Alix Earle Reveals Why She Had To Fire Best Friend Sally Carden

Alix Earle is opening up about one of the trickiest decisions she has had to make in her career — firing her best friend!

The content creator, who rose to fame by posing raw “Get Ready With Me” (GRWM) videos on social media, recently got candid about her experience in a TikTok video, revealing how she went from hiring her longtime friend, Sally Carden, to eventually deciding that the pair needed to stop working together.

Earle explained that she and Carden had been best friends since they were 14 years old, and even attended high school together. However, their lives began heading in different directions after college.

While Earle was building her career as a social media personality, Carden made a move to Aspen for work, which gave Earle an idea. As the TikTok star’s career became increasingly busy, she realized she needed help managing some of her social media platforms.

“I love Aspen. I travel a lot and it can get a little lonely and I was like, you know what, maybe I also need some help with my content, like posting on Snapchat or my Amazon,” she said. “This would be the perfect scenario. Like, if I can hire you, then basically you can come with me everywhere. We’re like gonna be best friends traveling everywhere together, and you like have a job.”

She added, “The job market was hard, y’all.”

Earle thought hiring Carden would be the perfect arrangement. Her best friend could help with her social media accounts while also traveling with her. Basically, she envisioned two friends working and traveling together. However, there was one major problem — neither of them really knew how to separate friendship from business.

Mixing Friendship With Business Complicates A Lot Of Things

Earle admitted that she was still learning how to be a boss and struggled to tell people what needed to get done.

“And I felt very grateful and lucky to be able to work with Sal, but I also was just coming out of college,” she explained. “I didn’t even know how to like be a boss, I guess. Like, I felt bad asking anyone to do anything.”

Earle continued, “I remember my first assistant. I feel like I finally just started to learn how to not be rude, but just like, get things done. I was just always afraid of anyone thinking I was gonna be like rude.”

Carden’s responsibilities included posting content to Earle’s Snapchat. The process sometimes involved the influencer adding photos to a shared album for her assistant to post. That system occasionally created confusion. She recalled posting photos that Earle herself had added to the album, only for the latter to later question why the photos had been posted.

The pair also tried experimenting with more clickbait-style content to boost views, including making “boobas” as a thumbnail, which they regarded as a “big thing” back then. But instead of making their jobs easier, the arrangement appeared to create even more confusion.

Alix Earle Admits She Was Too Scared To End Their Working Relationship

Things became even more difficult when Earle joined “Dancing With The Stars” while simultaneously working on her other projects. Eventually, she said she knew the working relationship had to end. The Sports Illustrated model had planned to go their separate ways by the end of the year, but admitted she was “too scared” to actually tell Carden.

“I started to like literally not answer Sally,” she recalled. “I think it was like the fall, I kind of like soft launched. I was like, ‘oh, maybe like just do Snapchat, not Amazon.’ And then I was supposed to be like, ‘by the end of the year, let’s just like go our separate ways.’ But I was too scared and never said anything.”

At the same time, Earle said she didn’t want to leave her friend “high and dry.” Carden  had also begun working with a manager and taking on brand deals, which the influencer felt could give her an opportunity to focus on building something for herself. Eventually, the conversation happened while the pair were in Aspen.

Cutting Ties Gave Them Relief

Despite the awkwardness surrounding their professional relationship, Earle made it clear that ending the arrangement didn’t mean ending their friendship. In fact, they appeared to agree that separating work from their friendship was ultimately for the best.

“I feel like it was like a big weight lifted off my shoulders,” Earle admitted, to which Carden agreed, while also joking that her bestie had previously been difficult to reach when she was busy.

Alix Earle And Sally Carden Put Their Friendship First

The candid conversation gave fans a rare look at the less glamorous side of Earle’s rapidly growing career, and the challenges that can come with turning a lifelong friendship into a business relationship.

For Earle and Carden, it seems the decision to stop working together may have been exactly what their friendship needed.