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.
Matt is streaming his side right now.
I think it sounds like he was a bit over-reacting with the sprained ankle incident, but Blonde definitely was out-of-line with the Twitter posts. She has lost my respect.
Her first post was bad enough. The other one going into more detail just made her look insane. Which we already knew, but it's still a shame.
Heck, as she was talking about a week or two ago, she's ghosted a boyfriend she lived with. She has some issues. She brought some spice to the show, and was right about some things, but she was never stable. It just finally turned on Matt. And, as I said in some other comments, although I am on his side here, he brought some of it on himself too, by his inability to read the room, and fucking up interpersonal shit.
But, yeah, Blonde shit the bed here. And is probably too narcissistic to even realize.
Yeah, there were definitely multiple moments throughout her appearances on the show where she appeared very unstable and did not even show any sense of remorse for her unhinged actions (the ghosting of one of her boyfriends was pretty damn insane). She admits that she is guilty of being a woman, but just gives in to those feminine tendencies that she claims to despise rather then try to overcome them.
Decent, if in some places biased summary.
His take on her ankle was super autistic, that's where I'd lay most of the criticism I have for him. He fucked up on the interpersonal level, and certainly shares some of the blame for blowing up that relationship, although I think Blonde's resulting behavior was certainly worse than his. And, yeah, he let some stuff bubble for a while, instead of confronting it directly. He definitely contributed to the mess.
I think they both had events, not just him. And, at least according to him, he was active in the conversation too, he just wanted to talk, not text. You make it sound like he was unresponsive (and you're basing this on his stream), when that's the opposite of what he said.
Blonde was massively overpaid, which is not to say she didn't contribute. She did, and will be missed. Also, it was an ongoing and long running joke that she was lazy and unmotivated...and that was before she clearly got more lazy and unmotivated. Asking her to be more engaged is, in my opinion, not an unreasonable ask. Again, I appreciated her contributions, but there were clearly issues there.
Good, and good. The hatred the movie reviews got was basically the only redeeming feature of that bit.
Agreed, the more I think about it, the more I see the ankle thing as a very autistic reaction by Matt. Though to be fair, it was probably just the straw that broke the camel’s back, but that was partially on him for letting things get this bad rather than talking to Blonde about her laziness (in nicer terms than “laziness”). I think Blonde is going become more unstable and have more woman moments that will eventually lead her to dropping off the internet altogether.
This part isn't speculative. It's been a long time coming as he's been doing Bible Study for...I think it's been over a year at this point. Within the last month or two he confirmed on stream that he had adopted the faith.
I admittedly haven't watched live in a long time.
I was aware of his Bible Study classes but have never heard him self-describe as a Christian.
While I'm sure Blonde may have had some kind of hand in this it sounds like Matt was the main problem. It sounds like he was a control freak, and telling her he's not going to risk the livelihood of his family with her over 5% is fucking stupid.
I don't believe this. Blonde is very opinionated. There is no way she wouldn't have suggested some stuff to Matt.
Of course he wasn't going to attend.
Blonde said she didn't want to do the final show because she knew it would devolve into an argument/debate about who is at fault, and she would be right. Especially when the dumb superchats got involved. I'm also not really surprised to see him throw her under the bus with the audience. Matt seems like that much of a petty bitch.
I'm not surprised. It was Blonde's idea and you could tell he hated it. It also outed his taste in movies as shit. If a movie doesn't have some kind of underline philosophy or "make him think" afterwards he hates it. I started to lose respect for Matt when the movie reviews started because they pretty much put his elitist mindset on blast.
I'm kinda surprised how many people are 100% with Matt on this. He's completely right about the workload and fairness of their business partnership, but I think he fumbled handling the conflict really badly. I'm not gonna bother writing entire essays on Youtube personality dramas, but I think people are just being taken more with Matt's practical business attitude rather than listening to what's actually being said.
I'm on Matt's side but, yeah, he fumbled some things. Big time, on the interpersonal issues. I think Blonde was in the wrong, but Matt set the stage for some of that, and bears some of the blame.
