Jared Monroe aka "Not Gay Jared", longtime Steven Crowder sidekick, asks for help against "legal system abuse" by Crowder

[Dan Druff]

Background:

Jared Monroe was one of the originals on Steven Crowder's show "Louder With Crowder". Jared was Crowder's mild-mannered sidekick, and was an important behind-the-scenes guy. He wrote for the show, took part in skits, controlled the tech operations, and would interject remarks in between Crowder's rants. He and Crowder had great on-screen chemistry, and his calm personality was the perfect complement to Crowder's zaniness. In some ways I liken him to SrslySirius' role with Doug Polk (and Jared even looks somewhat like SrslySirius!)

For awhile, I had incorrectly assumed that the two had become very close friends outside the show.

But not only wasn't that true, it was the opposite. Jared found himself becoming increasingly disenchanted with Crowder's bizarre off-screen behavior and abuse of employees. In August 2018, it was announced that Jared was leaving the show because he "had a baby coming". They did a farewell show with some tributes to Jared, everyone acted friendly, and they swore Jared would come back around every so often to hang with them.

It never happened. Not only was Jared never seen on the show again, Crowder wouldn't mention his name again. Even in the days and weeks following this "friendly" departure, they treated him like he never existed, and all scenes with him were scrubbed from all of the show's openings and promotions.

Even more mysterious, there were two other mysterious departures in August 2018 -- Jared's brother, Aaron, and a German guy who went by "Sven Computer", who was fired on-air for holding up a sign with an acronym which Crowder took as a bash.

Crowder would never address any of these disappearances, aside from the supposed claim that Jared left amicably with a baby coming.

The following year, it came out that Jared was forced to sign both an NDA and a non-compete when he left the show, and couldn't "work in media" for quite some time.




This didn't make sense for several reasons. Jared was a sidekick, and not likely to steal Crowder's audience if he were to start his own show. Furthermore, a broad ban regarding "working in media" made no sense. Why couldn't he work in media? It would be more understandable if they had him agree not to host a conservative talk show for 2 years, but no jobs in media at all? Additionally, Jared did not have any ownership in Louder With Crowder, so why would have he agreed to such a thing? Couldn't he just quit the show and be free to do what he wanted? Apparently the NDA/non-compete was signed when he announced he was leaving, not at the time he was first employed!


While the above were just "rumors", Jared never dispelled any of them, and he sometimes "liked" posts on Twitter when people would make reference to these situations.

When Crowder had his huge controversy regarding his divorce and verbal abuse of his wife Hilary, Jared offered his public support -- basically an FU to Steven.

Of course, Steven Crowder has had a whole mess of issues lately. In addition to the divorce and video of him yelling at his pregnant wife, he also took a Twitter beatdown year in a public battle with Ben Shapiro and Daily Wire over failed contract negotiations with them.

Mediaite released a bombshell article last summer, with former employees alleging a highly toxic environment, and very questionable behavior by Crowder which would suggest he's a closeted gay.

Dave Landau, a more recent co-host on Crowder's show, also alleged last year that Crowder was abusive and crazy behind the scenes, and seemed paranoid that Dave was funnier than he was.


Anyway, Jared decided to finally speak out today. The main reason is because Jared is being assaulted by lawsuits by Crowder, and is out of money, so he's begging for the public's help. He's basically confirming what many people, including me, suspected all along:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/TheJaredMonroe/status/1772594355620270141


In addition, Crowder's ex-wife, currently in her own nasty legal and custody battle with Steven, joined Twitter last month. She expressed her support for Jared, as he had for her last year:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/hilcrowder/status/1772625330152317221



"1/4 Black Garrett", Jared's replacement for awhile, also disappeared from the show eventually. His departure was less contentious, and apparently he did not sign any NDA. He is clearly in Jared's corner, as welll:

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https://twitter.com/QTRBlackGarrett/status/1772646757266039234

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https://twitter.com/QTRBlackGarrett/status/1772655267282293205

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https://twitter.com/QTRBlackGarrett/status/1772662864282517739


I wonder if Garrett was smart enough to see what happened to Jared and others, and parted with Crowder pretending that he was cool with everything, thus avoiding any kind of contentious anger and/or legal threats.



