Baylen Dupree Says She's 'Not Tourette Girl' Despite Going Viral for Tics. How Her New TLC Show Comes with a 'Big Risk' (Exclusive)

01/13/2025 11:30 AM

The social media sensation's new series, 'Baylen Out Loud,' premieres Monday, Jan. 13 at 9/8c on TLC

Baylen Dupree was officially diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome just ahead of her 18th birthday, though she'd already been experiencing the tics for years. Looking back, her involuntary movements and vocalizations technically started during earlier childhood, but she didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary.

"I felt like all the other kids were doing them. It was just normal," Dupree tells PEOPLE exclusively. Around the age of 15, she experienced a return to the erratic motor and vocal behaviors, and those around her started pointing them out as well.

"I would go to the doctor and I would be like, 'I don't know how to explain this feeling, but I can't stop,'" she says. "That's the only thing and the only way that I would tell people, because I didn't understand it, and I didn't have information."

Even today, at 22 years old, Dupree says she doesn't consider herself a Tourette specialist simply because she's been diagnosed with it. She maintains that she's still learning about herself, her tics and "everything in between."

But since her diagnosis in early 2020, she has gained a considerable amount of knowledge about her disorder, enough to help her spread awareness with her massive social media presence. The West Virginia native has over 10 million followers between her TikTok and Instagram accounts. On Monday, Jan. 13, Dupree's influence will spread onto even bigger screens with the premiere of her new TLC series, Baylen Out Loud.

Related: TikToker Baylen Dupree Shares Realities of Life with Tourette's in New TLC Show Baylen Out Loud: 'An Emotional Dance' (Exclusive)

A television show, Dupree hopes, will give her a new platform to speak on the reality of Tourette syndrome, She wants to give the public an understanding of the science and offers tools for viewers to educate themselves. But she also emphasizes how people should know that the way her Tourette manifests isn't universal in every case.

"When you've met one person with Tourette, you've only met one person with Tourette," she shares. "I feel like people need to know that it's on a spectrum from mild to severe, and that's how it should be looked at."

For example, only 10% of people with Tourette have coprolalia, the involuntary swearing tic with which Dupree struggles, though it hasn't always been present in her behavior. When her symptoms returned as a teen, she didn't curse. Dupree unwittingly picked up the explicitives through innocent means: while spending time with family.

"My brothers moved down to the basement where I was staying to play video games. There's a lot of things that are said during playing video games that I just started to latch onto," she tells PEOPLE.

She continues, "It's become very difficult for me to come up with ways to help my cussing. There's different techniques and there's different things like that, but all in all, sometimes it doesn't help. Sometimes the technique doesn't stop the urge, and the urge is just too strong."

Dupree's surroundings still impact her tics. Sometimes watching television will impact her outbursts; it's a phenomenon called echolalia, which causes her brain to pick up repetitive sounds, noises and movements. Since noticing her susceptibility to such external ongoings, she reduced her screen time significantly.

"That's one thing that I know I can control, the amount of intake," she explains. "I can't scroll through TikTok because I will hear every sound and repeat every sound."

Related: Baylen Dupree Talks Feeling 'Embarrassed, Insecure' in Public with Tourette's: 'Push Past the Hard Days'

As seen on the show, Dupree has a tight bond with her three brothers — Burke, 23, Sven, 16, and Vick, 13 — and her 19-year-old sister, Sammy. Though she says she has different, individual connections with all four of her siblings, she describes her relationships as generally "wholesome," if not a little "crazy" at times.

"There's a lot going on. There's a lot of chaos, but I love it. I love having a big family," she says. "I have a great support system. I have a great family. Very blessed."

The TLC series doesn't shy away from the harder aspects of their family life, however. Her father and mother, Allen and Julie, strain against the idea of Dupree becoming more independent, worrying she might endanger herself or others if she were to move out of their home as she hopes to do. Amid their unyielding empathy and love for their sister, her siblings aren't afraid to discuss how her health has impacted their lives, whether because of her issues going out in public or how much attention she needs from their parents.

On her side, Dupree deals with the fact that her siblings are growing up at more linear rates than she is. Her sister's move out to Kansas was particularly difficult for Dupree, especially in dealing with the comparison between herself and Sammy.

"She's [19], she got to move out. Why am I still in my parents' basement?" the TikTok star reflects. "There was definitely some jealousy, but I was so happy for her because she struggled a lot with leaving my mom's side, and she has really bad anxiety with flying and things like that."

Dupree adds, "The only thing that I can do is just be so happy for her for everything that she's accomplished because she is truly breaking every single barrier that she's set up in her head ever since she was younger."

