A Massachusetts mom turned bright pink when she realized the Barbie impersonator she recruited for her 5-year-old daughter’s birthday party was actually a stripper.
In a now-viral TikTok video, Julia Duggan, a 32-year-old pharmacist, explains it was the ’90s, and it was an innocent mistake. Her mother found the adult entertainer after calling some numbers in a phonebook.
“The woman shows up and she’s a stripper and I love her,” Duggan says, in the clip. “She played along. She did not take off her clothes. I followed her around, thrilled that Barbie came to my birthday party, and all of the parents there had a really good laugh.”
Duggan, who lives in Maine, tells TODAY.com that the Barbie impersonator arrived in a bikini top and a grass skirt. She also had “very long blonde hair.”
“I just remember holding her hand and walking around,” Duggan says. “I was starstruck.”
It wasn’t until Duggan was in high school that she learned the truth about the Barbie.
“We were looking at old photos before we moved, and I was like, ‘Uh, what kind of Barbie did you hire for my birthday party? Interesting choice,’” Duggan recalls. “And my mom was like, ‘Oh, it’s an interesting story.’”
Duggan’s mom is on a mission to find the receipts. In a text exchange posted on TikTok, she explains to Duggan that many of their family photos were damaged when the basement flooded.
Meanwhile, Duggan’s mom is in good company.
“My mom accidentally ordered the spice channel in place of a spice girls concert on pay per view once,” one person wrote in the comments.
Added another, “I think this might have happened a lot from Yellow Page finds…my parents found a strip club and accidentally took us kids there!”
The live-action “Barbie” movie has grossed more than $1 billion worldwide since its April release. The movie, which is based on the Mattel doll, follows Barbie’s journey of self-discovery after she leaves the seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land and becomes a real human. The movie was co-written by Greta Gerwig and her partner, screenwriter and director Noah Baumbach.
