“It’d be really sweet if that was from a boyfriend,” Danielle Rose says. “But it wasn’t.” Rose (@daniellerose143_) is talking about a bag of personalized M&M’s her church youth director gave her when she was 17.
“I know it just looks like a bag of M&M‘s but if you zoom in and you read, it says, ‘I miss you.’ It says, ‘I’m proud of you,'” Rose deadpans in a TikTok with 2.1 million views. “It says, ‘I love you.'”
“And there’s even a picture of me and someone else on these M&M’s,” Rose says.
She received the gift 10 years ago, she says. It was one of several graduation gifts the youth director gave her. She does not identify the church or the man by name.
“I also got ‘open when’ letters,” she adds. “Like open on your graduation day and blah blah blah blah blah. That’s all very sweet. If it was a boyfriend. But no.”
“…It was from an old man.”
Rose didn’t immediately reply to an inquiry sent via TikTok Direct message.
More than just M&M’s
In a follow-up post, Rose says the youth minister targeted her from when she was 13 years old after she started going to his church with a friend.
Middle school was horrible, she says. Youth group quickly became a huge part of her life. So did the youth minister.
In spite of the 23-year age gap, the two swiftly became extremely close. She says he made her “feel seen.”
He made her a youth leader with lots of responsibilities. If he texted and she didn’t respond, she says he got mad.
“Back then, I genuinely thought he was one of my best friends,” she says.
It didn’t seem strange to the teen or anyone else, Rose says. Not her parents. Not the church.
Rose doesn’t explicitly say what happened, just that the two had “a relationship.” It continued until she was 18.
“This is how grooming works,” she says. In another video, she says, “He was grooming me into a relationship. Which is insanity. Really truly. Insanity.”
A common experience
An untold number of children become victims of grooming every year.
Children can be preyed upon in any setting—school, sports, online, within their families, at church.
Churches worldwide have been rocked by scandals involving pervasive abuse of children. Spiritual leaders are often allowed more access and trust with children than a coach or a teacher, which arguably makes children even more vulnerable at church.
Someone within the child’s circle of trust typically uses their access to isolate, manipulate, and ultimately abuse them. Often, this person makes the child feel special, treats them more like an adult than a minor, and leads them to believe that there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing.
Rose’s account of the youth minister’s behavior follows this pattern. Giving the child special gifts, like those personalized M&Ms, is another tactic groomers often use.
Seeing things in a new light
It took years for Rose to realize what had happened to her.
“I didn’t realize all this was bad until about a year ago. And I didn’t realize the trauma,” Rose says. “And I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be for me to love others, like romantically, because of him.”
This realization ultimately made her decide to speak out. Today, she uses her platform to spread awareness so that others may realize what happened to them or recognize what is happening.
“It’s really hard to talk about when no one else has talked to you about this type of thing,” Rose says. “That’s why I’m so passionate.”
Rose says she tried to tell the church at some point, but “they didn’t really believe me.”
After she started reading the letters he purportedly sent her, she says he was fired. She also says there are others.
In spite of everything, it’s been hard for Rose to admit that what he did was wrong.
All that’s changed now.
“So here’s to growing. Here’s to healing. And here’s to me holding onto these,” she says, brandishing the personalized M&Ms, “for the rest of my life until some type of change is made in church.”
@daniellerose143_ ♬ original sound – Danielle Rose
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