Marc D'Amelio is speaking out on behalf of his daughter.
In a recent interview with YouTuber Kevin Wong, the father of TikTok stars Dixie D'Amelio, 19, and Charli D'Amelio, 16, gave more insight into the controversial Bahamas trip amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic back in December.
"First of all, to blame Charli—it was a family vacation," he explained. "She's 16 so she has no say in where we're going. So, you guys can put it on me, but we did what we had to do, you know, we went away."
He added, "Corona is real and people have to take it seriously. You know, we left a hotbed and went to a place where there was very little corona, but we do take it seriously and we want to protect other people and we don't take it lightly. It's a real virus and many people have gotten killed and died from it."
And while the proud dad shared the family's reason for leaving, he said they heard the upset fans "loud and clear" and "it is what it is."
As TikTok lovers may recall, a group of influencers—including Noah Beck, Chase Hudson, Bryant Eslava and Avani Gregg—were also on the getaway trip and received a lot of backlash from fans who called them irresponsible for traveling during a global pandemic.
Noah was one of the first to speak out, saying, "It is what it is, you know."
"I think, especially the business we're in, it's like you need some time to kind of disconnect for a little," he told Pap Galore earlier this month. "That's what that was meant for. It was just a little trip to get away. Wanted to get away from everything and we took a private jet, so it was just us."
The 19-year-old star, who recently broke up with Dixie, also shot back adding that his naysayers would have done the same thing in his position. "Let's say, it's just kind of funny because let's say, that someone who's commenting on our stuff, like, ‘You guys need to stay home,' and stuff like that. Let's say we DM one of them, like, ‘Yo, we want to fly you out to the Bahamas.' If they say yeah, then you screenshot it and say, ‘this you?' or something like that," he said. "It's just not even worth it."