Carlee Russell, the Alabama woman who fabricated her kidnapping in 2023, is speaking out after a dispute with a hairstylist renewed scrutiny of her past.
Russell denied allegations that she failed to pay for services. She says she disputed the charge because the installation left her scalp bleeding and forced her to remove the style herself.
Russell acknowledged her false 911 call on social media but rejected efforts to use it to discredit her account of the hairstyling appointment.
“I take responsibility for the false 911 call I made in July 2023. I sought help, received it, and have grown since then,” Russell wrote. “I can own what I did in 2023 and still speak up about what happened at this appointment.”
The dispute became public after a hairstylist who identifies herself as ShayLa posted a video to TikTok under the account @shopsshairstudios. In the clip, ShayLa accused Russell of disputing the payment despite receiving the completed hair installation services. She acknowledged Russell’s identity but said she wasn’t judging her for the earlier incident that made national headlines. However, she was concerned about what happened after the appointment.
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“She did not book under her name. And what am I supposed to do, judge her because she had a national incident? What I am judging for is the aftermath of the appointment,” ShayLa said.
Russell offered a different account. In an extensive Facebook post, she claimed she initially contacted the stylist after her appointment because the quick weave was painfully tight. She said the stylist installed it in a way that damaged her scalp.
Screenshots Russell shared show her telling ShayLa that the stylist had glued the cap to her natural hair, causing it to pull at her scalp. She also reported bleeding along the side of her head.
“Hi Shayla, I apologize for texting so late but I have a huge concern about my hair,” Russell wrote. “I finally got a chance to really play with it a little to see what’s going on and I realize that the cap is glued to my scalp/hair and is pulling on it. My scalp is actually bleeding on the side from where I lifted part of the cap.”
ShayLa responded in the text thread, “Hey! You’re gonna have to take it down.”
ShayLa refused Russell’s refund request. She had already provided extra services, including removing knotless braids and installing hair she deemed insufficient for the style.
“No ma’am I’m not refunding you,” ShayLa wrote. “There’s nothing for me to do if the style is uncomfortable.”
Russell disputed that characterization, explaining that the issue went beyond discomfort.
“It’s not that it’s just uncomfortable, it’s uncomfortable because it was not installed properly…my scalp is bleeding,” she replied.
Russell said she also contacted the salon owner to resolve the matter, but the owner told her the stylist would not work toward a solution. She eventually removed the quick weave and reinstalled it herself. According to Russell, she contacted her bank to dispute the charge only after her attempts to resolve the issue directly had failed.
“I told my bank I received the service,” Russell wrote. “The dispute was about how the quick weave was installed which resulted in me taking down and reinstalling it myself in the timeframe of one week.”
She said the bank refunded the disputed payment to her account more than three weeks before she issued her statement. She argued that the stylist had an opportunity to contest the charge through the bank if she believed the dispute was unwarranted.
“The implication that I stole from her is in fact a lie,” she wrote.
Russell also objected to the stylist sharing her photos and private communications about the payment dispute online. She demanded that ShayLa remove images of her and posts containing her personal financial information, a screenshot shows. She said she had consulted attorneys about her options under Alabama law.
Russell questioned why the stylist chose to make the dispute public weeks after learning of the bank dispute. She suggested the photos her braid stylist shared had gone viral and attracted potential clients, which probably prompted ShayLa to post about the weave.
“I would’ve been glad to share a positive experience with this stylist, as well,” Russell wrote. “She had a chance to fix the install, and with my permission, those photos could’ve shown how she listened to a client and made things right.”
The controversy has renewed scrutiny of Russell’s 2023 kidnapping hoax. She disappeared for two days after reporting a toddler on an interstate. Investigators found no evidence of a child or abduction. In 2024, she pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of filing a false police report.
A judge sentenced her to 12 months of supervised probation, community service and continued mental health counseling. The judge ordered her to pay nearly $18,000 in restitution.
Russell argued that her past should not stop her from challenging what she called misrepresentations of her actions in a separate incident.
“I’m done staying silent when people use my past to attack me and ATTEMPT to defame my character,” she wrote. “I’ve worked hard to grow, and I will speak up for myself when someone misrepresents what happened.”