A woman who was found dead in a city centre had been treated like a “performing clown” according to a homeless charity.
Keeley Thornton, 34, was found unconscious early on Tuesday evening in the middle of Sheffield. Emergency services were called to Arundel Gate in the city shortly after 6.30pm on Tuesday, January 15th.
A member of the public tried to perform CPR on her after she was found unresponsive, until the ambulance arrived but tragically she was pronounced dead. The woman was named locally as ‘Sheffield Keeley,’ a woman often seen drinking in the city centre whose antics were shared more than a billion times by TikTok users.
Police said her death was being treated as unexplained after a 47-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of administering a noxious substance. The Archer Project in Sheffield, who help the homeless, told how that day she had visited them earlier that day and hugged a support worker before she left.
They slammed social media users who they say “exploited” the mum “just for likes”. They didn’t name Keeley but claimed she was paid to swim in fountains in the middle of winter and dance in an inebriated state “like a performing clown.’ Soon after her death, TikTok users posted a video of Keeley singing the Nelly Furtado song, I’m Like A Bird, often with people singing behind her.
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Keeley was found dead in Sheffield
On TikTok, one video shared millions of times shows her splashing around in a fountain with people shouting at her things like ‘Do your Tom Daley dive’. Other content providers would come across her in Sheffield city centre and scream at her: ‘Oh my God we’ve found Keeley. She’s famous’ before posing with her and singing with her.
The Archer Project, based at Sheffield Cathedral, railed at those who helped build her ‘street celebrity’ status saying they made her “life worse”. They claimed she was “exploited” for “clickbait” adding: “Just for likes, that’s what it comes down to. They exploited her just for likes.
“It wasn’t a casual filming of someone you come across, which many think is bad enough. No, she was sought out, she told us she was given money to be on social media, to swim in fountains in the middle of winter or dance in an inebriated state like a performing clown or whatever…”
The charity’s post said on the day she died, she had left them and “hugged one of the support workers on her way out”. It said: “There is huge sadness. What makes this death different is the ‘street celebrity’ status. Within a couple of hours of the death the first social media appeared, ‘Social media icon’ found dead.
“In the coming weeks, as a city, we will note the failings we are aware of in our depleted and stretched system.” But it said many attempts to stop her being “used” by social media posters to improve their online presence” had failed. It pointed out: “Just for likes, that’s what it comes down to. They exploited her just for likes. When we say exploited, that’s what we mean.”
It went on: “…She was effectively being fed booze to perform because that was her addiction. Dance and we’ll give you more of what you crave, what you can’t do without, what your body craves and needs. Dance and we’ll reward you with the funds to buy more…
“One of our colleagues who worked with her said, ‘some people who will hail her as a Sheffield legend are the same people who used her vulnerability as click bait to get more attention on social media, are now the same ones who did nothing to help her.’ The truth is she was a person, a daughter, a niece. She was a human being not an entertainment.”
It told how for some time there had been a “concerted effort” to stop the “exploitation of this person” by police, city centre management, public sector and voluntary sector agencies. It said her life had been “complex” and told how those who worked with her trying to help were “unhappy, hurt, upset and angry”. Pal Kayleigh Kingswood wrote: “She will forever be my best friend so glad I got to see her before she grew her wings thinking of all her family especially her boys at this heartbreaking time…”