ProJared Cheating Scandal

Overview

ProJared Cheating Scandal refers to allegations that YouTuber ProJared, real name Jared Knabenbauer, cheated on his wife Heidi O'Ferrall with YouTuber Holly Conrad, also known as Commander Holly and the ex-wife of Game Grumps alum Ross O'Donovan. Furthermore, O'Ferrall alleged that Knabenbauer solicited and sent nudes to fans, some of whom were underage, via Snapchat while they were together. This was corroborated by several Twitter users who shared their messages with Knabenbauer on Twitter. Jared denied the allegations of inappropriate solicitation and stated Heidi had given him her blessing to pursue his feelings for Holly and changed her mind afterwards.

Background

On May 9th 2019, ProJared announced that he and his wife Heidi O'Ferrall were getting a divorce in a statement posted to Twitter (shown below).^[1]

The announcement made the split seem amicable, but shortly after it was posted, O'Ferrall posted several tweets alleging that Knabenbauer had been cheating on her with Holly Conrad, known as Commander Holly on YouTube, the ex-wife of Ross O'Donovan of Game Grumps (shown below).

Furthermore, she alleged that he solicited from and sent nudes to fans via Snapchat (shown below, left). She also called out Conrad saying she looked "insecure" in the nudes she sent to Knabenbauer (shown below, right).

Conrad had initially replied to Knabenbauer's tweet saying she was there to support him if he needed (shown below, left). She later stated "If you want to believe a hyperbolic statement from someone you don’t know on the Internet with no previous background information and use it to demonize strangers, so be it" (shown below, right).

Developments

After the scandal, ProJared's subscriber count on YouTube quickly plummeted by the thousands. As of May 9th, 11:55 AM EST, it has dropped to 998,000 and continues to decline.^[5]

O'Ferrall's allegations about Knabenbauer sending nudes to fans was corroborated by many who came forward with stories about receiving nudes from ProJared and being asked to send nudes, including users @DetectiveChungy (shown below, left) and @anchinomy (shown below, right).

One user, @ChaiTemporary^[6] posted a statement to Twitter that Knabenbauer had solicited nudes from him when he was 16 (shown below, left). Another user named @swampborzoi^[7] described a similar situation (shown below, right). Both statements were covered by The Verge.^[8]

As the scandal developed Keemstar posted a video recapping the situation up to that point (shown below).

The scandal was covered by Daily Dot^[2] and Gaming Revolution.^[3] A thread on the scandal gained over 6,500 points on /r/LiveStreamFail.^[4] Meanwhile, some on Twitter took the opportunity to defend JonTron after his racism scandal which caused "JonTron" to trend, as he was once part of the NormalBoots network which also includes ProJared. However, most of the discussion regarding was commentary that Jontron was irrelevant to the situation (examples shown below).

Meanwhile, other Twitter users made memes about the situation. Popular examples include a post by @minmodulation that used the You Cheated Not Only the Game, But Yourself copypasta and gained over 1,000 retweets and 3,000 likes (shown below, left). User @WarrenIsDead made a parody of the situation by fitting the characters into the lyrics of "Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode, gaining over 490 retweets and 2,500 likes (shown below, right).

ProJared Response

On May 17th, 2019, ProJared tweeted a statement addressing the previous week's controversy,^[9] gaining over 780 retweets, 5,500 likes, and 11,000 replies. In his statement, he stated O'Ferrall had suggested the two enter an open relationship several years prior, as O'Ferrall had already had "several casual partners." He also said O'Ferrall encouraged him to tell Holly Conrad his feelings for her, but when he did, O'Ferrall became angry and called him a cheater who was destroying their marriage. He defended himself from being an abuser to O'Ferrall, though he did not address the allegations he had solicited nudes from fans.

In response, Twitter users expressed doubt at Jared's statement. Justin Whang tweeted a clip from Steamed Hams where Superintendent Chalmers says "Can I see it?" and Skinner says "No." The tweet gained over 180 retweets and 4,600 likes (shown below, left). User @Stormhammer39 tweeted "When I saw this post my initial reaction was 'Oh god he’s going to try to explain this and make himself look like this victim isn’t he?'," gaining over 90 retweets and 4,300 likes (shown below, right).

O'Ferrall tweeted her response to Jared, saying she was not okay with Jared's relationship with Holly, though she was aware of it (shown below). The update was covered by Daily Dot.^[10]

Commander Holly Response

On May 20th, 2019, Commander Holly responded to the drama after checking herself into a hospital after having self-harming thoughts.^[11] She stated that she was not okay with ProJared sharing nudes with fans, saying he made "poor choices." She also stated that she had receipts where ProJared confirmed the ages of all involved but could not share them as it is involved in a legal matter.

Furthermore, she supported Jared's version of the events, confirming Heidi had encouraged Jared to explore his feelings for Holly and grew incensed and vindictive after the two realized their feelings for each other. She had threatened to destroy Jared's career and the pair's Dungeons and Dragons series, which Holly alleged was the only time the two spoke (shown below, right).

She further alleged that Heidi was the first one to take the divorce and cheating allegations public, making a post to Facebook before Jared announced the divorce on Twitter (shown below, left). She then accused Heidi of lying about being poly, introducing the open marriage, and bragging on Facebook for celebrating the "public execution of Jared." She concluded by calling Heidi the abuser in the situation.

YouTuber SmashJT made a video shortly after Holly's thread, gaining over 5,000 views (shown below).

Bernietxt Video

On July 18th, 2019, YouTuber bernietxt released a video going into the various allegations against Jared and investigating them. Regarding the grooming and pedophilia allegations, bernietxt points to tweets from the accusers, known as Chai and Charlie, that state they purposefully obscured their ages when interacting with Jared's NSFW blog. Regarding the claim in Heidi's initial Facebook post that she had filed for divorce, bernietxt disproved that claim by pointing to court records that show Jared had filed for divorce on the date he specified in his May 17th post. Bernietxt did theorize that Conrad helped add fuel to the fire of the situation by being bad at PR and still being married to Ross O'Donovan at the time of the alleged affair. He also judged that Conrad's denial of "cheating" accusations was false if O'Ferrall had rescinded her consent to let Jared and Conrad explore an open marriage.

Conrad retweeted the video with a shrug emoji on July 19th.^[12] O'Ferrall^[13] responded to the tweet by accusing her of manipulating the narrative and "poisoning" her "marriage and friendships" (shown below, left). Twitter user @Pikusuri_San,^[14] part of the Treesicle channel on YouTube, argued that the video omitted too much information from the 2018 portion of the saga and that Conrad had shared it to support her version of the facts. Treesicle had created two videos about the controversy himself which required research that he felt bernietxt was omitting (shown below).

ProJared's Final Response

On August 27th 2019, ProJared released a video addressing the situation that received over 3.5 million views and 250,000 likes in a year (shown below). At some point, ProJared unlisted the video.

Search Interest

External References