Blonde's statement:
https://x.com/Blondes_tweets/status/1847851545049911648
https://nitter.poast.org/Blondes_tweets/status/1847851545049911648
Matt's (sorta) response:
https://x.com/MLChristiansen/status/1847852591868531091
https://nitter.poast.org/MLChristiansen/status/1847852591868531091
If you don't know, the Matt and Blonde Show was a weekly (briefly twice weekly) show going over a handful of noteworthy news stories for the week. Matt Christiansen hosted it on his channel, and it was co-hosted by Blonde. Matt's more of a borderline-autistic conservative, while Blonde is burn-this-shit-down reactionary, so they had a pretty interesting dynamic. One disassembles and analyzes a story, the other just rips it to shreds.
You may also have heard of Matt from the recent Tenet drama, since he was one of the channels under them. As an independent channel, he was always a very thorough investigator, and meticulous about sourcing his arguments. His work was practically spotless, which made it hard for anyone to smear him until the Tenet thing happened.
We'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear Matt's side apparently. Normally I'd back him immediately, but being involved in a phony federal investigation is the kind of pressure that makes most people crack, especially when they have something to lose.
TL;DR: Blonde says she'd have to pull back on important topics for her (likely race and failing democracy) for somewhat unclear reasons, and chose to leave the show instead, Matt says he'd word it differently. It's all very vague as of yet.
I stopped watching Matt's show for the same reason she was bored: current events reactionary stuff is boring, and Matt is always 2 days late and ten dollars short. He does a good show, admittedly, but where wants to focus is intensely boring to me.
Blonde was JQ aware, and that is what Matt means when he talks about "risking his livelyhood." He apparently wants to take the ticket, and chase fame and money.
I'm sure it hurt having the 12k/month of Russian money for essentially the same content as he did for the first 7 years ripped away from him.
It's also 12k he got to keep himself, meaning the show would have to gross 24k/month to split with Blonde to be as comfortable.
Now he's right back to grinding for YT shekels.
It wasn't $12k for himself. He was paying for (some) production costs and also paying his producer Tim. I'm sure he was still taking home a decent chunk but after taxes and paying everyone, that $12k/month looks more like $4-5k/month take-home.
If Tim was paid anything more than exposure, Matt wildly overpaid.
It wouldn't be out of character for Matt to wildly overpay someone.
I've sent money to their show a few times -- I think he does good work and I'd rather give strong support to one guy than a bunch of smaller contributions to multiple channels.
I send it via check so that Youtube doesn't take a cut. He sends handwritten thank-you notes in return.
When the Tenet DOJ story broke, Matt claimed that he wasn't using any in-house Tenet resources other than a thumbnail guy.
Dangerous Spaces / Producer Tim used to be their call screener all month with the sole payment of having a dedicated call personally at the end of the calendar. I'm sure Matt paid him a small sum to actually help produce his new Tenet product, but Tim already proved he would work for very cheap.
The point of the newfound 12k/month in Tenet guaranteed money for a year the he didn't split 50/50 with Blonde was a windfall because it only required a single hour livestream a week and two videos that he was already producing anyway.
At the pace things go on the internet, weekly, or even twice weekly outlets, are just old news.