A near-death experience translated to viral success for Lexi Weinbaum when, at the age of 16, she smoked marijuana with friends. Instead of getting high, she blacked out and, according to Weinbaum in a series of TikTok posts, she woke up as her friends were trying to kill her.
Weinbaum went viral on TikTok after her first post about the 2015 attack and she now calls herself a “victim advocate.” When Weinbaum began her story, she explained that she had been mentally, physically, and sexually abused for some time before it happened. Her purported “best female friend,” named Saddie, she said, was aware of the abuse, and “had close personal ties with the perpetrator.”
The night it happened
One night, Weinbaum continued, she planned to spend time with a few friends — including Saddie, a girl named Emily, and boys named Steve and Andy — and smoke weed. The night before, Weinbaum said her female friend told her to “look super hot” and that she should lie to her parents about where they were going. “Which I was scared to do,” Weinbaum noted.
Once the friends were together at a guy’s house whom Weinbaum didn’t know, Saddie suddenly said she wouldn’t smoke pot, but one male they were with lit the bong, anyway. He handed it to Weinbaum and said, “Ladies first.” After inhaling a hit, she started coughing, got dizzy, laid down, and lost consciousness. “The next thing I remember, I was being assaulted, choked, beaten — begging for them to stop,” Weinbaum said, and everything was being recorded on Snapchat.
Incredibly, the boy’s mother heard Weinbaum screaming and intervened, but according to Weinbaum, the boy’s mother said Weinbaum wasn’t allowed to die in her house, and told them she needed to leave, rather than call for help, or force them to stop. Weinbaum said she ran down the stairs as the teens followed her. Her friends said, “’Lexi, do you even know where you are?’ And that was the first time I realized I wasn’t dreaming.”
How did Lexi Weinbaum survive?
In another post, Lexi Weinbaum explained that once she was out on the street, she screamed as loud as she could for help. She credits the noise she made for her survival. Onlookers stopped, but the boys and girls Weinabaum was with told them she was having a mental health episode, and that 911 had been called and help was already on its way. Still, someone called an ambulance, and when it arrived, Weinbaum was taken to the hospital.
“I stayed alert, conscious, and calm for as long as I was able to,” Weinbaum said, which helped her escape with her life. Weinbaum’s mother rushed to her hospital bed, along with her grandmother and grandfather. Her grandfather later said seeing Weinbaum in that condition was “the most devastating of his life,” according to Weinbaum in another post. “I was in horrific shape.”
Weinbaum had opiates in her system
In her series, Weinbaum said her toxicology report indicated she had opiates in her system, not just marijuana. She said her attackers were minors at the time, and gives few details about the outcome of what happened, other than they eventually confessed and faced criminal charges, but the case never went to trial.
Weinbaum says little about what motivated the attack, the identity of her assailants, or whether the incident stemmed from the abuse she said she experienced before it happened, citing the ongoing legal case. In one post, she claims one of the males there that night was fascinated with murder.
Some accused Weinbaum of lying or fabricating the story for attention, but several Weinbaum posts cite redacted court documents for proof. Nonetheless, Weinbaum has written a book on victim advocacy, launched the What Came Next [Alexa Weinbaum—TikTok] podcast, and founded Sound of Survivors to “empower victims of violent crime to take their identity back.”
Weinbaum’s life since the attack
Lexi Weinbaum, now 24, has faced other traumas since telling her stories, beyond the depression, anxiety, and eating disorder challenges she lived with related to the experience. An avid horseback rider, Weinbaum had a serious fall in 2021, leaving her seriously injured. As well as her advocacy work and viral fame, in 2023, Weinbaum graduated from Sacred Heart University with a BS in psychology.
