Content warning: This article details instances of domestic violence and abuse. On April 4, 20-year-old influencer Kayla Malec accused her ex-boyfriend of nine months, Evan Johnson, of both physical and emotional abuse throughout the duration of their relationship. Her Campus reached out to Johnson for comment on Malec’s claims but did not hear back at the time of publication. Johnson was arrested for alleged domestic assault and probation violation on April 7 and was released on $30,000 bond. Johnson posted since-deleted videos on social media saying in part, “I’m gonna hold myself accountable … knowing what I did was wrong,” but said Malec “exaggerates.”
“For the past nine months i was in an extremely abusive relationship,” Malec wrote on Instagram and TikTok. “i will never be able to forget the scars left. i will never be the same girl i was before this.” Malec captioned the post, “on my youtube now. this is not only my story, but yours.”
Immediately following her TikTok and Instagram posts, Malec released a four-hour-long two-part series on YouTube, where she claimed that Johnson had verbally and physically assaulted her over the course of their relationship.
“I never thought that I would experience things I’ve only seen on TV, things that I’ve heard stories about, and things that I just knew I would never let happen to me,” Malec said in her YouTube video. “This is probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to, like, talk about in my life: There’s not a single person in my life that knows the full story, not my my parents, my sister doesn’t know, my best friends don’t know… nobody knows the true extent of what I was put through.”
Malec claims the abuse started just a few weeks into dating Johnson. She said red flags started early on, but she just “brushed them off.” She said in her YouTube video, “He’s like, raising his voice at me and he’s just accusing me of cheating on him,” Malec explains. “We’re just lying in bed talking, and he looks at me and he’s like, ‘You just f*cked my best friend.’ It just made no sense because I had just spent $700 and flew across the country to get him out of jail to pick him up.”
Malec claimed that the abuse escalated after she had visited him in Nashville in August 2024. According to Malec, Johnson allegedly got physical with her after drinking heavily, to the point where Malec said she thought he broke her jaw. “I’ve never even been in a fight, let alone [a situation like] that,” Malec said in her video about the alleged abuse. “My whole body just hurt so bad, [it] felt like my jaw was snapped out of place. I’ll never forget that feeling. I couldn’t eat, like it was the most excruciating pain.” In Malec’s video, she also claims that Johnson had verbally assaulted, beaten, and strangled her several times after their first altercation in Nashville. Her Campus reached out to Johnson for comment about Malec’s claims, but did not hear back at the time of publication.
At the end of Malec’s first YouTube video, she included footage of Johnson’s alleged abuse, with what appears to be videos of Johnson allegedly assaulting her and images of bruises and cuts on Malec’s face and body. Her Campus reached out to Johnson for comment on Malec’s apparent injuries, but did not hear back at the time of publication.
“At the end of the day, this isn’t about me, this is such a bigger picture to what millions of women go through,” Malec said. “I hope that this can help somebody because honestly, I don’t want to cry, [but] if six months ago, I had seen a video like this, it would have saved my life. It would have saved my life.”
In her second YouTube video, posted on April 11, Malec explained that in January 2025, after Johnson verbally and physically assaulted her publicly while on vacation, she left the relationship. “I told myself that if I ever told my family, there would be no going back, and that was a rule that I made to myself,” Malec said in the video. “I kept the promise I made to myself, and I called my mom and I said, ‘Mom, please don’t tell anybody, but my boyfriend hits me and it’s been going on for months.’ I’m just crying on the phone just telling her what I haven’t told her for the past few months, and I said, ‘I’m doing this so I can never go back.’”
Malec has continued to post videos on TikTok of the alleged abuse. “it’s so hard to tell my story and relive it,” Malec wrote in the caption of one of her videos, “but seeing that so many people relate breaks my heart. i’m doing this for you, for us.” Soon after Malec’s accusations, Johnson posted a series of now-deleted videos on his TikTok saying that Malec could’ve “left him at any second,” and accusing her of exaggerating for views. “If I was such [a] terrible guy, why would she be with me?” Johnson said in the now-deleted video. “She don’t need me, and if she figured that I was no good for her in the time being, she would’ve left immediately.”
On April 11, People reported that Johnson was arrested in Sumner County, Tennessee for alleged domestic assault and probation violation on April 7, just three days after Malec’s first video was posted. Following the release of Malec’s videos, deleted or privatized all of his social media accounts.
On April 17, Malec posted on TikTok that Johnson was arrested again. Her Campus reached out to Johnson’s teams for confirmation but didn’t hear back at the time of publication. There is no public record of the arrest at the time of publication. There is, however, a court date scheduled for April 22, and a criminal hearing on May 7.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, call 911 or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1(800) 799-SAFE (7233) or visit thehotline.org