I’ve seen a lot of psycho feuds in my time on this earth, but nothing — and I do mean nothing — compares to the Trisha Paytas and Ethan Klein beef. Mind you, their entire saga pretty much happened just between 2019 and 2021, but it felt like 47 years of both of them repeatedly choosing violence and chaos. If you’re online at all, it’s impossible to be completely unfamiliar with Trisha, the controversial queen of millennial influencers, or Ethan, YouTube’s No. 1 Pick Me Boy. Fate brought these villains together only to tear them apart; there’s been bullying, parody-ing, podcast co-hosting, podcast quitting, endless Twitter storms, and tear-filled YouTube videos. Does it get more enthralling than all that? I fear it doesn’t.
It takes a super professional anthropologist x Trisha and Ethan scholar to discuss this journey in great detail, and fortunately, I’m at your service. Read on for a detailed explanation and timeline of Trisha Paytas and Ethan Klein’s feud.
Ethan Klein Initiates The Feud With Trisha Paytas By Criticizing her Photo Editing (May 2019)
We gotta start at the very beginning — when Ethan posted his now-infamous video, “Instagram vs. Reality.” In the video, he called out Trisha for heavily editing her social media photos. “Why are you even a model if you’re going to modify your looks that much?” Ethan says. “It’s like beauty queen to WWF wrestler in two seconds. You cannot photoshop your heart and soul — remember that.” Deep.
Obviously, Trisha was quick to respond on Twitter, writing, “hey @h3h3productions — you are a disgusting piece of sh*t. Your recent video is not only predatory — it’s also HARMFUL to young girls.” And they ate with that.
Trisha continued, “Suicide from bullying is f*cking real. I pray to God u never know anyone first hand that ends their life from that sh*t. It’s not a joke. It’s f*cking real — u sicko.” They also shared their emotional reaction to Ethan’s video in their own video, titled “h3h3 is HARMING YOUNG GIRLS.”
Trisha Paytas Comes Out As A Transgender Man And Ethan Klein Makes Fun Of Her (October 2019)
Of course, one of the most notable Trisha Paytas historical events was when she posted a video titled “I AM TRANSGENDER (FEMALE TO MALE).” At the time, she said that she identified as a gay man and that she liked to dress in drag. A lot of people interpreted the video as offensive and thought that Trisha was mocking the trans community.
Ethan was one of the people who called her out. During an episode of his podcast, he called Trisha’s video “f*cking insane.” Trisha eventually posted an apology video, which Ethan then made fun of by dressing up as Trisha, wearing a blonde wig and red lipstick, and making a parody of the video.
Trisha Paytas Appears On Ethan Klein’s H3 Podcast (October 2019)
For some reason, Ethan and Trisha decided to work together after all that. Trisha appeared on H3, and things went oddly well.
It did get a little uncomfy when Trisha denied making money from their “I AM TRANSGENDER” video, and Ethan made them pull up receipts, which showed that they made $8,000. “You’ve been going around saying in your defense and on television too that ‘I don’t make money from this,’ so why would you do it?” he said. “I just think that it kind of undermines that whole argument that you’re doing this just to tell your story, but clearly you made 8,000 bucks from it.”
However, there was no screaming or storming out — they seemed to be cool with each other at the end of the episode. Bizarre indeed!
Trisha Paytas Appears On Ethan Klein’s Podcast Again For A “Bachelorette” Episode (February 2020)
Ethan and his wife, Hila Klein, jokingly started a Bachelorette(Trisha’s Version) situation to help the social media star find The One. During this episode, Trisha revealed that she had a crush on Hila’s brother, Moses Macmon. And that was the beginning of a very ugly chapter in the Ethan and Trisha story.
Trisha Paytas Starts Dating Moses Hacmon, Ethan Klein’s Brother-In-Law (March 2020)
When the show had to stop because of the pandemic, Trisha had a major development her personal life: she started dating Moses and began posting with him all the time.
“At the end I won the bachelorette,” she tweeted alongside a photo of herself and Moses embracing each other and smiling. “Thank u @h3h3productions.”
They did not get Ethan’s stamp of approval. He responded to her tweet, “Stop this right now. I’m not really mad just confused and wondering what the actual f*ck is going on.”
Trisha Paytas Accuses The Kleins Of Ruining Her Relationship With Moses
Hey @h3h3productions u trying to ruin my relationship with Moses. U can’t cut through the earth. We are soulmates. So u can’t set it on fire even if u wanted to. I’ve been trying to be nice and respectful but stop coming for me bro 🙅🏼♀️
— Trisha Paytas (@trishapaytas) April 3, 2020
When the Kleins didn’t have anything nice to say about Trisha’s relationship with Moses, she accused them of attempting to ruin her romance. “U can’t cut through the earth,” they tweeted at Ethan. “We are soulmates. So u can’t set it on fire even if u wanted to. I’ve been trying to be nice and respectful but stop coming for me bro.”
In response, Ethan told her to stop distancing Moses from his family, and she replied, “He’s a big boy I think he can make his own decisions.”
From there, the conflict escalated even more. Trisha claimed that Ethan was jealous of her relationship because he was a virgin, and she also expressed interest in having sex with his father. Yes… that did happen. She also literally posted a YouTube video titled “h3 ruined my relationship.”
Evidently, h3 did not ruin her relationship with Moses, because they got back together, exchanged vows in 2021, and share a daughter now. It’s a love storryyy, baby just sayyy yes!
Trisha Paytas And Ethan Klein Start The Frenemies Podcast (September 2020)
Now, this is kinda touching: Trisha and Ethan managed to bond over a common enemy, YouTube tabloid news reporter Keemstar. Then, they were inspired to start a podcast together called Frenemies. Because what could go wrong??
Trisha Paytas Announces She’s QuittingFrenemies (June 2021)
Well, a lot, it turns out! After there were multiple disagreements on and about the show, Trisha announced on YouTube that they were done with Frenemies. They said that they wanted the pod to be a 50/50 partnership, but Ethan felt that H3H3 produces the podcast and Trisha was strictly “the talent.” Oof.
In his response tweet, Ethan wrote: “I am honestly gutted over this whole thing, trisha’s video this morning was a total surprise to me. I dont really know what more I can say or do. Im very sorry to all the fans of frenemies, I know how much it meant to everyone, I did everything I humanly could to save it.”
And there was a whole lot more social media fighting and several YouTube videos about the situation after that.
Ethan Klein Reveals He Ran Into Trisha Paytas And Moses Hacmon (February 2024)
@h3_podcast Ethan Talks about meeting Trisha Paytas, Moses and their child for the first time.
During a February 2024 episode of h3, Ethan said that he had a run-in with Trisha and their family at a Halloween pop-up event. “Who do we run into but Trisha, Moses, and their lovely daughter, who I had not met before,” he said on the show. Ethan claimed it wasn’t “super awkward,” adding, “We exchanged nice pleasantries, and we moved on.”
Uhhhh, I guess they’re… okay now? Slay.
