I have never been a fan of bringing the personal lives of politicians or media commentators into the public forum.

Regardless, it is difficult to ignore that in the same week Fox News giant Tucker Carlson was cut loose, Steven Crowder finds himself in the middle of a messy situation that might result in his departure from the main stage of our cultural conversation.

There are so few truly bankable personalities in the conservative field that their fall from grace is noteworthy.

Tucker Carlson will be fine.

The same may not be true of Steven Crowder, if for no other reason than his fans are as dismayed by what they have seen as his critics. When it comes to independent media personalities, who do not have their brand enshrined by political friends or corporate allies, the fans (and their financial support) mean everything.

Perhaps sensing the severity of the situation, Crowder has made an official statement on social media to address a leaked video and voiced his intent to release more information to provide context. In reply, many public figures and commentators have expressed concern about the direction the family feud is headed.

https://twitter.com/scrowder/status/1652042182172221446

For those unfamiliar with Steven Crowder, he is a 35-year-old joint Canadian-American conservative political commentator and host of Louder with Crowder. Like Tucker Carlson, Crowder worked for Fox News (between 2009-12) until moving to YouTube back when YouTube allowed conservatives to make a living from what would now be deemed ‘offensive’ content.

Crowder’s entertainment show walks more of a comedic and theatrical line, making his content so appealing that he has attracted a nearly 6-million-strong subscriber base. An audience of that size makes him not only a successful commentator, but an influential media personality.

https://twitter.com/scrowder/status/1651596984480931841

Possibly his most famous (and some may argue, important) work revolved around his Change My Mind segments in which he would set up shop on a sidewalk or within a university campus and invite individuals to defend their arguments. This worked particularly well in the early days of ‘Woke’ where young people found themselves wholly unable to articulate the basic facts and arguments underpinning notoriously idiotic activist ideology.

This sort of work is valuable. Regardless of how you feel about Crowder, conservatives around the world could learn from these intellectual experiments.

As his show became larger, the content drifted toward a more talkshow-radio vibe in which Crowder often transitioned into a slick caricature of American conservatism (with a pretty hefty dose of irreverence thrown in). Crowder’s power, and what set him apart from his peers in conservative broadcasting, was his connection to younger viewers.

His career is adorned with all the usual complaints that conservatives endure if they dare to question, ridicule, or unravel activist ideologies. None of it did Crowder significant harm. Even when YouTube demonetised him, it was used as a rallying call to his ‘mug club’ subscription list.

Crowder’s troubles started in earnest after The Daily Wire approached Louder with Crowder for a $50 million dollar deal over four years, the terms of which included some wriggle room for The Daily Wire to amend that figure if social media platforms demonetised content based upon Crowder’s commentary. This led to a public fight between the two entities that resulted in both walking away from the deal. At one point, Crowder accused The Daily Wire of engaging in ‘Big Tech censorship’. Toward the end of the dispute, the CEO of The Daily Wire claimed that Crowder had ‘misrepresented the terms of the contract’.

As reported by Forbes:

[Candice] Owens, who is employed by the Daily Wire, denounced Crowder’s video as ‘a total b*tch move’, and inserted herself into the feud by releasing a video where she repeatedly hints that she knows of something embarrassing in Crowder’s personal life, stating that ‘his actions are a symptom of something much larger … Steven has a lot going on, I guess is the best way to say it’.

Owens went on to urge her audience to pray for Crowder: ‘Sometimes people need a prayer. Sometimes people need a scripture. Steven purports to be a Christian, and I believe that he needs to lean into his faith. And I am certain that in the near future, more information will come out.’

There were some odd public videos made about the negotiation by entities on both sides until the whole thing fizzled out.

That was in January of 2023.

A failed contract is the least of Crowder’s worries in light of leaked video footage between him and his former wife, who filed for divorce in 2021.

1. EXCLUSIVE

I've obtained over three minutes of video of Steven Crowder being emotionally abusive toward his pregnant wife, Hilary.

In a statement sent to me, her family says she hid the emotional abuse she was dealing with for years. https://t.co/U28rGt2aSH pic.twitter.com/ZN8ai04fvK

— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) April 27, 2023

It is this Ring security footage of an argument with his wife from 2021 when she was 8 months pregnant with twins which has created a significant backlash against the star – not only from fans, but from conservative media personalities.

Crowder originally released a video in which he explained that he had been going through ‘an horrendous divorce’.

Steven Crowder is getting divorced. As is the case 80% of the time, the wife filed for divorce. I’ll say more about this on my podcast. Ive been through the Texas family courts myself. It’s rough for fathers and kids. pic.twitter.com/FREk5kUSJK

— Jeff Younger (@JeffYoungerShow) April 25, 2023

The Daily Wire’s Candice Owens has been commenting on this issue, with videos flying back and forth between the two. (It should be noted that the social media reaction appears critical of both, with a general disdain for private matters being dragged through the muck of Twitter.)

Bizarrely, at times the conversation seemed to be a competition of Christian virtue, with both appealing to their religious American base of subscribers. In the end, it was a conversation that devolved into allegations of extortion which are ongoing.

Crowder’s ex-wife eventually released a statement alongside footage published by independent writer Yashar Ali.

Married in 2012, Crowder had been open about the traditional Christian nature of their relationship and often scorned people on his Louder with Crowder platform for behaving in anti-traditional ways. Particularly, he has criticised divorce and single-parent households.

Which is fine, but like a politician who is elected by the community on account of his ‘family values’, the circumstance of Crowder’s personal life has implications for his professional persona.

Many conservatives have been watching events unfold with disappointment. It is enough to make you wonder if any political celebrity can survive in the world of social media where private information can reach millions of people within minutes.

Enoch Powell’s law claims that ‘all political careers end in failure’. It may also be true of political commentators before too long.