Related: Alex Wolff Says He, Brother Nat and Tourmate Billie Eilish 'Have Bonded' Over Having Tourette's: 'She's One of Us'

She's gone out to visit her little sister, and she's glad to see Sammy living well with her boyfriend, Junior. Eventually, Dupree hopes to reach that stage with her own boyfriend, Colin. In fact, she sees a bright future with him, though his work in the U.S. Air Force has threatened to keep them apart.

Colin's impending relocation for training is one of the hurdles presented in Baylen Out Loud that has nothing to do with her Tourette syndrome. Neither partner wants to be apart for several months at a time, especially considering Colin's soothing effect on Dupree. She often describes him as her "medicine."

"He is the prescription that I've needed for a really long time that never runs out. It was just meant to be. He just understands me so well," she tells PEOPLE. "He distracts me from a lot of the things that consume my day and my time ... It just really helps just having someone there who gets it and understands me."

Colin and Dupree met on a dating app. He'd never actually met anyone with Tourette, but he was willing to learn. "He was very observant," she recalls. He watched her with her parents and with her friends. After their first date, Colin went through Dupree's TikTok to learn more about how her specific condition operates.

"He still is [learning], but I mean, so is everyone else. I am still learning about it. My parents are still learning about it. There's so much more work that needs to be done to educate more people and to understand fully what people are going through and dealing with," she notes.

"But I hate when people are like, 'He's so patient with you,'" Dupree says. "I'm like, people have to be patient with everybody. My dad's got to be patient with my mom, and my mom's got to be patient with my dad, and neither one of them [has] Tourette."

In reality, it's Dupree's patience that stands out so impressively. In public, her tics are often met with stares and whispers — or at worst, hostile confrontations — from nearby strangers. Instead of meeting their rude responses with anger, Dupree leads with grace.

"I understand that it's very out of the norm to have someone in a store screaming or yelling things," she says. "I'm not trying to pay attention to everyone else's problems [with] me. I can't help everyone, but one thing I can do is help myself."

Related: Travis Barker's Son Landon Reveals He Has 'Very Minor' Tourette Syndrome

But when people get aggressive with their reactions, Dupree will explain herself. She remembers a time when she had a severe tic attack at a restaurant, and a woman approached the family to tell them Dupree was bothering her.

"I instantly go, 'I can't stop. I have Tourette,' and guess what she did? She left. Because that's something that she can help," the social media sensation says. "She apologized, but I realized that she had to do what she had to do because she was uncomfortable."

As much as she encounters judgment and misunderstanding in the world, Dupree is well aware that the Tourette community is real and robust. Thanks to her TikTok notoriety, she's been able to meet others with the disorder and has even gone to TIC-CON, a national conference hosted by the Tourette Association of America (TAA).

Even though those gatherings can impact her tics and exacerbate her echolalia, being in that type of environment is "the one place that I feel the most comfortable," says Dupree.

"I fit in," she continues. "No one stares, no one looks, no one says anything. Everyone in the same room gets it. Everyone has the same struggle. Everyone's just trying to make it. They're just trying to have a normal life."

Related: Billie Eilish Says She's 'Pretty Confident' in Her Tourette Syndrome: 'It's Part of Me'

TAA-hosted events also give Dupree the chance to hear about other people's experiences with Tourette, but she's also been glad to hear stories outside of special events and from people with less obvious symptoms. Billie Eilish, for example, acknowledged her Tourette syndrome during an episode of David Letterman's Netflix talk show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.

"I feel like that's amazing because their story matters just as much as mine or people with the TAA. Your story and journey is different than mine," she says. "That's what makes Billie so unique, because she's Billie, and Billie has her own story to tell and her own tics to show and everything in between. And I just know that everyone's story is different because everyone's their own person."

She sees herself as a role model to others with Tourette, and when people tell her how she's helped them — or when parents thank her for helping them better care for their kids with Tourette — it reassures her of her purpose.

"Like, 'Okay, I am actually doing something good. I am actually helping people,'" she says. "I love meeting people. I love knowing your story. I love knowing that I'm doing something good."

One day, she hopes to have her own children. Being a mom is a dream close to Dupree's heart, especially when she thinks about raising them with Colin. And if her kids inherit her disorder, she's confident in her ability to guide them through anything.

"It was definitely hard for me to go through and think, Do I want kids because of my condition? I struggled a lot with that internally," she explains to PEOPLE. "Then I think, 'What better person, if my kid has Tourette, to take care of [them] than me?' I will know. Me and Colin will know. We're living it. We know."

Related: Chris Cuomo Addresses Criticism for Laughing While Interviewing TikToker with Tourette's: 'She's Welcome Here'

Whether it's her hope to start a family, her appreciation for her friends and family or her love of dogs, Dupree wants her presence on TV to resonate with all types of viewers, whether or not they have Tourette.