The only "original" Crowder sidekick, Gerald Morgan Jr, seems to be a close friend of Crowder's, and a big time loyalist. Last year, he was promoted to CEO. Morgan promised a rebuttal tomorrow at 10am ET. I can pretty much guarantee that this is going to be a fail and backfire spectacularly:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/GmorganJr/status/1772713198740758720

Morgan also made the following statement to Mediaite today:

We will not be intimidated by media smear tactics. Mr. Monroe entered into an agreement with Louder with Crowder that he knowingly violated. After discovering repeated violations, Louder with Crowder was forced to take legal action. The trial court has denied Mr. Monroe’s effort to avoid the legal proceedings which are moving forward pursuant to the courts order.

People on Twitter are overhwelmingly on Jared's side, and are getting tired of his shenanigans.

Candace Owens, who seems to hate Crowder and was part of the group heavily criticizing him early last year, also threw her support out for Jared:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1772649647976173892


Will be interesting to see how this develops, and if Daily Wire decides to jump in and take their shots. This could be the death blow for Crowder's show.

[Deal]

Owen Benjamin talked about working for Crowder and some of the positions he was put in, and talked a bit about Jared. The main takeaway was that Crowder acted gay in lots of situations. Always looking to alter a skit so that he could be in drag, wanting to hottub with the boys and other shenanigans.

Found on X

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/i/status/1616710204250542080

[Deal]

A longer dump on Crowder by Owen.

https://rumble.com/v26y2v0-owen-benj...sode-1602.html

[Dan Druff]

Owen Benjamin was an interesting situation.

He's the only disgruntled former Crowder employee where the opinion is mixed about the situation.

For those unfamiliar (which is most of you), Owen Benjamin is a very tall (6'7"), highly politically incorrect, conspiracy-theory-prone comedian. He's a funny guy, and definitely has some talent, but the dude is often unhinged and sometimes anti-Semitic. He's one of those guys who is crazy but is sure he's not crazy.

Despite his nuttiness, much of what Owen says about Crowder is highly likely to be true. Indeed, it seems Crowder called him in a panic in August 2018 when Jared, Sven, and Aaron abruptly quit the show. It also seems likely that the then-struggling Owen dropping everything to tirelessly work for Crowder for $35 per hour, becoming a major part of the writing process and major on-screen presence, while Crowder raked in Cary Katz's CRTV money.

Jared's version of events, described today, seem to match up almost perfectly with what Owen has reported over the years. Owen is an unstable personality, but he's not a liar.

Additionally, Owen's initial gripe with Crowder also seems at least somewhat justified. Despite all of the cheap (and effective) work he did for the show when Crowder was in a huge bind, Crowder returned from the show winter 2019 break without Owen. When this occurred, Owen was infuriated, as Crowder simply ghosted him. Owen claimed he had to find out the show was going on without him by seeing the promos for its return date, and noticed he was not informed of anything. Owen said that when he contacted Crowder, he was told that the show was decided to take a different direction, and they didn't need him anymore.

However, at the time, I felt somewhat for Crowder. This was because Owen was acting increasingly erratic during the Crowder show's winter break. Owen was doing his own streams where he pushed conspiracies about Jews, the moon landing being fake, and other nonsense. It did not surprise me that Crowder wanted to distance himself from this bullshit, as he was trying to build a very mainstream and lucrative brand. So I felt the firing was justified. However, to not tell Owen until he found himself missing from the future show promos was a chickenshit move, and I understand why Owen was furious.

Initially Owen held back, and simply stated his gripe with Crowder, but otherwise defended Crowder's character. However, when Owen started hearing Crowder was talking shit about him privately, he flipped out and started doing broadcasts where he would relentlessly bash Crowder, call him gay, and let everyone know about the acrimony behind the scenes.

I will say that Owen's statements about Crowder have proven apparently true over time. Crowder is accused of inappropriate sexual "practical jokes" on male employees, yet all of the females have indicated that he is extremely respectful to them in that way. Others have shown texts of Crowder lamenting that modern males are expected not to be physically close with one another. Crowder also was proudly a virgin prior to marriage, which he claimed was for religious reasons, but it's possible it was more than that. There's definitely lots of smoke regarding the "Crowder is gay" allegations, even if no actual fire. Owen's allegations about Jared, Sven, and other allegedly mistreated employees also seem to match up with what the employees themselves are now claiming.



