Have you ever heard that ol’ country song “Who gets the family bible when two grownups lose heart?”
Well, we may need a new version for the Gen Z era, because according to a litigation strategist I met at SXSW 2026, it’s actually the family TikTok account creators should be worried about.
That’s right, TIL that creators should consider adding TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram accounts to their prenups.
Attorney Michelle May O’Neil said exactly that during a SXSW panel she hosted, “Who Owns Me? Legal War Over Identity in the Creator Economy.” O’Neil is a nationally recognized lawyer and expert on NIL (name, image, likeness) topics, and she warned creators to take proactive steps to protect their identities, including prenuptial agreements.
This isn’t a hypothetical situation, either.
O’Neil highlighted the case of Kat and Mike Stickler, married influencers who ended up in a bitter custody feud, not over their children, but over their followers — all 4 million of them. In covering the case, the Wall Street Journal asked, “Who Gets the TikTok in the Divorce?” (FWIW, Kat ultimately retained ownership of the original TikTok account and has gone on to amass an even larger following as @katstickler.)
And if your TikTok or Instagram accounts do become the subjects of a contentious divorce like the Sticklers, don’t expect family court to provide a solution, O’Neil said during her SXSW panel.
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“We don’t have case law authority. There’s no legal doctrine for this. So their individual identity became joint property, and nobody thought about what it looked like to divide it.”
Here’s another worrying scenario: What if you’re romantically involved with a creator and appear occasionally in their content? Eventually, you break up or get divorced. Does your ex then retain the right to keep using your likeness however they see fit?
“I think it’s a really good idea to have a clause in prenups that says that each spouse maintains the exclusive right to their name, image, likeness, and does not, by virtue of marriage, transfer their rights over to the other spouse because of marriage. And the reason for that is my experience representing high-profile people.”
So, what else can creators and public figures do to protect their digital likeness?
In addition to creating a prenup, O’Neil advised creators to create an LLC or other legal entity to protect their core asset — their identity.
“This is another reason to have an entity structure before marriage, but if you’re making money on your image, name, likeness, voice, whatever, before you get into a marriage, it’s a pretty good idea to put that in the prenup…And I don’t really know of a lot of lawyers that actually do this in prenups,” O’Neil said at SXSW.
Prenups are the kind of safeguard you hope you never have to use. But if you and an ex ever get into a legal battle over social media assets or NIL issues, you might be glad you have it, O’Neil said.
“That one clause in a prenup that says I have license, I have the rights, I own my name, image, likeness, my voice, my writings, everything that comes from me. I still own it, it’s my property, and just because I marry you, I’m not giving you license to use it.”
This article and the quotes in it are not legal advice. Talk to your own legal representative before making any decisions.
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