Summary of Influencer Tutor Brooke Lim’s Saga Whereby She Admitted to Plagiarising Others’ Works

Last Updated on 2023-05-05 , 1:33 pm

A perfect score on the A Levels, a successful tuition business, admission to a top American university—by themselves, all these achievements sound nothing short of impressive.

Fans of TikTok influencer and English tutor Brooke Lim Ke Xin, better known online as Sugaresque, agree with those sentiments. For a long time, she’s been a role model for students in Singapore, with hundreds flocking to attend her popular General Paper (GP) tuition classes.

However, many now suspect this perfection is just a carefully-curated facade—recently, the 19-year-old admitted to plagiarising an essay that she posted on her blog, but only after she faced extreme pressure from netizens with damning evidence. 

Plagiarised Essay On Eating Disorder

On 18 April, Brooke posted an essay on her blog Grayscale Copy and shared the link to it in her Telegram channel.

In her message, she gives readers the impression that the essay is an autobiographical recount of her own experiences and, therefore, very personal and sensitive—she even cautions readers to click away if the topic, supposedly her struggles with an eating disorder—is triggering.

These claims were quickly debunked. About a week ago, an anonymous TikTok account named “sugaresqueessay” accused Brooke of plagiarism and even compiled a document of evidence to support their claims. 

@sugaresqueessay ‼️ PAUSE TO READ ‼️ i cant believe she plagiarised so much from ONE book alone and THERES ACTUALLY EVEN MORE from another book too (haven’t had the time to compile) #sugaresque #plagiarism #fyp #fypシ #fypsg #sgtiktok #sg #singapore #bombasticsideeye #criminaloffensivesideeye #accountability #controversy #blowthisup #exposed #takeresponsibility ♬ LMAO THE VIDS – ✨ ILikePotatosOnCheese ✨

The video went viral on TikTok and has since garnered over 8,000 likes and more than 251,000 views.

In the evidence document, it’s stated that over 70% of the original essay wasn’t her original work and, instead, was plagiarised from five books and eight articles.

Sections from her essay were also placed next to the original content she plagiarised; comparing them, it’s obvious they’re basically copied word-for-word. 

These are screenshots of the evidence document, so you can take a look at exactly how much was copied.

She didn’t just plagiarise her experiences—she plagiarised commentary, too, from articles across the internet that she did not cite. 

Her First Response

At first, Brooke simply edited out certain glaringly plagiarised parts instead of addressing the accusations head-on. 

On 19 April, people noticed that her essay included a note at the start, informing readers that a section of the content, which she claimed she wrote when she was 14, was plagiarised and has since been deleted.

She said that she had “lifted it for the essay” and “[assumed] it as entirely original”. However, there are two issues with her claim—first, more than just that excerpt was plagiarised, and second, some of the content she copied was published only in 2020, when she was 17.

According to the document, further edits were made to the content, although they did not eliminate the plagiarism completely. In the early hours of 20 April, Brooke password-locked her blog and deleted all mentions of the essay in her Telegram channel. 

The essay is no longer accessible there.

Her Apology Video

Like every influencer under fire, Brooke released an apology video on TikTok that netizens lambasted as insincere. 

In her video, she admitted to the self-proclaimed “very serious and regrettable mistake of plagiarising”. She said she had contacted all her students to offer an apology individually. 

@sugaresque♬ original sound – Brooke

She also claimed that she was open to suggestions from the public on how to right her wrongs and said that she would no longer remove comments on her videos.

However, that was soon proven to be false—netizens realised quickly that certain negative comments were still being removed just one hour after the video was posted, despite her promises of transparency.

All this led to them labelling the apology as insincere and lacking integrity, saying she was too preoccupied with maintaining her image of perfection to admit to her wrongdoings truly.

Many also speculated that the apology was written by a PR firm she hired, taking into account the delay in her response and the flatness of her apology. 

More Plagiarism?

The plagiarism, though, doesn’t just end at that essay.

It was later uncovered that she had plagiarised in multiple instances, even in media interviews and her monetised tuition notes.

Some of the additional instances of plagiarism have been included in the document. In her interview with Singaporean media outlet The Ladies Cue, a section of her responses was copied directly from the founder of the dating app Bumble, Whitney Wolfe Herd.

Content in her class notes was also found to be plagiarised—an activity sheet for her GP open class has sections lifted from multiple articles by news outlets like CNN and The New York Times.

Unsurprisingly, Classical Club’s website also has a section copied from another website and an essay she wrote in her junior college, Raffles Institution, was also found to be plagiarised.

She’s even plagiarised in responses to questions posted on her Tellonym, a platform that facilitates anonymous queries and feedback.

Why Is This A Problem?

Plagiarism is a serious issue in academia—many universities consider it an actionable offence, and students found plagiarising can face disciplinary action, including possible expulsion. 

Just recently, a prospective lawyer admitted to plagiarising a paper he’d written more than six years ago in university and was banned from taking the bar exam for four months as a consequence. 

Brooke’s plagiarism is problematic for two reasons—the first being that she charges a fee to access her content. 

For context, full access to her tuition centre, Classicle Club’s notes and content is priced at a hefty $789, as stated on their website. Despite her lack of university qualifications and young age, she markets herself as a credible and reliable tuition teacher. However, some netizens feel that her acts of plagiarism are a testament to her inability to live up to that reputation.

In addition, subscribers and attendees of her tuition centre expect original content, which she promises front-and-centre on her website:

These students fork over money for exclusivity and originality, but her content simply falls short in that aspect. 

The second reason pertains to her essay about eating disorders. In plagiarising multiple sources and passing them off as her personal experience, many feel she is using a severe psychiatric disorder for clout, which is disrespectful to people suffering from the condition.

Netizens have, therefore, been pushing for consequences. A petition on the website Change.org to rescind her admission to The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has been created and has received more than 966 signatures as of 26 April.

The petition cites her lack of integrity and credibility and urges the American university to reconsider admitting her.

Other Tuition Centre Plagiarised Her?

Back in November 2022, another anonymous TikTok account accused another influencer-turned-tutor Denise Soong Ee Lyn of plagiarising Classicle Club.

The user claimed that Denise plagiarised Brooke’s business model, content, and logo design.

The first mistake that Denise made, apparently, was treating her students to a movie screening, an experience which she then posted on TikTok. However, this was apparently Brooke’s original idea.

Denise later argued that the movie concept wasn’t exclusive to the both of them.

She was also accused of plagiarising Classicle Club’s logo, but explained that the design was actually from a Canva template that the both of them tweaked.

She admitted to plagiarising content, however, saying that her intern had produced work that bore similarities to the work of Classicle Club.

Denise reached out to Brooke’s team to settle the matter, and the pair agreed to do this through a private call.

Who Is Brooke Even?

The most important part of this article, arguably, is this: who exactly is this Brooke person?

Brooke Lim Ke Xin, better known as Sugaresque, her TikTok username, is a Singaporean influencer and sole proprietor of the tuition business Classicle Club.

She’s always had her fair share of “haters”, like every other influencer, even prior to the plagiarism saga.

Conversely, she also made headlines on multiple local news outlets, with articles praising her entrepreneurship, citing the six-figure profit she claims she made. 

Way before Classicle Club was founded, though, her TikTok account detailed her life as a student at Raffles Institution, with some videos offering tips and advice to other JC students—she also famously claimed she only had one hour of screen time daily.

She was seen as an inspiration for many because of her academic merit and facade of perfection that her social media accounts purported, which makes the plagiarism accusations even more jarring. 

It’s worth noting that she does hire someone to manage her image online—her PR representative once contacted Goody Feed for an interview with her, but the offer was rejected.