The most telling thing about all of this is how every story seems to point to Crowder being abusive, litigious, controlling, and overly frugal with his employees. Not a single former employee to my knowledge has stood up and defended him against these allegations. However, there's now a fairly large crowd of ex-employees who have a big gripe with how they were treated -- Jared, Sven, Owen, Dave Landau, Aaron, and various unnamed background employees who have spoken to media. In addition, others who seem to have left more amicably, such as 1/4 Black Garrett and Courtney Kirchhoff, seem highly sympathetic to both the former employees and Crowder's wife. Notice that none of them are defending Steven.

I understand that ex-employees are sometimes ex-employees for a reason, much like ex-girlfriends being exes for a reason. They are likely to trash you when asked about you, and often their gripes can be exaggerated, one-sided, or imagined. Still, I've never seen a media employer with such a clear and consistent pattern of complaints against them. I'd be shocked if this stuff ends up not being true. The only thing I can compare it to in modern times is Ellen Degeneres, but this is probably worse.

Crowder, once on top of the conservative social media world, is crumbling. He lost audience when Jared and Sven left. He lost further audience when the show declined in their absence. He lost a big chunk of audience when he had his feud with the Daily Wire, and an even larger chunk when the video of him berating his pregnant wife surfaced.

He was lucky to catch on to Rumble, who gave him a lot of money to broadcast live on there, and he still has some sponsors who pay a lot. But this is going to hurt. People liked and had warm memories of Jared. To suspect he was mistreated is one thing. To hear it from Jared's own mouth, and to picture Jared having his family finances buried under a mountain of lawsuits, really gets the typical viewer angry. I can picture a mass exodus of the remaining audience, especially if they stupidly double down and fight back against Jared on social media, which looks like is about to happen.

[Dan Druff]

I can pretty much already tell you what Gerald Morgan Jr is going to say tomorrow. Presumably he's going to be the one delivering the message, and not Crowder himself.

I believe the following defense will be given:

- Jared, possibly with a big head from the fame he got due to Crowder's show, chose to leave with zero notice and left the show in the lurch.

- They did their best to part amicably, even having a tribute show for Jared, which he willingly participated in.

- Concerned that Jared might take his "Not Gay Jared" character developed on the show and steal the Crowder audience for his own show, they asked him to sign an NDA and non-compete exit contract.

- Jared willingly signed the exit contract in exchange for taking a specific position at a different company which Crowder felt was acceptable in non-compete, and in return the show promised immunity from lawsuits over it.

- Jared repeatedly violated the NDA and non-compete in various ways, and they kept tolerating it and gently warning him to stop.

- After over 5 years of this, they finally had to take legal action against Jared, as it was clear he was not taking their agreements seriously.



Of course, this is all a bunch of bullshit.

The bottom line was that Jared did not have non-compete clause nor an NDA as terms of employment. When he left, they apparently wanted one retroactively added, which of course isn't how this stuff works, unless the person being asked to add these terms is getting something in return. Jared insists that he was not paid for signing this NDA/non-compete, but instead was just threatened with a ton of lawsuits, and this was his only way out. He claimed that the one thing they "gave" him was to accept an off-camera position at a specific media job, and even then that company was threatened legally and told to fire him.

You're not going to win the battle on social media as Rich Famous Guy versus the little struggling ex-employee. People will always side with the ex-employee, barring some kind of smoking gun that the ex-employee deserved his predicament.

No matter what legalese bullshit Gerald spouts tomorrow, I doubt it's going to change any minds (see what I did there?), and it will in fact backfire.

In general, everyone wants Jared to be able to make a living, due his own thing, and not be constantly harassed by Crowder more than 5 years after he left the show.

[NickyPipes]

It’s horribly wrong to try to restrict a former employees future like this

I don’t support any of these restrictive contracts about what people can do when they leave companies other than extreme circumstances

From my understanding this guy was some secondary character in the show, should be able to do what he wants

Why did the dumbass sign a restrictive contract like that when leaving? I don’t get it, who would do that? Are we missing that he signed that in exchange for a large sum of money or something? Did crowder have a gun to him? Who else would sign something like this when leaving?

