Joy the Baker and Her Sister Lauren Are Estranged — Apparently Over MAGA

If you’re a fan of Joy the Baker, which you very well might be, considering she has more than 540,000 followers on Instagram, then you’ve probably caught wind of the drama unfolding between her and her sister, Lauren Wilson. Like Joy, Lauren is also well established in the food industry. She’s the founder of the wholesale ice cream brand Sweet Lo’s Homemade Ice Cream.

For some quick background, before moving to Oregon in 2019, Lauren sold her ice cream wholesale in Seattle, Wash.

After relocating and feeling the impact of COVID-19, she considered launching an ice cream cookbook but wasn’t keen on the idea of a potential book tour. So, she decided to sell her ice cream recipes online instead. And she still is.

Careers aside, Lauren and Joy aren’t close, at least not anymore. In fact, they’re estranged, and according to Lauren, it seems to stem from Joy being MAGA, aka pro-Donald Trump. Here’s a breakdown of their drama, including when it started and how Joy has responded.

It’s always difficult to hear about a tight-knit sisterhood unraveling, but that appears to be exactly what’s happened between Joy the Baker and her sister, Lauren Wilson. But it didn’t just happen overnight.

In a letter written to her sister titled “Notes From an Estranged Sister,” Joy breaks down when the estrangement happened and why. She published the letter on her website on Jan. 25, 2026. According to Joy, Lauren has blocked her “everywhere” and has essentially cut her out of her life — sort of.

So how did it all begin? According to Joy (and keep in mind there are always two sides to every story), the distance started “creeping in sometime in mid-2019.” Joy shared a photo of herself and Lauren from a hiking trip to Granite Falls, Wash., in 2018, noting that the following year she could already feel the gap forming. By 2021, she said the distance “had planted real roots.” Much of that, she suggests, stemmed from their differing political views.

In the letter, Joy acknowledged that her family holds a “wide range of political views,” even pointing out that “we range from very liberal to very conservative.” Still, she believed “we made a quiet agreement that what we had in common mattered more to us than where we differed. It wasn’t perfect, but it was loving,” she wrote.

However, between the distance that built over time and Lauren’s absence from Joy’s intimate wedding in Texas in 2024, Joy said she realized their bond had “eroded.”

That said, their estrangement doesn’t contain the elements you typically see in others. Rather than completely disappearing from each other's lives, Joy says, “I don’t have to wonder where you are or what you think of me. You tell the internet exactly how you feel about me. You leave breadcrumbs of your anger and certainty everywhere.”

Joy also pointed out that since 2024, she’s watched Lauren refer to herself publicly as “Joy’s sister” while allegedly “launch[ing] lies about my life, my marriage, and my character” on message boards. “You use our sisterhood to add weight to your words,” Joy wrote. “But so much of what you say is unkind and untrue.”

Among the claims Lauren has made about Joy is that she’s MAGA. In a Jan. 24, 2026, post on Threads, Lauren wrote, “You should know: my sister, Joy the Baker, is MAGA.” Now here’s how Joy responded to that claim directly.

According to Lauren, she is, and so is their father, Clifford Wilson. But according to Joy, she’s not. In her Jan. 25 letter, Joy wrote, “I’m not MAGA, as you so confidently insist. I didn’t vote for Trump.” She also addressed the issue of ICE raids directly, writing, “What’s happening in Minneapolis — the shootings, the fear, the way federal enforcement is playing out in neighborhoods — is horrendous. I want ICE out of these communities.”

Despite Joy’s denial, some people have tried to find evidence that she might lean a little to the right, taking to message boards like Reddit to share their theories.