Neglect and dirt: “It’s crazy that one of the most famous places in the world looks like this”

For decades the Hollywood Walk of Fame held the glittering title of one of the most famous and glamorous sites in the world. The glittering stars on the sidewalk, the memories of the great motion pictures and the typical Los Angeles atmosphere established its position as a must-see destination for every tourist who comes to California. However, a new viral video of a British network influencer and content creator succeeds in removing the filters and floods the painful reality on the ground: Hollywood has become neglected, dirty, and for quite a few tourists it is simply a huge disappointment.

The online uproar erupted after the content creator, known on Tiktok as @megancjasmine (Jasmine), uploaded a series of videos in which she warned her followers not to come to the place with unrealistic expectations, describing the area as “the worst place in Los Angeles.”

Strange as it may sound, Jasmine’s frustration began before she even took off from England. When she arrived at the local post office to exchange cash for dollars, the employee there asked her where she was flying to. When she heard she was on her way to Los Angeles for the first time in her life, the employee gave her a cryptic warning: “It’s not going to be what you think.” This prophecy came true very quickly: “I think that before I flew to Los Angeles I built a picture in my head of what the place should look like,” Jasmine explains in the video. “It was completely not what I imagined. It is true that there are truly amazing places in Los Angeles, but some areas are simply neglected to a great extent.”

In the documentation she uploaded online, she showed neglected streets, trash thrown everywhere, and even the cracked and damaged pavement around the star of US President Donald Trump. Other famous locations, such as the Mel’s Drive-In restaurant and the streets leading to the boulevard, seemed light years away from the glamorous image of the movie city.

In a follow-up video, she opened everything and spoke without filters about the harsh sights, the unusual dirt and the severe homeless crisis in the area: “The first thing I saw when I arrived in Hollywood was human poop on the sidewalk,” she shared in the video. “I’m trying to say this gently, but I’m talking about human excrement right on the floor. It’s crazy to me that this is what’s happening in one of the most famous places in the world.”

When asked what she would have done differently, Jasmine clarified that if she could plan the trip over again, she would have given up the area entirely: “Now, when someone tells me they are going to Los Angeles, I tell them: ‘Please don’t come with unrealistic expectations.'”

As you can guess, the web went into an uproar, and a retweet of the video on the popular @ WallStreetApes account on the X platform garnered hundreds of thousands of views in no time, flooding thousands of comments from surfers and tourists who agreed with every word. Many of them described the place as completely deserted and some even compared the boulevard to a “drug den”.

“Totally agree, I was hugely disappointed, especially from Hollywood,” wrote one commenter. Another tourist shared a similar experience: “We were there in March, and it’s so neglected. We arrived during the week of the Oscars, so a lot of the disgust was just hidden and covered up.” Another commenter actually attacked the influencer for the lack of preparation: “Zero research before vacation. One search on Tiktok would have shown you how disgusting Hollywood is. Locals really don’t go there.”

Jasmin’s tough photos are also backed up by official data and international ratings. Earlier this year, the Hollywood Walk of Fame was named the worst tourist attraction in the world, according to a ranking by tourism data analysis company Stasher. The company’s analysts weighed metrics such as Google ratings, personal safety metrics and distance from LAX airport, and concluded that the site offers the worst visitor experience on the globe. If the urban neglect and sanitary hazards are not enough, the security issue in the area is also at a low ebb. Last May, a serious murder incident took place in Sdra in broad daylight, when Berry Henderson, 37, was stabbed to death by a group of men after he tried to defend himself from a dog attack.