Eleanor Neale is a Ukrainian-English YouTuber best known for her videos on true crime covering tragic murders and abductions. She had started her YouTube journey as a beauty YouTuber with makeup videos, but later made all her previous videos private to make exclusively true crime content. She often uploads hour-long videos covering as much detail about famous murders and serial killers as possible. She also hosts a weekly podcast called Usual Disclaimer with Eleanor Neale.
Early Life
Eleanor Neale had developed an early fascination for true crime thanks to the fact that her mother always had “CSI and stuff like that” running on the television. Her obsession with crime intensified when she subscribed to Netflix at the age of 15 and binge watched “the whole documentary section in one week”. She subsequently went to college to study psychology, and although she was determined to study the serial killer psyche, she had to leave college early due to an illness.
Career
Shortly after dropping out of college, Eleanor Neale stumbled across YouTube and created her own channel on March 28, 2016. However, instead of true crime, she was inspired by beauty YouTubers and had started making her own makeup tutorials, such as her first video about a make-up palette inspired by Tyler, The Creator in 2017. Apart from tutorials, she also made videos about what makeup she had bought and occasionally vlogged. After witnessing makeup artist James Charles’ skills about a year and a half into her YouTube career, she was taken aback and decided to shift the focus of channel towards true crime. Initially, she discussed true crime incidents, like the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh, while doing makeup. She continued to make both makeup and crime videos during the first half of 2018, but eventually made all her previous makeup videos private and started making lengthy videos about tragic murders and abductions.
Unlike other creators who get lucky to have a popular video recommended by the YouTube algorithm, Eleanor’s entire channel apparently got a boost as she steadily accumulated large viewership count on almost all of her videos. Nevertheless, she looks back at some of her videos with regret as she sometimes missed to find certain new leads and new lines of enquiry suggested by her viewers in the comment section of her videos. One particular video that she remembers was on Paige Doherty, in which she was not only saying her name wrong but was also not looking at enough places. She acknowledges that spending countless hours researching disturbing cases sometimes takes an emotional toll, like the Jamie Bulger case, which broke her despite her ability to separate work and personal life. She even took a break from YouTube in June-August 2022 due to mental health issues.
Family Life
Eleanor Neale came out as bisexual to her mother on camera for a video posted on her channel in June 2018. She is currently dating fellow YouTuber Jack Manifold, which she revealed through a video on Valentine’s Day, 2023
