OAN Staff Cory Hawkins
3:37 PM – Thursday, January 22, 2026
Rachel Griffin Accurso, the creator behind the widely popular “Ms. Rachel” YouTube channel for toddlers, issued a tearful apology on Wednesday following social media backlash. The controversy erupted after Accurso’s account “liked” an antisemitic comment on Instagram — an action she has since claimed was accidental.
The incident began earlier this week when Accurso posted a message on Instagram that read, “Free Palestine, Free Sudan, Free Congo, Free Iran,” accompanied by several national flags.
While many followers engaged with the message, one user replied with the statement: “Free America from the Jews.”
Screenshots quickly circulated showing that Ms. Rachel’s official account was among the few to “like” the hateful and antisemitic remark, sparking immediate condemnation from parents and Jewish advocacy groups.
Instagram has a “Liked by creator” feature that acts like an automatic spotlight. By liking a comment, the creator signals to Instagram to highlight that specific comment to every social media user who sees the post, making it significantly more visible.
Soon after, a fan of Accurso reportedly messaged her on Instagram, informing her of the potential mistake. “Ms. Rachel” then reposted the exchange on her Instagram story in order to inform all of her followers of the mistake.
“Hi Rachel, just wanted to let you know there’s a comment under your latest post that says ‘free America from the Jews’ that was liked by the author. I’m sure that’s an accident, so wanted to let you know,” the direct message (DM) stated, as shown in the screenshot.
Accurso responded: “Deleted – how horrible – oh wait, let me check – I did delete one like that. Ya I believe I deleted that earlier, right when I saw it! I hate antisemitism.”
In an emotional video posted on Wednesday, a visibly distraught Accurso expressed that she had intended to delete and hide the comment but misclicked in the process.
“I would never agree with an antisemitic thing like the comment,” Accurso said, crying in her apology video posted on her Instagram on Wednesday. “I’m so sorry for the confusion it caused. I’m so sorry if anyone thought that I would ever agree with something horrible and antisemitic like that.”
Since 2024, Accurso has frequently utilized her platform to speak about children in global conflict zones, often sharing a list of regions in her posts. While she maintains that her mission is strictly humanitarian and “pro-child,” her vocal condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza led the watchdog group StopAntisemitism to name her a top-10 finalist for its “Antisemite of the Year” award in late 2025. The group specifically accused her of disseminating “Hamas-aligned propaganda” and overlooking the suffering of Israeli children, claims which Accurso has denied as “completely false.”
“Over 14,000 precious children have been un-alived in Gaza. Gaza has the largest number of child amputees in history. We can’t be silent about these kinds of conditions for children,” she said in a TikTok video posted in 2024.
Accurso also shared widely circulated images of a severely malnourished boy in Gaza with protruding limbs. However, StopAntisemitism responded by arguing that the image was “debunked propaganda,” maintaining the child suffered from cystic fibrosis rather than starvation. Nonetheless, the Washington Post later reported that they had allegedly confirmed with the child’s mother that he “suffered from both.”
“World leaders, please help this baby. Please look at her. Please, please look at her. Just, please look at her eyes for one minute,” she said. “If you just think about a baby you love, think about a baby you care so much for, there’s no way that we all don’t know that you can’t kill 15,000 kids.”
Critics have also raised concerns regarding Accurso’s reliance on casualty data from the Gaza Health Ministry, noting that the organization operates under the governing authority of Hamas — making it unreliable.
Pro-Israel groups further argue that the popular Youtube personality pushes Hamas propaganda and has selective empathy, as she rarely, if ever, posts about Israeli or Jewish victims.
“I feel like we can’t be human anymore online. And I’m so sorry for the confusion it caused. I’m so sorry if anyone thought that I would ever agree with something so horrible and antisemitic like that. I don’t. I want to say that it’s OK to be human and it’s OK to make mistakes, and I’m old, so I am not as good with touching things online, I guess. I have liked things by accident before,” the YouTuber said between hysterics.
However, it didn’t stop there.
Following her apology, Accurso faced a secondary wave of backlash after replying “Oooooooooohhhhh” to a follower who claimed, “Spoiler alert: They left the comment themselves.” Critics interpreted her response as an endorsement of a conspiracy theory suggesting that Jewish individuals had “planted” the antisemitic remark to frame her.
Accurso and her husband, Aron, launched the channel in 2019 after their son was diagnosed with a speech delay. Motivated by a lack of specialized resources, they created music-based speech therapy tools that were previously unavailable online. The platform’s popularity exploded in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic as millions of parents sought high-quality, at-home educational content for toddlers.
Then, in December 2025, Accurso’s influence shifted into the political sphere when she joined the inaugural committee for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a self-described “Democratic socialist” who has similarly been labeled an antisemite.
This past Sunday, the two appeared in a collaborative video to advocate for the Mayor’s “2-care” proposal, which aims to provide taxpayer-funded childcare to 2-year-olds and taxpayer-funded city buses to only those in New York City.
In the video, “Ms. Rachel” and the Mayor sing a modified version of “The Wheels on the Bus,” changing the lyrics to “The people on the bus ride for free, free, free” and “The 2-year-olds get 2-care, 2-care, 2-care.”
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