"I want people to be inspired and find a correlation in the story of something they relate to," she tells PEOPLE ahead of the first episode's release. "I feel like the story and my life is very authentic, and I think being vulnerable and helping people is definitely in there. I want people to see that too."

In Baylen Out Loud, Dupree also opens up about her obsessive compulsive disorder, something she says is often worse than her Tourette.

"My OCD is always driving the car as soon as I wake up in the morning, and my tics are in the passenger seat, and my anxiety is in the back, and my ADHD is right behind my Tourette. It's kind of always like that," she explains.

It can cause a pattern in her tics. Sometimes she has to repeat her sudden, involuntary motor and vocal behaviors three times due to her OCD.

Related: McKenzie Westmore Reveals That She Has Tourette Syndrome: 'I Was Afraid it Would Hurt My Career'

"It interferes a lot with everything that I do," says Dupree. "It's very debilitating and annoying when it gets to you having to do things multiple times because it doesn't feel right. It's not perfect. It's not good enough. I need to redo it."

She cites the TAA's metaphor to explain how Tourette is often accompanied by other mental health conditions.

"Tourette [is] the iceberg above the water. You see the Tourette, you hear the Tourette, you hear the tics. Underneath the water is the bottom of the iceberg, and it's all the comorbidities: the OCD, the bipolar, the anxiety, the depression, everything you could probably think of that's underneath the iceberg that is also going on," says Dupree, who also has bipolar disorder.

Medication hasn't been a cure-all for her mental health, unfortunately. In fact, as Allen explains to PEOPLE, it's previously made things harder for her.

Addressing his daughter, Allen elaborates, "A lot of times your medicine switches who drives in the morning when you get up because of co-mobility, meaning your side effects from certain medicines puts depression in the driver's seat and then everything else relies on that. And then depression drives for months."

Juggling as much as she does, Dupree tries to focus on balancing her schedule to accommodate her limits with as few setbacks as possible.

"We're straddling the line," she summarizes. "We're just trying to make it through the day, every day."

Related: Lewis Capaldi Says He May Quit Music If Tourette's Worsens: 'My Tic Is Getting Quite Bad on Stage'

It can require some sacrifice to avoid getting overwhelmed. On some days, she can go to the grocery store, but she can't see her friends or go to the gym. She might not be able to watch a TV show either, because it might exacerbate her tics. "So if the only thing I do today is go to the grocery store, then by all means I can go to the grocery store," Dupree concludes.

The reality series focuses on Dupree's neurological disorder, but it also dives deeper into her personal world: her mental health and her desire for independence. She's welcomed cameras into her home, where she lives with her parents and siblings, and she's invited the outside world inside her own.

"I also want people to leave knowing my name. That's really important to me. I'm not Tourette girl. I'm not [one specific] tic. I'm Baylen, and I want people to know that," she adds. "I want to inspire and impact people regardless of if you have Tourette or if you don't. I still want to be able to let people know that they can be themselves, and they can do things that make them uncomfortable. And doing things that make you uncomfortable helps you grow."

Choosing to do the show came with its own discomforts and risks for Dupree. Knowing the nuanced nature of Tourette syndrome and how it's so commonly misunderstood, she worried about what side of the story would stick with the nationwide audience.

"Tourette is so complicated and complex and can be very misleading and misinformative to people if it's not portrayed the right way," she notes. "That is so important to me, and [it] can be a really big risk when you are doing a TV show — how am I going to be portrayed? How is my family going to be portrayed? How is Tourette going to be portrayed?"

In the end, the risk paid off: "I feel like it was for the better because I absolutely love the way that Tourette is displayed, the way that I am displayed, the way that my family is displayed," Dupree says, adding praise for the film crew, who made sure her life was properly translated on camera. "They truly just care about me and my family and Tourette and learning more."

Related: How 'American Idol' 's James Durbin Manages Life With Tourette's and Asperger's

Maybe there's a future where Tourette syndrome isn't as present in Dupree's life. She knows it "waxes and wanes." She hopes that she'll have minimal tics down the line, and she's willing to put in the work to get to that place.

"I just hope as I get older and as I have a family and life goes on, they get better. But I don't really know the answer ... because I'm not really in charge of the future," she says. "What I wish and what I want are two different things."

Some things are in her control: in the next few years, Dupree wants to start a brand and own a business. She wants to get married and start a family. But most of all, she wants to stay true to herself.

"I just see myself with a family [and] an animal farm, hopefully. Just being with Colin and having my own family," says Dupree, looking ahead toward the future and all of its uncertainties. "I still want to wear sweatpants when I go out to eat ... I hope that I'm still me. I'm still Baylen. That's where I want to be. I don't want anyone to change who I am. I don't want to have anyone try to influence me to be different."