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Elle Mills, Canadian YouTuber, Marks Her Departure From Ottawa With Giant Billboard

It features her face with an expression that says, "Peace out!"

Ottawa-based YouTuber Elle Mills is known for her elaborate but wholesome pranks, which she’s been chronicling on YouTube for the past five years. She’s amassed a following of 1.8 million people on the platform, making videos from her parents’ home.

So when Mills, 21, finally decided it was time for her to move out ― and out of the city, she had to do something big, goofy but simultaneously sentimental, as her audience has come to expect.

So, she rented out a huge billboard to say goodbye to Ottawa.

“Ottawa, sorry I’m leaving you with my brother,” it says. “I wouldn’t forgive me either.”

Mills put the cheeky billboard outside a T&T supermarket frequented by her friends and family. It will stay up there for a month, she said in the video she posted on YouTube of her departure.

She took a photo with her brother, Jay, who’s at the centre of many of Mill’s pranks and the punchline of her going away present.

“I know Ottawa like the back of my hand and that’s definitely taken a toll on me creatively,” said Mills in her video, in which she explains why she’s moving on, but takes viewers along as she says goodbye to her friends, family and hometown.

“Now let me show you what the locals do,” she said, going on to show viewers her hangouts, with some of her trademark commentary. “This is the parking lot where we smoke pot, and this is the three-star all-you-can-eat sushi we eat at after we smoke the pot.”

In similar bold fashion, Mills used video in 2017 to share the news that she was bisexual. She has also used her platform to cover issues like burnout, her mental health and weight loss.

Mills gets nostalgic about her childhood home, reminiscing about everything from her first Christmas to her first blackout from drinking.

She didn’t explicitly state where she was moving to, but does lands at an airport where she says, ’It’s so hot here,” and the description box of her video gives a special thanks to her “L.A. crew,” including her new roommate and a fellow YouTuber, Luke Korns.

Mills might have finally left Ottawa for good, but she’s made her mark on the city. Literally (well, for a month at least).

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