On Monday, as many were deep in the throes of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, Instagram model and influencer Sumner Stroh, 23, took to TikTok and released a bombshell. Showing screenshots of DMs from Adam Levine, the model alleged that not only was she “manipulated” into having affair with The Voice judge, but that he contacted her after months of “not talking” to ask if she is “ok with” Levine naming his and his wife’s third child after her.

The full DM read, “Ok serious question. I’m having another baby and if it’s w [sic] boy I really wanna name it Sumner. You ok with that? DEAD serious.” He followed up the message with a shrugging emoji, as one does when asking an alleged ex-mistress if naming your wife’s child after her is okay.

Yeah. Let that sink in for a moment.

Stroh opens the video saying there is no easy way to do this and launches into her story: “I was having an affair with who is married to a Victoria’s Secret model. At the time, you know, I was young, I was naive, and, I mean, quite frankly I feel exploited. I wasn’t in the scene like I am now. So I was definitely very easily manipulated.”

She claimed that she and Levine “were seeing each other for about a year,” and that they had stopped talking around June 2022. Cut to a few months later, and Levine decided to check in and see if it would be weird to name his child he’s having with his wife after a woman with whom he cheated on said wife.

The allegations come three days after Levine’s wife, model Behati Prinsloo, confirmed the couple’s third pregnancy. The couple has been married since 2014 and have two daughters together, Dusty Rose (5) and Gio Grace (4). Levine has yet to make a public comment about the TikTok full of cheating and manipulation allegations, which has garnered over 3 million views in the few hours since it’s been posted.

Of course, some commenters have been quick to play the “it takes two to tango” card, assuming that Stroh had just as much agency and power in her dynamic with a man who is a worldwide superstar 20 years her senior. Others noted that the main victims in the scenario are Levine’s wife and children.

Fortunately, not everyone was as quick to judge the model, who said she decided to share her story after hearing that a friend tried to sell screenshots of the conversation to tabloids. Many other women shared their own stories of being manipulated by married men. And surprise! To those saying she is just regretting her decision to have an affair, many pointed out that regret and manipulation can coexist.

And let’s focus on the ending of the story: the affair allegedly ended, communication was cut off for several months, and then Levine allegedly entered her DMs asking to name his wife’s child after her. The married man was the one reentering the chat, saying something that is frankly so off-the-wall that it almost feels like it was meant to catch Stroh off-guard or instigate a strong, emotional response — a prime manipulation tactic. Have whatever moral judgements you want about having an affair, but given just a glance at this one text exchange, it seems like there was an unfair power dynamic at play.