Nanny Says Celebrity Jeweler Boss Threw Laundry at Her for Folding It Wrong as She Recounts Nightmare Job (Exclusive)

• One woman sharing her experiences from her time nannying for a high-profile family went viral for giving insights into celebrity life
• Brooke, on TikTok @burruphouse, has shared several stories from her four months nannying for a 6-year-old whose mom was allegedly a celebrity jewelry designer
• The former nanny tells PEOPLE why she’s opened up a decade later, and what she hopes sharing her stories will do for others

A young woman getting her start as a nanny had a less than ideal first foray into the job.

Brooke, on TikTok @burruphouse, decided to become a nanny after years of babysitting, with a goal to live in a different part of the country.

“I decided I wanted to go explore different areas in different state. So I got on Care.com,” the Utah native tells PEOPLE.

At the time, it was the summer of 2014. Brooke wanted to explore where the job could take her.

“I really wanted to go overseas, but this lady from New Jersey reached out to me. I connected with her and her son over the phone and they seemed awesome and like they’d be a good fit,” she shares.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

There would even be opportunities for Brooke to join the family on trips abroad, the mom said.

“I’d be able to travel and not have to pay for it, and I’ve always loved kids,” Brooke shares. “It seemed like a win-win.”

After getting to work, Brooke was focused on the “exciting” aspects of the job, but noticed pretty quickly that things weren’t going the way she’d hoped.

“When I got there, she was just not who she was on that phone call,” Brooke recalls of day one. “She was not very nice. In my head, I’m like, she’s this big jewelry designer. Her designs were enjoyed by Oprah Winfrey, or so she told me. Her work was popular and at first, I didn’t know what to think.”

Brooke pressed on but continued to experience moments that made her uneasy.

“She went over pretty extensively what my job duties would be, what days I’d be on or off,” Brooke says. “But I was also young. Maybe I didn’t ask the right questions ahead of time because that was my first bigger job away from home. But mostly everything revolved around her son, who was 6 at the time.”

As she saw more of her boss’s bad behavior, Brooke tried to figure out how to handle the situation she’d stepped into.

“The first day, I just made the excuse of, ‘Maybe she doesn’t like me,’ or ‘Maybe she’s just grumpy today,’ or ‘Maybe she’s on her period.’ But I couldn’t shake the pit in my stomach after that first day,” Brooke says. “I thought I was misreading the situation because I was very sheltered, from Utah, and New Yorkers and people in New Jersey had this reputation of being a bit more harsh. I didn’t want to just give up.”

“After a while, it felt like, ‘Do you ever do anything kind or nice or friendly?’ We went to a museum one day and she was so rude to the ladies at the front desk. It was honestly embarrassing, she was yelling,” Brooke recalls. “She didn’t smile at anyone once all day. Then we went to dinner and she was super rude to the waiter. He was super nice and she just wouldn’t acknowledge him. I was getting the sense that, ‘It’s not just me, it’s everyone. This is how she is.’ ”

The final straw came on the way to a Halloween party, where Brooke finally felt comfortable sticking up for herself.

“Her son was with friends trick-or-treating and she said something not very nice to me in the car. She told me when we got to the party, she didn’t want me to talk to anyone. Which was fine, I didn’t need to,” Brooke shares. “But I said, ‘I don’t like the way you’re talking to me, it’s not very nice,’ And her answer had no empathy or anything. She was just like, ‘You’re fine, stop crying, this is how I talk to everyone.’ She didn’t actually listen to what I was saying to her.”

The conversation escalated and Brooke verbalized her desire to leave. “At that point, things took a turn and she was being nice enough,” she says.

However, on top of their own complicated dynamic, the dynamic between the mom and her little boy also struck Brooke as a little unusual.

“In my mind, he was pretty standard as far as a 6-year-old boy goes. Maybe a little mischievous, but nothing out of the ordinary,” Brooke shares.

“She would hold his hands and stomp her feet and say, ‘You’re making me so mad,’ and obviously no mom is a perfect mom, but there are just some things I don’t know if it’s really healthy for a kid to witness,” she says.

It wasn’t long until the situation hit a breaking point.

“She wanted me to fold some laundry. So I was folding laundry and I wasn’t holding it the right way. So she like knocks over all the laundry and threw some laundry at me and told me I wasn’t folding it correctly,” Brooke recalls. “I snapped and said, ‘I’m done,’ and she said, ‘What do you mean you’re done?’ I said, ‘I’m done working for you and I’m gonna go.’ ”

“She just laughed. She’s like ‘Well, where are you gonna go?’ I said I’d go home and that’s when she told me I needed to calm down and it wasn’t a big deal.”

Brooke’s employer continued to fight her on her resignation until Brooke relented and agreed to give her one more chance.

“For the next week, she just avoided me. She didn’t really talk to me. She just focused on her son. And it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t right,” she shares.

Then, the employer decided to change Brooke’s pay rate without telling her.

“She went to work one day, and I dropped her son off at school. She usually would send me the money for the week, and this time she sent way less than what we agreed upon,” Brooke says. “So I was confused and messaged her like, ‘Hey, is there a reason why you didn’t pay me what we agreed on?’ And she was like, ‘Nope, that’s what I’m paying you now.’ ”

Brooke continues, “So I messaged her back and let her know I was done. I called her son’s grandma, who was always very sweet and very different from her daughter, to let her know I was leaving and he needed to be picked up at the end of the school day. She was very sorry and said she understood and even offered to pay for my flight home.”

At the same time, her now former boss “kept texting me saying things like, ‘You’re a super huge disappointment,’ and ‘I regret every giving you a chance.’ She just kept texting me all these very not nice things about how dumb I was and how I was the worst nanny she’s ever had.”

After her four months at the job, Brooke moved on and gave it little thought until she heard from a mutual friend, who knew another Utah native who went to work for the same family.

“She had a similar experience. [The mom] would also say things that weren’t nice and then tell her, ‘If you quit, you’ll be my biggest disappointment.’ I ended up calling [the new girl] and tell her it’s not worth it. I don’t know if she ended up staying or not, but I advised her not to.”

The exchange inspired Brooke to share her story on TikTok, to be real about what it can be like for young women interested in getting into nannying. Today, she even shares anonymously submitted nanny stories from her followers.

“I think there are a lot of girls who go into it like it did, like, ‘Nannying is going to be a great job.’ Hopefully other girls see that there are things to look out for and maybe learn what questions they should ask to determine and make sure they have a good fit.”

She admits that looking back, she feels like she “didn’t stand up for myself” enough in the situation.

“I don’t entirely regret it, but I regret that,” she shares. “I feel empowered seeing other people be strong in situations, so I hope that if anything, this can help someone else in a situation not take unkind treatment from anyone.”

Brooke’s various TikTok stories about the mom have gone viral several times. However, she’s never heard from her old boss. And despite many attempts from her commenters, no one has ever guessed the correct person, Brooke says, and adds that she has no intention of sharing the woman’s identity.

“I don’t really hate anyone in the situation. I don’t want to destroy her life, though she didn’t treat me very well,” Brooke says. “And it’s out of respect for her son, who would be in his teens now, as well. I feel like what goes around, comes around. She’ll get what’s coming to her eventually.”