Brendan Schaub found himself in hot water after comedian Bobby Lee and his girlfriend Khalyla Kuhn went on the H3H3 podcast and explained how Schaub tried to sue, threaten and intimidate Lee into getting Kuhn to stand back.
It all started when comedian Annie Lederman shared an anecdote about a male comedian, who is not good at comedy, hitting on her with the following line: Walk me to my truck. Brendan Schaub previously owned a Custom Ford Raptor.
Lederman’s Trash Tuesdays co-host Khalyla Kuhn revealed that same comedian was hitting on her while out with his family – whilst knowing that she’s not available. Kuhn has been dating Bobby Lee for 9 years.
Subsequently the Trash Tuesday hosts revealed that the said comedian was now threatening to sue them.
Prior to 2022, Brendan Schaub would police his screw ups via copyright claims company Bent Pixels.
Bent Pixels most notably censored a clip of Schaub revealing that both Dana White and Joe Rogan were philanderers.
For Rogan, in particular, this revelation by Schaub was a big red flag considering he keeps his private life very private and is rarely seen in public with his family.
In 2022, Schaub started pursuing legal options against various channels dedicated to capturing his gaffes. But this was another mistake – by openly pursuing legal options against small youtubers, he unwittingly galvanized big commentary youtube channels to start making videos calling out his attempts to squash free speech.
Prior to the release of the ‘Gringo papi’ youtube comedy set, Schaub had called Lee and subsequently expressed the desire to burry the hatchet with Kuhn.
At this point Kuhn and Schaub had agreed to stop talking about the anecdote on their respective podcasts.
But Schaub went and broke this agreement the very next day when he went on the Flagrant 2 podcast with Akash Singh and Andrew Schultz.
During the podcast, Andrew Schultz put Schaub on the spot and made him address the rumors that he was suing fellow comedians head on. Schaub seemed taken aback and stuttered a weak denial.
At this point Kuhn and Bobby Lee went on a vastly more popular podcast, “H3H3”, and discussed the incident with Ethan Klein.
Klein is one of the most outspoken advocates for freedom of speech on youtube – back in 2017 he won a court case against Matt Hoss with the presiding judge ruling that ‘reaction videos’ constitute fair use. This was a landmark case, that strengthened the fair use doctrine in copyright infringement cases.
On the H3H3 podcast, comedian Bobby Lee was visibly upset and explained how he’d gotten a call from angry comedians who he thought were friends in which he was threatened and bullied.
“It was not just him. There was a whole barrage it was it was I’m not gonna but it was a phone call with other podcasters and it was some bulls**t blog do bro not flogged me they threatened my career.”
“They called me a coward a p**sy. You’ve always been opposed sorry. And and they said they would expose me they said that all these things.”
It was strongly implied that Lee’s career could suffer if they were to involve their friend Joe Rogan.
Thanks to the increased scrutiny resulting from the close to a million streams the h3h3 episode featuring the duo had, Brendan Schaub and Brian Callen were forced to apologize. The apology came on the latest episode of TFATK
” I’m calling this podcast the hammer of truth. And in I’m gonna start this off by by saying a couple of things right series. Yeah, because because I believe when the chaos hits you tell the truth.” – Bryan Callen started off the apology.
“Bobby Lee is somebody I love very much.” he continued while Schaub added: ‘We both do.”
Callen addressed bullying allegations: “(Bobby Lee) went on and talked about somebody who spoke to him in a very rough bullying manner. Okay, that wasn’t anybody but me. I’m the guy. I’m the one who did it. Not not Chris. Not Theo. Not Sam. It was me. ”
“Bobby is 100%. Right? In his anger at me in his in how he felt and I’m 100% Wrong. I take full f**king responsibility for the way I spoke to him, which was wrong. There’s no excuse, okay.”
“And I said, Bobby, you’re absolutely right. I apologize. I was wrong. And where I was wrong was this. I didn’t give Bobby the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t ask him first. I didn’t really give him the respect to say, Hey, dude, is what I’m seeing true. So let me get into that. ”
Callen went on to express that Brendan Schaub has been receiving threats for 6 years.
” There’s some funny hate out there. You know, I look at it. But we’re talking about actual illegal activity. ”
To save you the time, Callen reiterated he was dissuaded from thinking Bobby Lee and Kuhn were behind the threats Schaub was receiving online.
While it’s entirely conceivable that someone has been sending Schaub hatemail, it’s also very on brand to have Callen apologize for something that Brendan did. This is exactly what happened when Ariel Helwani got into it with Schaub earlier last year.
And again, the majority of the backlash in this case is targeted at Brendan for his hypocrisy and for going to his comedian friends to intervene – not necessarily for blackmailing Bobby because the only reason Bobby Lee hasn’t been cancelled is because he hasn’t really invited public scrutiny into his own unsavory dealings.