A short interview clip circulating widely on X has drawn renewed attention to the human toll of the drug crisis in Kensington, one of the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods. In the video, a 23-year-old woman who introduced herself as Liliana described a relentless cycle of survival.
“I don’t sleep. I don’t eat. I get up. I go like basically like prostitute myself for money. And then I come back. I cop. And I just do the same thing over and over and over again,”
she said. The roughly nine-minute conversation was originally recorded and posted by the channel USA FOX VOICE in late September 2025. It was recirculated on Nov. 6, 2026, through an RT Visual post on X.
Liliana said she is from the Asbury/central New Jersey area and traveled to Kensington because she preferred the drugs available there. She reported about six years of fentanyl use that began after alcohol rehab, where she was introduced to “dope.” She described multiple overdoses, including one in which she said she was “dead for about 10 minutes,” and a prior stretch of roughly seven months sober that ended with relapse driven by boredom and loneliness.
She mentioned that she had only been working the corners for a few weeks and had earned between a couple of hundred dollars and $500-600 on a few lucky days. She then stated she did not really want to get clean but had to. She said that in 6 months time she will either be dead or clean. Her ultimate goal is to run a rehab centre and reconnect with her family.
All of this information comes from what she stated in her popular interview. Any claims made about how much money they have made, their health history and personal circumstances cannot be verified.
Liliana’s story comes from a well documented Public Health crisis. There were 1069 drug related deaths in Philadelphia in 2024, this was down by 18% from 2023. There were less deaths than in 2022. The main drug used in the Philly area is fentanyl, often combined with xylazine and other drugs.
Evidence based solutions are being advocated by services in the local area. This includes making naloxone readily available, providing medication for opioid use disorder (methadone and buprenorphine), providing SAFE housing, trauma informed mental health services and continued community support. Services in Kensington (Prevention Point Philadelphia and Project SAFE) will provide harm reduction items, low threshold access into treatment and peer support.
Although viral videos can help to make this more relatable to people it doesn’t solve any of the issues. There are still concerns around whether people in Liliana’s situation will be able to get the medical treatment, SAFE housing and community support to give them a real second chance.
