Woman checks Walmart cake pops before serving them. Then she sees what her child could have eaten: ‘That is so nasty’

A mother said she opened packaged cake pops from Walmart before giving them to her son and found what she identified as mold inside two of them. Ashlie, who posts on TikTok as @theashliehairston, shared a video in which she broke the treats in half and pointed to the insides. The video had gained 1.7 million views, 49,900 likes, and more than 4,500 comments.

In the TikTok video, Ashlie held a chocolate cake pop on a stick and split it open. On-screen text read, “DO NOT BUY THESE FROM WALMART THAT’S DUCKING GROSS.” She said, “Look at this. That is mold. That is mold.” She stated that she opened them because an earlier purchase from the same location had what she described as mold.

She then picked up a second cake pop from a package labeled “MARKETSIDE CHOCOLATE CAKE POPS” that showed a freshness date of 08/26/26. She broke that one open as well and said, “Look at the other one, because I opened both of them. There it is. That is so nasty.”

TikTok creator says she checked the cake pops after an earlier mold claim from the same store

Ashlie said she checked both cake pops before letting her child eat them. She stated, “So because the last ones we bought had mold, I opened them up to check them before I let them eat them.” She held both opened cake pops on their sticks and warned viewers, “If you feed your kids these Marketside Cake Pops from Walmart, do not, because that is so gross.”

In the caption, she tagged Walmart and wrote that the problem had happened twice from the same location in her area. She said, “Walmart, this is unacceptable. This is the second time this has happened, so it’s not a fluke.” She added, “What if I had to let him eat that? He could have really been sick. That is so gross.” For Walmart, food safety complaints extend beyond cake pops, as a woman claimed she left baked chicken on her counter for six months.

In a follow-up TikTok video, Ashlie said the first post had drawn a strong reaction. She stated that people were calling her names and telling her she was shopping in the wrong place. She explained that she lives in a very small community with limited places to shop.

She said her son had wanted the cake pops. She stated she does not always feed him junk and that he also eats fruits and vegetables. She asked whether he could have a cake pop every once in a while and called some of the reactions “a little crazy.” Such concerns over moldy food items are not uncommon, like when a Canadian woman discovered mold on her half-eaten Burger King Whopper.

Ashlie said she had bought the same product before and noticed mold when one was cracked on the top. She stated she had not bought them for months and that they are not an everyday item. She said she is not suing Walmart over a $2 freaking cake pop and told people to calm down because “it is not that serious.”

She described the activity in her comment section as wild and said the engagement was awesome. She added that the lesson learned was that they would make their own d–n cake pops from now on. The follow-up video was posted as a reply to a comment that read, “Yuk!! I don’t think I would buy them again.”

Some viewers focused on the printed date. One commenter wrote, “It says 8/26/26? They are expired.” Another commenter advised against buying food from several large chains and wrote, “Don’t buy ANY FOOD from Walmart, Sams Club, Costco, or Aldi.”

A different commenter questioned that advice and wrote, “For those of you saying don’t buy any food from Walmart, where do you buy your food?” Others asked about timing. One commenter wrote, “How long did you have that before you posted this?” Another commenter wrote, “everything gets moldy so much faster now …”