The guys have been tried

Finally, a cheater who isn’t prospering

A common archetype of male celebrity is “the wife guy.” This is a man who loves his wife so much that he doesn’t have a personality. One of the internet’s most well-known wife guys was Ned Fulmer of the Try Guys.

The Try Guys started on BuzzFeed in 2014 with four members: Fulmer, Eugene Lee Yang, Keith Habersberger, and Zach Kornfeld. In 2018, the four started their own company, 2nd Try LLC, and then continued to produce videos under the name Try Guys until this day.

It was announced on September 27, 2022, that Fulmer was no longer working with the company. This followed days of Reddit conversations speculating about Fulmer’s position within the company.

Fulmer is married to Ariel Fulmer (nee VandeVoorde), and together they have two sons and a dog. Everything Fulmer did on the channel related to his wife. The other three members of the Try Guys had their own shows: Yang had Rank King where he ranked different items, Habersberger had Eat the Menu where he ate every item off the menu of a restaurant, and Kornfeld had Candid Competition where he made random stores compete in challenges.

Fulmer had Date Night, which featured his wife. He also had Try DIY, which heavily featured his wife. Many of Fulmer’s jokes had to do with his wife. He constantly talked about his wife and his family.

Maybe that’s why it was so shocking when it was revealed that Fulmer cheated on his wife. Not only did he cheat her, but he cheated on her with an employee.

The whole situation started online on September 3. A Redditor on the Try Guys subreddit posted saying that “multiple people have seen Ned around NYC this week making out with women at the local bars. It’s unfortunate for Ariel, his family, and the try team but this is true.” After this Redditor was called out for ‘lying,’ they sent an Instagram message to that person showing a video they had been sent by another person of two people making out, claiming that it was Fulmer and Alexandria Herring, a 2nd Try employee.

After the video was shared on the subreddit, people began finding comparisons of the outfits the pair were wearing. People found different photos matching the outfits from the video. Shortly after this, starting on September 8, Fulmer stopped appearing in Instagram posts and their podcast, the TryPod. On September 13, people began noticing that Fulmer was not in any of the merch ads that were being posted, and that the original intro to the videos featuring all four guys had been changed to merch campaigns excluding Fulmer.

Also on September 13, Fulmer’s wife stopped showing up in the Try Guys’s other podcast You Can Sit with Us, which features each of the Try Guys’s respective partners. On September 14, the video “Try Guys Ruin Chocolate Eclairs” was posted. There was evidence that Fulmer was edited out of the video before it was uploaded. Fulmer’s voice can be heard in the background briefly, despite him never showing up in the video.

On September 17, the video “Keith Eats Everything at a Vegas Buffet” was uploaded. An Instagram post showed that every staff member was present for this video except for Fulmer and Herring. On September 24, another video was uploaded that showed even more clearly that Fulmer had been edited out. The video “Try Guys Try Stand-up Comedy” had small pieces where you could see a mystery person wearing a shirt that Fulmer has been shown to own, a mystery laptop was seen with strange cropping, and a hand and knee appear suddenly next to Yang, as well as Fulmer’s voice being heard in the background again in this video.

On September 26, Herring’s fiance Will removed all the photos of Herring from his Instagram and unfollowed her. The same day, Herring and Fulmer unfollowed each other on Instagram.

The Try Guys official statement was released on September 27, stating that Fulmer was no longer part of the company. Fulmer uploaded his own statement on the same day, confirming that he had a “consensual workplace relationship.” The Try Guys’s next video was posted on October 3, and was called “what happened.” The video was another statement about the situation.

They revealed that they learned about Fulmer’s affair over Labor Day weekend. Following the revelation, an investigation was started about Fulmer and he was removed from videos. Fulmer was suspended from work activities and was officially removed from 2nd Try LLC on September 16. The next big statement the Try Guys made was on the episode of their podcast called “ok, let’s talk about it.” The podcast featured Habersberger, Kornfeld, and another employee, Miles Bonsignore. [AD1] 

The podcast episode was a deeper dive into everything that happened and what they knew. They found out through fans about the cheating, and they were completely shocked. Kornfeld stated that he had severe physical impact as a result of the situation, and he had to take on much of the company responsibilities as Habersberger was on tour with his comedy group, and Yang was busy on other projects.

They stated that even if the situation did not unfold over social media, the same actions would have been taken by the company. Habersberger also said that he believes Fulmer intentionally copied the font from their statement post as their statements were not coordinated, and that it was an act by Fulmer to make it appear so.

Another video was released on October 8 called “the try guys audition for a broadway musical” has Ned edited out, which was confirmed on the podcast by Kornfeld. On the same day, SNL included a skit about the Try Guys situation, which was received poorly. Many people, including Bonsignore, Alex Lewis (a part of Habersberger’s comedy group), Habersberger, Becky Habersberger (Keith’s wife), Kornfeld, Maggie Bustamante (Kornfeld’s fiancee), and more employees and friends of the company posted on social media about the SNL skit. People began investigating this, because in previous content Fulmer said that he had friends from university that wrote for SNL and wrote the skit according to IMDb.

Fulmer has not posted anything else since his original statement, and the Try Guys are entering a new era without Fulmer.