‘Pookie’ apologizes for wearing antebellum-style dress in resurfaced photos

Virginia Glaze
viral-pookie-influencer-apologizes-resurfaced-antebellum-college-photos

Viral internet star ‘Pookie’ has apologized after photos surfaced from her college years, showing the influencer wearing an antebellum-style dress at a plantation house.

Campbell Puckett and her husband, Jeff Puckett, have taken over TikTok thanks to their viral ‘fit check’ videos, where Jeff will compliment his wife’s clothing and hype up her outfits.

Since Jeff often calls his wife ‘Pookie,’ a pet name that’s been rising in popularity as of late on the internet, the term stuck, and now the duo are affectionately known by netizens as TikTok’s ‘Pookie couple.’

Despite their massive following and wholesome content, a few users are giving them the side-eye after old photos emerged of ‘Pookie’ from her college years.

Who is the Pookie couple on TikTok?

‘Pookie’ apologizes over resurfaced ‘antebellum’ party pics

In late January 2024, photos of Campbell Puckett emerged online, showing the influencer at a Southern-style party where she and other partygoers wore ‘antebellum-style’ clothing at what appears to be a plantation house.

While these types of parties are fairly common in the South, they’re no less controversial. Antebellum, meaning ‘before the war’ in Latin, has widely been associated with pre-Civil War America — particularly the South, where slave ownership was legal at the time.

campbell-puckett-pookie-antebellum

The style of dress pictured at Campbell’s party all point to the general style worn in the South pre-Civil War, as seen in films like ‘Gone With the Wind.’

Commenters on Reddit tore into Campbell, with one writing, “Fifth generation Southerner here. I don’t care if it’s common, old South parties are morally reprehensible. There are literally thousands of other ways to get drunk in college without cosplaying as a slave owner.”

Puckett published a statement apologizing for the photos via her Instagram stories on January 31, explaining that she was 20 at the time they were taken and in college.

“I didn’t fully understand the impact of my actions the way I do now, 12 years later,” she wrote. “I fully apologize for the harm this may have caused for some and take full responsibility.”

campbell-puckett-pookie-apologizes-antebellum-party

While Reddit has minced no words about how they feel regarding Pookie, comments on her Instagram and TikTok pages seem relatively positive at the time of writing.