They say your home is an extension of yourself, which is why a home invasion could feel less like a robbery and more like emotional and mental assault. For one California-based influencer, she’s currently picking up the pieces after a “nightmare” break-in. The suspects didn’t just stumble upon her front door; police believe they were enticed there by the very thing that made her popular.
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Influencer Daphne Blunt has built a robust following on social media, with over 162,000 followers on TikTok and 179,000 followers on Instagram. Her closet tours and shopping hauls often go viral, specifically her videos showing off her vast collection of luxury items, including Chanel handbags, designer shoes and Van Cleef & Arpels bracelets and necklaces.
And that’s exactly what the Los Angeles Police Department says led burglars to her doorstep in the early morning hours of Monday, Feb. 2.
The influencer posted a TikTok with text, “I was the victim of a home invasion,” after she said she was awaken by the sound of her home alarm and “commotion” from her bedroom around 4:00 a.m. She alleged two men broke into her home, “charged upstairs” and entered a room where her family members were.
In the clip captioned, “I got bling ringed,” she described how her family member “enacted his rights to the Castle Doctrine under California law and was able to scare the two assailants away and out of the house.”
The Castle Doctrine, found in California Penal Code § 198.5, automatically assumes you were terrified for your life if someone kicks in your door while you’re home, and makes use of force legally “reasonable” by default. California is one of the states that says the homeowner has no duty to retreat and can defend their “castle,” unlike some jurisdictions that require you to “retreat to the wall” or exit if possible.
Blunt said the gunshots were enough to scare the suspects away, but one of the intruders were “immediately apprehended” by police and needed hospital care.
She also claimed that police believe her home was targeted “most likely because of my social media presence.” Blunt addressed the police speculation for the intruder’s alleged motive.
“A lot of the things that you see me post, I’m not stupid enough to leave laying around. My closet is now bolted. It’s basically a safe. You can’t get into it,” she said. “There are no longer goods on the premises for you to take. Social media is fake. Social media is not real. You think that I live in this big house alone, by myself, with no protection and that you can just come, overpower me and take my things? That’s not the case.”
Despite the “traumatizing” ordeal and “the universe testing me,” she declared she will not stop posting about her shopping hauls because “I really believe that it’s important what I’m doing.”
She added: “I know people see it as like stupid shopping and bragging content, but there’s something so polarizing and important that I’m doing with this content that I won’t be silenced. I’m not going to stop.”
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