Meet Your New Bestie, Callie Wilson

In a recent TikTok, Callie Wilson is standing in her kitchen, staring down at the camera, and making tomato soup from scratch. The video is set to a mashup of Nicki Minaj’s “Megatron” and Taylor Swift’s “Evermore,” but the content creator is silent the entire time, and she holds the same serious facial expression, one eyebrow raised just like the emoji. She captions the cooking video, “Make tomato soup with me with ease.”

Living “with ease” is the mantra that Wilson has adopted as her own. The phrase isn’t just in her TikTok videos and captions. It’s also a part of each episode title of the 26-year-old’s new lifestyle podcast, Living With Ease. Wilson says the phrase doesn’t have an official definition — it’s just about being easy on yourself and going through each day with a positive attitude.

“It’s funny because ‘with ease’ has become such a thing for me now; it’s my brand,” Wilson says, sitting outside at Tartine, a trendy lunch spot in Los Angeles, eating an omelet and a side salad. Wilson first used the phrase two years ago while making a simple egg and avocado sandwich (she calls it the “best sandwich ever” in her TikTok caption).

Similar to her silent tomato soup video, Wilson stared down at the camera set up in her New York City apartment, while raising an eyebrow — a look she says is synonymous with her go-to phrase. From there, she began adding it to vlogs of her daily life, living with ease while going to the gym, doing chores around the house, and running errands.

At the time, Wilson wasn’t the typical TikTok lifestyle vlogger. She gained a following in 2020 by sharing her daily life as a law school student, giving her audience a behind-the-curtain glimpse of a Gen Z Elle Woods. One who got lip injections in between study sessions and played with her two cats, Cleo and Luna, in an apartment overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge.

In the comments section of her 2021 vlog titled “Burnt out law student,” Wilson’s followers shared how they were doing (“I’m feeling bad because I’m going through a bad breakup,” wrote one; “so happy!! getting my first covid shot today” shared another) and told her she’s the reason they opened the app.

I know probably everyone says this about their followers, but I really do feel like they are my besties.

Now, with more than 1 million followers, Wilson’s shifted away from practicing law and is focused on content creation full time. She jokes that instead of being an entertainment lawyer, she now has one for herself. “[I] definitely did not ever picture this at all.”

Despite watching Michelle Phan makeup videos and daily vlogs on YouTube while growing up in New Hampshire (“I would pretend to do them, but just for myself.”), being a full-time influencer was never something Wilson envisioned.

In high school, she struggled a bit, failing her classes on purpose to impress her boyfriend — a move she says left her in a “party phase” with “zero aspirations in life.” When she graduated, she attended a local college for one year before transferring to a different school and attempting pre-med. That only lasted one day.

When you’re feeling lost and then everyone’s saying you’re doing the wrong thing, it’s not a good feeling.

After she was weeded out in that first class, Wilson says her adviser suggested she try pre-law. “I ended up loving it,” Wilson says. “And then law school just made sense as the next step.” She attended Brooklyn Law for its entertainment program.

Wilson passed the bar in October 2022 (a TikTok of her finding out racked up nearly 4 million views and more than 14,000 comments). She can practice law full time, but she decided to focus on TikTok instead in early 2023. “I lost passion for being a lawyer,” she says, citing some nightmarish internships. She also says she’d dealt with panic attacks while she was in law school.

For Wilson, the decision to focus on content creation was an exciting new chapter, but the choice garnered negative reactions from those who felt like her law school journey was now a waste. When she was finally able to go out with her friends after graduating from law school, she’d get comments saying that she was “spiraling” or becoming “an alcoholic.” “It definitely got to me because when you’re feeling lost and then everyone’s saying you’re doing the wrong thing, it’s not a good feeling.”

Wilson replied to one commenter who said she’d become just another “privileged influencer,” by saying, “I’m just not going to pursue a career that’s not right for me at this time, just to satisfy the [lawyer] storyline.” She has since encouraged anyone who doesn’t want to see her videos anymore to hit the unfollow button.

I am so much happier on my own than hanging out with this person who’s just making me miserable.

On her podcast, and over lunch, Wilson adopts a similar “come as you are” mindset. She speaks comfortably about her mental health, discussing her obsessive-compulsive disorder and why it makes her an overthinker. “I'll get in these minds where I’m like, ‘Oh, I am a bad person, or I am doing the wrong thing?’” Wilson says. “I try to make sure I go for some sort of walk every day because that really does help with your mental health so much.”

Now that she’s a Cali girl, she takes her cats out for walks in WeHo and goes on hikes with her best friend since fourth grade, Celia, who is often mentioned on the pod. “I love L.A. Maybe that will change, but right now I feel very happy here.”

Starting the podcast in October helped with finding meaning in her life on the West Coast. “Going from law school and studying for the bar, I had so much to do every single day,” she says. “And I’m a very structured person, so when I don’t have any structure, I feel really weird.” Recording Living With Ease has brought back some order, and the positive messages from her fans also help.

“I know probably everyone says this about their followers, but I really do feel like they are my besties,” she says. She begins each episode of Living With Ease with “hi, bestie” before going straight into what feels like a one-on-one conversation. Recently, her followers even played the role of wingmen in a situationship. While Wilson doesn’t outright admit who the man in question is, her TikTok comments are filled with one particular name — Lil Wayne.

I’d rather have someone be fake nice than completely shut me out because it’s just less awkward.

Wilson has the “Lollipop” rapper’s name tattooed on her butt, which she got at a party in college. It was from the incessant tagging by her fans that Lil Wayne found Wilson (and her tattoo), and the two eventually slid into each other’s DMs. Wilson goes into detail about the fling that eventually went south on the first episode of her podcast, “Exiting Situationships With Ease.” Now, she says she’s over situationships and is being more intentional with her love life.

“In the past, I’ve always been so scared of being alone,” says Wilson, adding that having a partner felt like a “protective shield.” She’s often molded herself to fit into situationships by acting like the “cool girl” who doesn’t need a label, but after her most recent one, Wilson realizes she needs to put herself first.

“I am so much happier on my own than hanging out with this person who’s just making me miserable,” she says. Her new motto: If someone isn’t serving her, she lets them go.

While Wilson is manifesting a new relationship, this time around she’s going to try and keep it more private. As much as she loves to share everything with her besties, having a 10-second video of her last situationship go viral made her rethink things. “The one thing everyone was saying was like ‘Oh, my gosh, how embarrassing. He ignored her.’” Plenty of assumptions were made (one commenter called her “the girl for the moment”), but even now it’s ancient history, the mentions still continue. “This person’s name is still in my stupid comments every day,” Wilson says. “I definitely won’t put it all out there [again], ever.”

What she is keen to share? More about her life in the real world. On a trip back to New York in the fall, Wilson sat front row at fashion week and she regularly attends influencer events in LA. Going to these events can trigger the same panic attacks she would get in law school, but Wilson says she’s getting better at dealing with them. “I know people say the influencer world here in L.A. is very fake, and that may be true, but honestly, for an hourlong event, I’d rather have someone be fake nice than completely shut me out because it’s just less awkward.”

Even so, Wilson is slowly making friends with fellow content creators. But the best perk of being an influencer, she says, is the community she’s grown with her audience. “Even on my loneliest days, I never feel alone because of my followers.” That’s the benefit of a community built “with ease.”

Photographer: Amanda de Cadenet

Makeup: Daniel Coronado

Hair: Cherilyn Farris

Production: Papergirl Agency

Styling: Atlanta de Cadenet Taylor

Retouching: Elizabeth de La Piedra