Ms Rachel has blunt response to being a 'controversial' figure for toddlers

Ms Rachel has admitted that she's been advised to stay out of political issues after facing backlash for her comments about the devastation in Gaza.

If you’re a parent or have any young kids in your family, you’ll know exactly who the 43-year-old, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, is - and likely will have heard her voice coming out of your telly on more than one occasion.

She has built a multi-million-pound empire through her hugely popular children's YouTube show, Songs for Littles, and been branded the ‘queen of toddler TV’.

Her YouTube channel has a whopping 21 million followers, and since she signed with Netflix in 2025, the series has been streamed more than 69 million times.

But aside from her online persona, she’s also a passionate activist and isn’t afraid to speak her mind when it comes to humanitarian issues and politics.

On Instagram and TikTok, she often speaks out about issues such as the atrocities in Gaza, family immigration detention centres in the US, the war in Sudan, LGBTQ rights, and more.

Most recently, amid the ongoing Ed Sheeran and Macklemore drama, she pledged to match the latter’s donation of $1 million to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and said every ‘wealthy white celebrity' should do the same’.

"Our goal in life isn’t to be the most liked"

She’s since faced backlash from some Jewish parents and revealed in a new interview with The Guardian that she’s been advised to keep quiet on political issues, being told: “If you don’t say anything about anything controversial, you’ll help more kids, because more people will watch.”

However, the YouTuber has no plans to be silenced, as she responded: “I was confused and devastated that people said because you care about children who are starving, and whose food is being blocked, you don’t care about these [Jewish] kids.

"I was like, oh my gosh, I have a deep love for, a deep care for, all children.

“I had this moment when I was praying to God, like how do I handle people hating me? And I feel like I got the message that our goal in life isn’t to be the most liked or the most loved. It’s that you’re meant to help kids, and stand with kids, and speak the truth about things.”

She bluntly urged: “It’s good to criticise governments for violating children’s rights. It’s something that everyone should be doing. Because we’re the grownups of this world and we’re meant to keep children safe. And the fact that we are not is horrific.”

"Palestinian kids have been so dehumanized"

Last week, Accurso hit out at Ed Sheeran, writing on Instagram: “Imagine being a Palestinian kid and seeing he did a concert for Ukraine but when over 20,000 Palestinian children are killed he’s silent.

“When his opening act says Palestinians should be free and not in a genocide he lets a billionaire kick him off. Palestinian kids have been so dehumanized that as they continue to be killed people debate about being political. It’s sick.”

Sheeran has since apologised and said he's had to 'take, and make, difficult decisions, and I am making mistakes and I'm so, so sorry for them'.

The musician said: "What happened in Israel and at the Nova music festival on October 7 was horrific," while calling the treatment of Palestinian people as 'catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate', and saying he'd been deeply affected by the loss of civilian lives.