Charleen Murphy Profile

Charleen Murphy, 27, is an Irish influencer and podcast co-host of “Hold My Drink” alongside fellow influencer and best friend, Ellie Kelly. 

Charleen Murphy (left) and Ellie Kelly (right) at one of their Vicar St. live shows in October 2023. Photo: Alison Gussago

Charleen’s career started back in her secondary school days when Suzanne Jackson, 

The owner of the beauty brand ‘SOSU by Suzanne Jackson’ hosted a talk at her school which Charleen attended and was immediately inspired. 

However, Charleen did not immediately begin her career as an influencer. She studied Childcare at DIT, which she eventually dropped out of as she realised it wasn’t the right path for her. Charleen then started taking social media more seriously, however, she didn’t expect to gain such a large following as she has today and said, “I did it out of the love of fashion and beauty.” 

Charleen’s influencing career went on to grow enough to start receiving brand deals. For example, she has recently worked with Coca Cola, PrettyLittleThing, and even Garnier. However, Charleen’s first-ever brand deal was with ‘SOSU by Suzanne Jackson’. Due to the fact that this brand was her inspiration to start this career, it was expected that Charleen would reach out to SOSU herself, however, it was SOSU that reached out to Charleen. This really kickstarted her career as an Irish influencer.

Though being an influencer does come with great benefits such as brands deals, brands trips, and receiving PR, Charleen reveals that social media isn’t all what it seems. Though Charleen is currently in a relationship with Dano Mandroiu, she says that single life as a public figure is hard as “If I were single now, I would be worried people would be looking to be in a relationship with me for a certain thing; just to say they’re richer or something.” She also says that she’s grateful that her boyfriend, Dano, is in the public eye as a footballer, meaning he relates to her feelings on this more. However, Charleen doesn’t express the same concerns with friendships “My friends now are people I’ve known from before, there’s a couple I know from now, but I know that they’re real.” Charleen expressed that she hasn’t had any bad experiences with other Irish influencers, as they are quite a tight-knit community in comparison to the USA for example.

Though sharing details of your life is part of being an influencer, Charleen finds it hard to believe that so many people are interested in her personal life. “You feel like you’re always proving yourself to people.” Charleen spoke about the struggles of social media and how you can never keep everyone happy., “People want something to hate you over.” Charleen reveals that she had to delete Twitter due to the amount of hate she was receiving on the platform. Being so open on social media also allows people to form opinions and assumptions about you., Charleen says that she has had strange rumours made up about her by people she doesn’t even know. “There was a rumour I smashed a glass over someone’s head.” Charleen says that she didn’t expect “people being so nosy” about what goes on in her personal life and that she must be cautious of who she trusts with personal information.

Charleen has also been open on social media about having cosmetic procedures done, however, she is cautious about it as she has a young, impressionable audience. “When you make big decisions, you have to think about that yourself and how you’re going to announce it online.” Charleen does not keep it a secret that she has had a breast augmentation and rhinoplasty, however, she is careful about how much she shares about her experiences with them, as her audience consists mostly of teenage girls. “I’d be wary about it. I don’t post loads about it. I don’t want it to look like I just go around getting loads of stuff done,” she said.

However, despite these negatives of social media, Charleen does love her job and acknowledges that the hate she gets could be worse., “I’m really lucky the hate that I do get is never really about my appearance.” Charleen saidys that despite the challenges that social media brings, for example, thinking of new content, she wouldn’t have it any other way. She enjoys the “freedom and flexibility of it” and the opportunities that being an influencer brings. Charleen co-hosts a podcast with fellow influencer Ellie Kelly called “Hold My Drink”, which started in 2021 and recently had 2 sold-out live shows at Vicar St. She has done campaigns with BooHoo, NastyGal and KASH Beauty, and expresses that they are all “brands I actually love”. In April 2023, she also went on a brand trip to London with Netflix for the show ‘Bridgerton.  She expresses how grateful she is that she has these opportunities as part of her career, “things like that are just mad, they’re like little ‘pinch me’ moments.”