[Dan Druff]

First (quiet) shot fired by Ben Shapiro:

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https://twitter.com/zhenryaz/status/1772779079697141936

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https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1772785369450201126


Next should be Shapiro hiring Jared onto Daily Wire. Imagine how much that would infuriate Crowder.

[Sloppy Joe]

Who would have expected prominent media members to behave like Druff and Tyde?

LOL Team Retard

[Dan Druff]

Interesting. Social media troll Pearl Davis posted legal documents related to a lawsuit by Steven Crowder against his wife, her parents, her cousin, and her friends, alleging that they engaged in a coordinated campaign to slam him and hurt his business. This is mainly referring to the release of the video last year of him berating his wife while she was pregnant.

If you blow this up to full screen, you can read it in 2 minutes as it scrolls.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/pearlythingz/status/1772790043083493528

[Dan Druff]

Here are the legal papers, claiming that Jared Mitello (Jared Monroe's real name) was interfering in Crowder's business in some way, via making contact with:

Crowder's ex
Crowder's ex-in-laws
Jeremy Boering, co-CEO of Daily Wire
Courtney Kirchhoff, former Crowder employee
Sven Tiedemann, aka Sven Computer
Dave Landau
... various others

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/pearlythingz/status/1772785668827029914

[Dan Druff]

Jared has already raised $67k in one day, including donations from Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens: https://www.gofundme.com/f/monroe-fa...reejaredmonroe


Jami Lafay must be jealous.


Even though I believe Jared is in the right, I can't see justifying donating to his legal fund unless you know both sides, and are REALLY sure he got royally screwed here.

In general I don't like donating to legal funds or healthcare funds, unless I know the person very well.

[Dan Druff]

Here was my small contribution to the drama:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/hilcrowder/status/1772767611811512830

[Dan Druff]

Gerald Morgan Jr responds. Laughably, the version of this on YouTube freezes at the 12 minute mark, and then sits there frozen for the remaining 14 minutes. But here's a good version of it posted to Twitter, along with supposed "receipts".

Cliffs: Jared is part of a big conspiracy led by Crowder's ex to destroy him.

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https://twitter.com/GmorganJr/status/1773005805354156474

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https://twitter.com/GmorganJr/status/1773005810806689858

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https://twitter.com/GmorganJr/status/1773005816070553897

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https://twitter.com/GmorganJr/status/1773005821049176130

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https://twitter.com/GmorganJr/status/1773005826485055603

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https://twitter.com/GmorganJr/status/1773005831388225819

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https://twitter.com/GmorganJr/status/1773005836224225670


The "threat" Crowder supposedly received on a potato might be the best part of this whole thing.

[Dan Druff]

My take:

It does appear that Hilary (Crowder's ex) is going for the gold, in a campaign assisted by her father, to squeeze extra divorce settlement $$ out of Steven, in exchange for saving his reputation. While I think Crowder was a shitty (and probably insane) husband and was likely the one responsible for ruining the marriage, it does appear that Hilary's parents and friends advised her to get as much as possible on the way out. I do feel that part is shitty, even if it was Crowder's fault that the marriage didn't work.

However, while interesting to see from a gossip standpoint, this doesn't really answer most of Jared's allegations.

Almost the entire 32-minute response focused upon Hilary and the supposed campaign to ruin Steven unless he paid up big in the divorce. Jared is accused of being part of it, but the evidence of that is weak. Yeah, Jared was talking with Hilary, was on her side, and theorized how damaging it could be to Crowder if they "teamed up", but so what? Clearly Jared was not on good terms with Crowder at that point (early 2023), and clearly Jared felt he himself had been mistreated by Crowder. So it doesn't make it conspiratorial that he'd be in contact with Crowder's now-ex, someone whom he previously knew and spent a lot of time with.

You can't litigate who talks to one another. It might suck that an angry ex-employee and your angry ex-wife are now friends, but there's nothing you can do to stop it. It's also doubtful that Jared's NDA covered Crowder's wife, as the separation/divorce did not occur until years later.


What didn't Gerald cover?

