Ned Fulmer’s departure from The Try Guys has left them “extremely startled and genuinely upset.”
On Monday, Eugene Lee Yang, Keith Habersberger, and Zach Kornfield, three-quarters of The Try Guys, spoke out in a video for the first time since Fulmer left the YouTube channel over what he called a “consensual working relationship.”
A statement issued on the official @tryguys Instagram account on September 27 said, “As a result of a comprehensive internal evaluation, we do not see a road ahead together.” You’ve been quite helpful as we’ve dealt with this transition, and we appreciate it.
The Try Guys: The three of them, Yang, Habersberger, and Kornfield, “wanted to provide (fans) a history on what’s occurred and some transparency into our decision making,” as the statement puts it. Kornfield said, “There will be things that we want to express or get into more” in the YouTube video uploaded on Monday, but “there are certain legal considerations we have to consider as we go through everything.”
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According to Habersberger, Fulmer was seen “engaging in public amorous activity” with a staff member during the Labor Day weekend, and “several fans informed” them of the incident. The claims were true, he said, and Fulmer verified “that this has been going on for some time.”
We had no clue this was happening,” he said.
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Though Fulmer and his wife came out in separate social media postings immediately after The Try Guys’ announcement in September, the channel’s statement posted at the time did not expand on what prompted or what the evaluation contained.
Fulmer said that he “lost focus” and was involved in a “consensual” relationship at work. “My family should have always been my priority,” he wrote. “For the sake of the boys and the fans, and especially for Ariel, I apologize for whatever hurt I may have caused. At the moment, my whole world revolves around my family: my husband, my two young children, and my home.”
They’ve been married since 2012, and Ned and Ariel have two boys together.
Yang stated in the video released on Monday that the company takes “this very seriously” and that they spent three weeks consulting with “employment attorneys, business lawyers, HR, PR, and more” to ensure they were compliant from the get-go.
He said, “We refused to brush things under the rug.” That’s not what we’re about, and it goes against everything we believe in.
According to the organization, Fulmer “immediately” withdraw from work activities. They also elected to exclude Fulmer from future video releases awaiting the findings of the internal inquiry.
Additionally, “There are a number of videos that he has personally been responsible for making completely unreleasable, meaning that you will never get to watch them. In addition, that choice has resulted in significant financial losses for us. We will not be able to retrieve that money but it’s a choice we stand by gladly,” Habersberger added.
As Kornfield put it, “suffice it to say we discovered that Ned had participated in behavior unworthy of our team and we recognized that we could not go ahead with him,” while the team cannot discuss the specifics of the review.
Yang said the organization was “extremely startled and genuinely upset by all of this.”
Yang said, “This is someone who we’ve established a brand and a business with for eight years, and we feel grieved not only personally but on behalf of our workers and the people who trusted in us.”
I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to adequately explain the anguish we feel at this time, Habersberger added. “We’re losing a buddy.”
Kornfield also said that making the rest of the workforce “comfortable and proud coming to work” is their “main emphasis right now.”
In the wake of the Fulmer incident, The Try Guys updated their social media logo to use an orange backdrop and the highlighted image of a triceratops instead of the band’s distinctive blue, green, pink, and purple quadrants with cartoon representations of each of the four members.
The Try Guys, who have over 7.8 million subscribers on YouTube, started as a BuzzFeed web series in 2014, documenting the founders Kornfeld, Habersberger, Yang, and Fulmer’s crazy adventures in trying new things like labor pain simulation, baking without a recipe, tasting everything on a fast food restaurant’s menu, and driving while intoxicated (under professional supervision), among many others.
A year after leaving BuzzFeed to form their own production firm, the four Try Guys exited the company. The Try Guys have since hired a large staff and expanded to include spinoff video series, a documentary, a tour, and podcasts in which they feature other members of the team as well as the spouses and partners of The Try Guys, including Fulmer’s wife, with whom he frequently collaborates professionally and with whom he refers to himself as her husband in his social media bios.