Ava Louise told Inside Edition Digital that weeks before Evan's passing, he tweeted that he had been two weeks sober.
Beauty Influencer Ava Louise feels she is to blame for the sudden death of her best friend, beauty influencer Ethan Peters, better known on YouTube as Ethan Is Supreme. Louise, who said she was the one who broke the news of Peters passing on social media, opened up to Inside Edition Digital, that she feels “immensely guilty” and felt that there may have been something she could have done.
According to family members, Peters died last week of an apparent drug overdose. The Texas native's father, Gerald Peters, said he found him in his bedroom unresponsive, at 11 a.m. the morning of Sept. 5.
Louise said that she felt that something wasn’t right that day when she didn’t get her daily call from Peters and instead got a text from Peters' friend in Texas.
“Every single morning for the past year, I wake up to Ethan,” Louise told Inside Edition Digital. “And, I immediately knew Ethan overdosed.”
When Louise first met Peters two years ago, she did not realize how young he was, saying that she may have not been such a good example and called herself “an enabler.”
“I feel like it’s my fault,” said the 22-year-old, who is known as "the girl" who licked the toilet seat during the coronavirus challenge, and for her song, “Skinny Legend Anthem."
“I’ve done my share of partying and experimenting. I would tell him [Peters] my stories, but I would tell him from a place of, ‘Don’t do what I did!" Louise said. "He just seemed to me like someone who was just experimenting and getting their feet wet."
Looking back, Louise feels differently. She mentioned a few controversial TikToks that Peters had put out that led to him losing some endorsement deals, which also resulted in some of his friends to abandon him.
Describing her friend as "energetic, loyal and the kindest person she ever met," Louise said that Peters appeared different on the Internet because of this persona he created and that it breaks her heart that people did not get to see that other side of him.
"I wish I took it more seriously and didn’t listen to him when he played it off," she said.
Louise is now hoping to help win the war on drugs. "I can't look at a drug. I can’t see a friend do a drug. I can’t talk about it.”
Louise called addiction "a disease" and said she is planning to be more mindful of the content she puts out on her social media platform, a contrast from previous posts that talk about her love for Adderall or her jokes about drugs like Ecstasy and cocaine.
“I’ve done stuff to shock people, but I can’t do that anymore,” she said, saying she needs “a break” from what she described as this “crazy virality that we are all obsessed with because it’s part of the reason my friend’s dead.”
Peters launched his YouTube career in 2017 and two years later became famous on Instagram with his outrageously stunning makeup designs that garnered more than 500,000 followers and upwards of 140,000 subscribers on YouTube, according to People.
Before that he had run a meme account, Betch, that he sold for $25,000 at age 13 after acquiring 1.3 million followers, People reported.
Fellow YouTuber and Instagrammer Manuel Gutierrez, known as Manny MUA, expressed his condolences. "Rest in peace Ethan. You were so incredibly talented at such a young age," he said. "I pray for his family and loved ones, a horrible loss."
When Peters was 15, he appeared on the lifestyle talk show, Pickler & Ben, and told the hosts that he started getting into makeup at age 12.
On the show, Peters did a makeover on his father, Gerald, to show his followers. Gerald told the hosts how “super proud he was of his son and how much his son motivates him."
Gerald, who described his son as a kind soul, who accepted everyone for who they were, spoke about his son’s passing on Fox News. “The cancel culture we find ourselves in weighed heavy on his heart. He wanted nothing but to inspire, make people laugh, and push the boundaries of what is acceptable in our world for all young people," Gerald said.
Louise wrote on social media that she wished she could go back in time and listen to Peters when he told her “he wanted help,” adding that he was well-liked and well respected in the beauty industry.
“About a year ago he turned to drugs due to the pressure of being famous online at such a young age," Louise shared, adding, "He became problematic recently due to drug-induced mania. He's a good f--king person. He didn't deserve to die."
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