Her Workplace Recorded Her In The Dressing Room — Now She’s Taking Revenge
People near and far have heard of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium thanks to Winter the dolphin. And now for others, they are hearing about the aquarium because of a serious issue with the mermaid troupe that performed there in the recent past. TikToker and mermaid, @ladyelora has explained the mermaids’ side of the story in three videos, since there are media reports from the other side without their consent.
According to a news report by WFLA.com, Caroline Don and Ashley Mengel were performing as mermaids at the aquarium working with the Blue Mermaid Designs group in December 2020 when they were recorded changing their clothes. The two are speaking out on social media in the hopes of preventing other women from becoming victims.
According to WFLA, the aquarium issued a statement back in August stating, “the Clearwater Marine Aquarium today announced that an independent investigation determined that in 2020 one of the facility’s security cameras accidentally recorded a group of female workers as they changed clothes. The workers, all adults, were using a room that was not usually used for changing clothes and that a camera monitoring the room was inadvertently left on and not immediately noticed.”
In the TikTok video, part one, mermaid Caroline Don explains the situation from the mermaids’ point of view. She said that the silence from the performers created rumors that they were terminated for wrong doings on their part, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. In December 2020, the mermaid troupe was hired for a four-day event, and then hired for a multi-week job in the summer of 2021. The performers were given the dolphin medical suite at the top of the dolphin tanks so that they could change and take breaks between sets. There was a security camera in the suite. “We were assured multiple times in December that the camera was turned off for the duration of our event,” Don explained. At first, the camera was turned off, but part way into the December event, the camera was turned back on by the now former VP of Operations and Zoological Care. He recorded several days of the mermaids changing inside the suite.
Don goes on to explain how the video was shown to other aquarium executives, and that none of the girls were told about this when it happened. They were informed in June 2021, just before their summer event was about the begin, by the now former Director of Engineering and Operations and his spouse. That employee left his position and moved out of state and reported the incident to the Board of Directors.
In part two of the video series, Don continues to explain the timeline of events. When they arrived for the summer event, the camera was removed, but they were not told why. The board eventually realized that the girls knew about the recordings, but said nothing other than an internal investigation was on-going. At the end of the summer event, the mermaids were told that there were plans for a future event, but that never happened.
In August 2021, the mermaids met with the Chairman of Board of Directors to discuss their findings of the incident and how the aquarium could help them. “They offered us counseling services and to provide us with the findings from their attorneys. We never saw their findings. They refused to involve the police and considered the matter resolved because they did not find any tracings of the recordings elsewhere,” Don said. Five employees’ personal devices were searched, but it had already been seven months since the incident took place. The aquarium repeatedly stated that the recordings were an accident.
The performers were silent because they didn’t want the wrong-doings of a few individuals to negatively impact the aquarium’s rescue efforts, but now they are speaking out to help protect future performers. “We also recognize that staying silent perpetrates the tendency to victim blame, punishes the survivors and allows the offenders to not be held accountable for their actions,” Don explained.
In a video update, Don thanked people for all their support and said they don’t feel so alone anymore. The aquarium has been replying to comments and reviews that people were leaving, and reached out to the performers to have a meeting in the near future. Read more about the story here.