And some people seem to be taking advantage of the drama to try to act like it was Blonde's edgy takes that were the problem, when it was an integral part of the show. I hope he doesn't let these people lead him away from edgy content. Although Matt did all the work, Blonde's presence did add spice, and she was an important (if overpaid) component. I do hope he tries to do something similar, and not just get someone who agrees with him. He needs the pushback.
I've commented a few times in the thread, but I'm definitely redpilled at how much pearlclutching there was over Blonde's racism/white nationalism/Nazism etc in the Twitter threads and the chat tonight.
There was way too much "Yay, the evil bigot lady is finally gone" for what's supposedly a based podcast. I thought the racism was supposed to be not a bug but a feature.
Maybe his audience has morphed into more centrist christcucks while I've been away. There were way too many "Me and my wife love you Matt!" chats, no balance and hardly anyone telling Matt that he fucked up, even a little.
I think that’s just because those of us who are pro blonde saw this happen, and realized he would swing back harder into his milquetoast takes and so there’s no reason to watch or comment.
I think Blonde posting everything to twitter after telling Matt she’d keep it low-key was pretty shitty, and deleted most of the sympathy I had for her. Matt can definitely be infuriatingly autistic about things, so I lay some blame about poor communication at his feet but I can also understand feeling betrayed by someone you had such a close working relationship with.
I’m not really surprised most viewers are siding with Matt, I’ve watched their show since Episode Zero and looking back there’s definitely been a marked decline in Blonde’s interest especially once she got married and had kids. I always got the impression her husband didn’t really want her doing the show.
Same.
I only checked Rumble but I didn't really come across any Matt alogs at all.
The only one was a drunk guy claiming Matt's YT mods banned him 4 years ago.
I didn't think Matt came off well tonight in his elaboration on his side of the story, though I'm biased and pro-Blonde.
His explanation regarding his skepticism re: missing their last show together and her seeking medical care for her sprained foot came off as a chud with his "We always go live together unless we're dead" meme.
He also was weasely with his "ultimatum that wasn't an ultimatum but I won't negotiate" circuitous arguments.
Essentially, he says that their business and friendship is ultimately irreparable because of the "betrayal" of her making a Twitter post when he said No. Which is middle school level drama.
He also heavily leaned on the whole "I appreciate everyone of you audience members and I'll never let you down/keep working hard for you, I consider all you callers friends" narratives.
Which to me, came off as wooden and disingenuous, but likely a ploy to circle the wagons of his paypigs. Which seemed to have been successful.
Yeah, as someone much more on the pro-Matt side of things (in style, content, effort, and loyalty, not always politics, to be fair), I think that was definitely his weakest take. It just came off as a little autistic, even. Yeah, Blonde is an admitted hypochondriac, but she really did hurt her foot, and you don't know the full extent of an injury until you get it checked out. "Yeah, she wasn't totally faking" or whatever, is not the angle to take. I don't think she was faking at all. She might not have been as badly injured as she thought, but she still had to go to the hospital...that's what ate up the time. It doesn't matter if her bones were shattered, or a ligament was torn or whatever. You don't know until after. She had a medical incident, and missed some of the show. It happens.
I think it was longstanding - and largely justified - frustration from Matt, but he certainly didn't handle it well. And, again, I say that as someone on his side. I think Blonde threw a bitchfit and blew up a good thing...but you could say similar things about Matt. Blonde had a woman moment...and Matt set up a perfect woman moment by not understanding things and being emotional himself. Whole thing was a mess.
I think that's pretty unfair, though. I think that's legitimately who Matt is, and he's shown that for years. And it's why people like him. Hell, that he was giving her an even split shows that he really values those around him, and that does include the chat.
You are conflating Matt's reverence for his audience with his passiveness/cowardice with his business dealings with his podcast partner.
He admitted tonight that the OG 50/50 split on debut in 2016 was because they started the project on equal footing.
Matt has always done more of the work. That hasn't changed recently.
The problem, much like one caller pointed out, was that his demands were reasonable in a vacuum, but the actual execution sucked.
You can't suddenly demand a change of terms after 8 years with your founding partner while giving no concessions/sweeteners, even if circumstances have changed.
It's doubly idiotic to introduce fundamental changes in the midst of a chick fight over absenteeism.