One of the Original Wife Guys Really Seems to Have Cheated on His Wife. Let Me Explain Why Everyone Is Rejoicing.

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Sometimes a news story comes across your desk where everyone sucks. No winners, no losers, just a list of people you don’t like doing things you don’t care for in a way that causes you nothing but distress. Well, here’s another one for you: YouTuber and internet slug Ethan Klein has been accused of cheating on his wife and the mother of his three young children, Hila. Their YouTube show is now on indefinite hiatus. There’s plenty of discussion already on Reddit and X about how delicious this story is for the many, many people who hate this couple, but maybe you live unburdened by the details of who these two are.

Come. Take my hand. I’m about to ruin your life.

Who is Ethan Klein? 

Ethan Klein is one of those dreaded content creators you keep hearing about without ever really knowing what Content he Creates. His show, H3 Podcast, has 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube and 56 million likes on TikTok. It’s a comedy (using this term as loosely as possible) and commentary show, created and hosted by Ethan and featuring a rotation of others, including Hila. Their most popular YouTube episodes are interviews with Shane Dawson, Post Malone, and Steve-O.

What’s Hila’s deal? 

Ethan and Hila have been married since 2012, and they make H3 together. Like a lot of couples who post, they’ve heavily commodified their relationship for content, so we know plenty about their dynamic and their family life. But earlier today, Hila posted a multi-slide Instagram post outlining how long her husband has been cheating on her. “I am living in a nightmare I can’t wake up from,” she wrote. “He was my safe place, my partner in marriage, parenting, and business. My only family on this side of the world. How do I even begin to make sense of this?”

It seems like this Ethan character is unpopular. 

Based on today’s unbridled glee, there’s a lot of schadenfreude around Ethan’s suffering. Over the last few years, he’s become even more defensive and argumentative than before, and far less willing to heed any criticism or feedback. H3 has changed too, from a more lighthearted comedy program to a platform for Ethan to recount his many feuds and lawsuits he’s in with other YouTubers. He’s been accused of harassing several female commentators online, and filed a bogus copyright lawsuit against other streamers that he ended up losing. Since Oct. 7, 2023, he’s also become more hard-line about his support of Israel, as has his wife.

So then why aren’t people rallying around Hila? 

How excited would you be about Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos breaking up? Gun to your head: Are you picking a side or is that gun going off? These two suck, and while no one is excited to hear about Ethan being sleazy, Hila has virtually no sympathy from the public. The two of them met while on birthright trips to Israel, and while Hila was serving in the Israel Defense Forces. The two have had several high-profile clashes because of their pro-Israel stances (more on that in a minute), and Hila has already proved bad judgment in marrying Ethan in the first place. The internet isn’t particularly primed to feel bad for her, even if she is now a public cuckold and the future of her business remains uncertain.

Who did he cheat with? Which is to say: He found another person willing to have sex with him? 

Miracles are happening all around us.

It remains unconfirmed, but some people online have posited that he cheated with a much younger female employee.

So you’re saying this is a Try Guys situation.

That’s exactly what I’m saying.

I saw Hasan Piker gloating on main earlier today, is he involved?

From 2021 to 2023, Piker and Ethan hosted a leftist podcast together called Leftover. It was a chat and interview show (you know how much men love to hear themselves think out loud), but it went off the rails around Oct. 7. Piker and Ethan did an episode about the attacks, with Piker being pro-Palestine and Ethan siding with Israel. They’ve been in a protracted beef ever since, and since Hila’s Instagram post, Piker has been glib online. “JUDGE ME BY MY ENEMIES,” he posted on X today.

Right. And this all has what to do with Trisha Paytas?

Paytas also used to have a show with Ethan, called Frenemies, from 2020 to 2021. Ethan and Paytas seemed to always be fighting—a well-matched fight between two internet old-heads—but she eventually quit the show over her contract. She’s also technically related to Hila and Ethan; her husband, Moses Hacmon, is Hila’s brother. They’ve been estranged for a few years after Ethan and Paytas’ rift, though some internet sleuths think it’s partly because Hacmon and Paytas have become more sympathetic to Palestinians than Hila and the rest of the family would prefer.

This is all actually a lot more about Israel and Palestine than I thought.

Well, the internet is but a microcosm of the real world. There is no escape.

What’s going to happen to their podcast? 

One less man with a microphone, hopefully! No one knows exactly what’ll happen yet but the show is on an indefinite hiatus. The crew of H3 Podcast have since posted on Instagram that they won’t work with Ethan anymore either.

How will this information benefit me in the future? What is gained for this trade-off between my attention span and these data points? 

You have something stupid to talk about at a Halloween party now. You’re welcome. I did this for you.