the main reason to pay for a ticket, of course people will expect to see her. Carrie has often posted negative reviews of products / services and tagged the company, so she can't complain if others do the same.
She regularly displays short-term fixations that last for a couple of weeks or months then end quickly. Examples include a short-lived interest in Formula 1 racing, and a period where she frequently talked about Russian history and expressed a desire to visit Russia - this is when the Broadway musical adaptation of Anastasia was rumoured to be transferring to London and she wanted a shot at the lead. Anyone suggesting that her latest craze hasn't been a lifelong passion of hers gets snapped at and blocked (what else?)
E-begging
Like Tom, who has his own thread on Tattle, Carrie is known for begging online. She has accepted multiple trips to Disney World in Florida, and received a lot of freebies during the pandemic. Her professed personal values have no relation to what products she will hawk. She has accepted gifted Harry Potter goods (despite repeatedly calling JK Rowling transphobic) and promoted Sure (despite insisting she would only ever use cruelty-free products.) Anyone commenting on this is liable to be blocked or deleted as always.
Calling her out on her begging will cause her to rage and get block-happy. When Cinderella had to delay its opening in July 2021, Carrie not-so-subtly angled for freebies from a skincare company, and then started whining on her social media that horrible trolls had been messaging her about it. We believe no such thing happened and she'd just been reading her Tattle thread again.
Carrie makes it repeatedly, emphatically clear when a video is NOT sponsored or a product was NOT a gift. This can be just as annoying as the product placement itself.
Ginger
Following her break up from Oliver, Carrie did what every heartbroken woman does and dyed her hair.
She then went to the What's on Stage awards and Tattlers noticed her hair was looking like it might be red.
Then she posted a reel and it was actually ginger.
In true Carrie-fashion, she has made having red hair her personality.
The hair looks very orange on Instagram but apparently it's not so bright in person and does suit her.
She has been going to the same hairdressers for years and they're the ones who dyed her hair. Many Tattlers wish she would find a new hairdressers as they don't seem the best at curly hair cuts.
Tattlers also wish she would stop pulling all of her hair over to one side of her head and have a more central hair parting as it's starting to damage her hair.
She also had new headshots taken and made it about her new hair.
Turning 30
Carrie turned the big 3-0 at the end of 2022 and as she got closer to her birthday, she mentioned it more and more and it became part of her personality, just like things she's obsessed with usually do. As she spoke about it so often on her social media, she started getting lots of questions in her numerous Q&As.
So Goofy
Carrie has become increasingly "goofy" over the years but there's been a definite increase since her split from Oliver. Tattlers often wonder if she has any regular photos of herself or is she's pulling faces in every single one.
Then there's the tongue pictures. So many tongue pictures. Lots of peace signs too.
So Shouty
Tattlers have noticed Carrie has become increasingly louder in her videos over the years. A lot of the time it feels like she is shouting at you through the screen.
Wacky Outfits
Like with her increasing goofiness, Carrie's style has drastically changed over the years, especially since her split from Oliver. She says "this is me" and she's embracing the loud prints and colours and really going for it. Most of the time she's giving 'art teacher at the gnome school'.
She likes to mix and match colours and prints together and loves a stripey tight.
She's even worn mismatched prints and colours for professional jobs that were recorded for promotion.
She has expensive taste too.
She's done colourful photoshoots too.
And of course she always has her Dr Martens.
Her Love for Jamie
In 2018, Jamie Muscato played JD opposite Carrie's Veronica in Heathers. Tattlers often joke that Carrie is in love with Jamie and would drop Joel for him in a heartbeat. She was very flirtatious with Jamie in the Heather vlogs (like with Oliver during Addams tour) and would always be hugging him or placing her hand on his chest in pictures. He seemed uncomfortable with this at times. She also finds any opportunity to upload a picture of them rehearsing Dead Girl Walking that she thinks is "funny".
They reunited in March 2023 to perform Once in Concert at the Palladium. Tattlers noticed there was more chemistry between them than in any pictures of Carrie and Joel. A video of them singing Falling Slowly was released and Carrie spent most of the time lovingly gazing at Jamie.
Carrie's daughter with Joel, Mabel Hope Montague was born on 1st March 2024. Tattlers have speculated as to whether Carrie might morph into a generic mum influencer, although she has indicated she wants to continue her career in theatre.
