Health & Wellness

What Happened When Lucie Fink Invited One of Her Online Haters Into a Live Zoom Call?

February 18, 2026

Lucie Fink once did something most people would call unhinged: she invited an online troll to hop on a live Zoom with her. “Yes, this is the story of the time that I was being trolled by a person online…and I then asked the person if she wanted to Zoom with me and I met her face to face,” she recalls in the latest episode of The Real Stuff. And Fink isn’t just relying on memory—she “recorded the entire Zoom call,” went back and listened to it years later, and noticed things she missed the first time around.

Fink walks listeners through why online hate feels so deranged, how she now treats her socials like a “digital house,” and the moment the troll’s tough-girl energy collapsed into real pain. And yes, she’s crystal clear on the ending: “I’m absolutely never doing this again with a troll.”

Her new rule: treat your socials like a house party

Fink’s “house party” rule is basically a permission slip to stop treating your comment section like public property. She says “these little pockets of the internet that I’m curating are truly the only spaces that I have some sort of control of who’s in my space,” and she’s “the one that holds the key to this house.”

In other words: you don’t have to keep handing drinks to someone who shows up just to sneer at everyone else.

She makes it super concrete by comparing it to real life. “Imagine I invite all these people over and this is what they say. Do I want these people to come back to my house again?” she asks. That’s why she’s gotten comfortable restricting people, hiding stories, and deciding what energy gets access—because negative energy “is not needed.”

The DM that turned into a Zoom invite

The infamous DM didn’t happen out of nowhere. This was after Fink woke up to what she describes as “this big barrage of negative comments…really, really aggressive, mean things about my body and my platform,” specifically attacking a course she had just launched. Her team initially stepped in and responded kindly, which only escalated things when the woman felt “triggered” by a suggestion about her mental health. That’s when Fink personally took over the thread. “Hi Stephanie, it’s Lucie now,” she recalls writing. “I’m like, what is, what’s going on?”

Then came the curveball. Instead of continuing the back-and-forth in comments and DMs, Fink wrote, “I would love for you to tell it to me to my face because I just don’t think this forum is safe for us anymore.” She admits, “When I hit send on that, I thought there is no way that she is going to say yes,” fully expecting to get blocked or ignored. But the response shocked her: “That would be amazing. I would love that.” Commence the 44-minute Zoom call—complete with Fink’s husband waiting outside the door and the entire thing recorded.

The troll’s ‘feedback’ was…oddly professional?

When they finally stopped talking about the weather and got to the point, the energy wasn’t explosive—it was more corporate. The woman explained that when she saw the course launch, “it sounded great on the outset,” but then she clicked through with what she described as a “critical eye.” Her first issue? “Number one, I didn’t really know who your partner was,” which she framed as a business concern. The second was more technical, the woman revealing that she specializes in web content development. “When I went to the actual website…the site was not mobile optimized,” the woman explained.

The convo was almost like a performance review. The woman even owned part of it mid-conversation: “in retrospect, that was very, it was cruel of me…Which is not fair to you.” The irony is that Fink wasn’t offended by critique itself—she told her she wasn’t upset about feedback on design or copy. What struck her was the delivery. If you’re a marketing professional with notes, there’s a way to pitch your services. There’s also a way to write “your copywriting sucks.” One gets you hired. The other gets you a confrontational Zoom call you never expected.

The call cracks open and everything changes

Then the tone shifted. About ten minutes in, Fink says, “she started breaking down.” The woman moved past brand strategy and into something far more personal. Through tears, she admitted, “I’ve gone through eating disorders, addiction, rehab. More rehab, more medication, more everything,” and then said plainly, “I recognized that I was cruel and inappropriate in how I give my feedback to you, and I regret that, and I wish I could pull it back and start over.”

What became clear in that moment is that the comments were never really about the course. As the woman talked, she kept comparing her life to Fink’s—her body, her marriage, her career, her family. Every “high point” online mirrored something painful in her own world. Sometimes hate is “coming from a deep hurt and a deep human unhappiness,” Fink realizes. Hearing that in real time didn’t excuse the behavior, but it changed the temperature of it. The sting softened. The situation felt human.

Fink’s bottom line on compassion and boundaries

Five years later, Fink’s takeaway is layered. She forgave the woman on the call. “The slate is being wiped clean,” she told her, and she meant it. But forgiveness didn’t turn into unlimited access. Over time, the woman “regressed” more than once, slipping back into negativity, which is why Fink eventually shifted her boundaries. Now, the account lives as restricted: “I always see what she’s written before it goes public.”

She’s also crystal clear about what she wouldn’t repeat. “I’m absolutely never doing this again with a troll.” The experiment gave her insight, but it wasn’t an obligation. The experience helped her see that a lot of hate can stem from “a deep hurt and a deep human unhappiness,” and that realization “takes a little bit of the fear” out of it. Compassion, yes. But paired with control. She can wish someone healing and still decide they don’t get full access to her digital house.

To hear all of Lucie Fink’s insights and the full call, listen to The Real Stuff wherever you get your podcasts.