Singer Melanie Martinez’s Cry Baby Coloring Cook has sparked a spirited debate on social media, with detractors suggesting that it promotes child abuse.

The rose to fame in 2012 after appearing on season three of TV talent show The Voice. Signing with Atlantic Records, she released her debut single “Dollhouse”, which was followed by a 2014 EP of the same name.

Cry Baby, Martinez’s debut studio album, followed in 2015 and was certified double platinum. The album’s success was propelled by such hit singles as “Pity Party,” “Mrs. Potato Head” and “Soap.”

Over the years, —who also released the albums K–12 (2019) and Portals (2023)—has become known for placing strong emphasis on her visual style, immersing herself in character for her performances. On her rise to fame, she adopted a doll-like look, complete with babydoll dresses.

In recent days, Martinez, 29, has become a talking point on over her Cry Baby Coloring Cook, which was released in late 2016 and serves as a complement to her first album.

Regalrumination.com has contacted a representative of Martinez via email for comment.

What Is Depicted in Melanie Martinez’s ‘Cry Baby Coloring Book’?

On , the book’s cover depicts a tearful young girl in the front row of a box of differently colored crayons.

“Color in each page as Melanie Martinez’s fictional character Cry Baby takes you on her journey into becoming more comfortable in her skin,” reads a promotional blurb. There is also a parental advisory warning that it contains “explicit content.”

Inside, the images tell the story of the character Cry Baby as relates to the album.

One intricately drawn image depicts a child in a bathtub with soap in her mouth, while another shows a wolf holding the book’s lead character under one arm.

Per shared on TikTok, the wolf image is accompanied by the text: “A lonely girl so vulnerable / To her house she walks alone / The bad wolf ice-cream man had known / And took her to his awful home.”

Meanwhile, the bathtub image is accompanied by text that reads: “She met a new boy and filled with hope / She said too much and always choked / So she washed her mouth out with soap / So that he wouldn’t pull the rope.”

The character Cry Baby has been described as a fantasy version of Martinez when she was a young child. Martinez has said the experiences Cry Baby goes through are embellished versions of her own experiences, with the exception of when the character gets kidnapped and subsequently kills her assailant.

What Has Melanie Martinez Said About ‘Cry Baby’?

In an interview with The Untitled Magazine, published in January 2016, New York native Martinez shared an insight into her album Cry Baby.

“The album is basically a storybook,” she told the publication. “Every song leads into each other and it all tells the story of this girl Cry Baby’s life. She’s a little girl, but she’s going through very adult situations. It’s very dark and I’m super excited about it because it’s taken about a year to write.

“It definitely has evolved into different things. It’s always been about the themes, but I think the story has really evolved and it’s kind of like the transition from her being this emotional, vulnerable girl to being comfortable with being absolutely insane and being unapologetic for it. She’s okay with that and she’s embraced that.

“It definitely is like a fairy-tale version of me. There are some things in the song that would obviously never happen to me, such as getting kidnapped, escaping, and poisoning someone with milk and cookies. But it is a fairy-tale version of my life for… the things that I’ve been through in the past couple of years.”

What Critics Say vs. What Fans Say

TikTok user @sadboygumart addressed the controversy that has garnered more than 7.5 million views.

In the clip, the content creator spoke about the allegations that the book contains CSAM (child sexual abuse material).

After taking a look at the images, he said: “I don’t think all of them are bad, but there are at least two, possibly three, that are just really f****** weird. And as an artist, we know what the f*** we are doing. Like, if I had to depict a child in certain situations, there is a way to do that in a very safe way.

“I would go out of my way to do this in a way that could not ever be mistaken for CSAM. That’s the issue, is that that care wasn’t taken here. Obviously, the fact that there could even be a conversation that anything in here relates to CSAM is a problem in itself. Even if that’s not the intention, that is a problem.”

Commenting on the clip, one TikTok user said that they “get that the art has a meaning and context but like [@sadboygumart] said there’re different ways to do it so it couldn’t be depicted as sexual or anything like that.”

Meanwhile, Martinez fan account @portalsbabytm took to the same platform to share a video showing pages from the coloring book.

“The Melanie coloring book everyone’s talking about saying how disgusting it is,” read the caption. “This book is mine and the video. This was not advertised to kids!”

“Half of these aren’t that bad. I expected worse from all the drama,” read a comment under the video, which has garnered more than 890,000 views.

Another video posted on the @portalsbabytm account also showed a clip of the book that came with a vinyl version of the Cry Baby album, : “This is the book that comes with the vinyl that is the same art as the coloring book, showing ‘Cry Baby’ and following along her story throughout!!! I bought these a long time ago!”