He didn't explain why Jared signed an NDA. He didn't explain the timing of the NDA, and why it was asked of him once he was leaving, rather than before or during employment. He didn't explain what Jared got out of signing the NDA. He didn't refute Jared's claims that he was pressured and threatened to sign the NDA. He didn't answer Jared's allegation of being compelled to stay out of media jobs for 2 years, and why Jared signed a document agreeing to this.

The only substantive statement about Jared, aside from the ex-wife conspiracy stuff, was the claim that Jared himself also exposed his penis to Crowder. He told a story about Jared pulling down his pants, only in view of Crowder, while they were at a radio station and Crowder was being interviewed.

Whole thing sounds kinda gay if you ask me. Maybe "Not Gay" Jared was more gay than he's letting on. This 2017 video, a parody of Schoolhouse Rock, features Jared and Steven making out in an elevator, starting at the 3:10 mark:

[DrSayre]

What didn't Gerald cover?

He didn't explain why Jared signed an NDA. He didn't explain the timing of the NDA, and why it was asked of him once he was leaving, rather than before or during employment. He didn't explain what Jared got out of signing the NDA. He didn't refute Jared's claims that he was pressured and threatened to sign the NDA. He didn't answer Jared's allegation of being compelled to stay out of media jobs for 2 years, and why Jared signed a document agreeing to this.

This to me was kinda big, since Steven started a whole conservative civil war last year over how DW treats young conservative content creators. But how is preventing former employees from getting new jobs helping them? Owen mentioned Steven prevented Jared from getting a job at CRTV in 2019. Gavin McInnes also mentioned he heard this rumor as well.



I was really wanting to hear Gerald address this and he didnt, which makes me think its true

The only substantive statement about Jared, aside from the ex-wife conspiracy stuff, was the claim that Jared himself also exposed his penis to Crowder. He told a story about Jared pulling down his pants, only in view of Crowder, while they were at a radio station and Crowder was being interviewed.

Whole thing sounds kinda gay if you ask me. Maybe "Not Gay" Jared was more gay than he's letting on. This 2017 video, a parody of Schoolhouse Rock, features Jared and Steven making out in an elevator, starting at the 3:10 mark:

Not saying it was right/wrong, but the timeline Gerald mention was when they were on the radio, which was before Louder with Crowder joined CRTV and became an actual company with many employees. To me, that is way different than the rumors of the stuff Crowder did afterwards. For example, Steven put his genitals on Jared's shoulder in Spring 2018, after it was on CRTV and became an actual company. Gerald/Crowder have brushed that off as it only happened for certain skits and stuff where his genitals could be seen... but they have no addressed any of the rumors that's been published.


Im sure Ill post more thoughts later... Todd and I have messaged back and forth on this for years at this point, so it's been exciting to see all of this come out!

[Dan Druff]

Jared is now starting to lose some support, as his tweet today didn't land well:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/TheJaredMonroe/status/1773070447380156749


Unlike his original tweet yesterday with the bombshell video, where he had almost 100% support in the comments section, this one rattled some people.

It's one thing to say, "Steven Crowder bullied me 6 years ago into signing an overly restrictive non-compete in NDA, so it was hard to get work, my career got derailed, and now he's constantly harassing me with lawyers and draining my family finances."

It's another to say, "I'm trying to help Steven's ex to keep his kids away from him." That doesn't sit well with some people, especially men who have had their own custody battles.


This is why people blindly donating to Jared's Gofundme were stupid. Like, if Shapiro and Owens (both of whom are rich) want to kick in a few hundo just to troll Crowder, I get it. But regular Joes donating without knowing the full story are just wasting their money.

Upon thinking about it more, I think both Jared and Gerald (who is of course speaking for Crowder) are correct in their criticism of the other side.

Jared was probably royally fucked by Crowder when he left in 2018. I'm guessing that Crowder was already pissed he abruptly left, and was even more worried that Jared might steal some of his audience if he went to another show. So the decision was probably made to use their resources to legally bully him into signing a highly restrictive non-compete/NDA, to where it fucked Jared's career. And then Jared had to watch Crowder apparently fuck over or mistreat other personalities on the show, and he would have to sit quiet and say nothing.

So the resentment built for 5 years, and then the whole divorce story came out. Jared probably said, "Fuck this guy, I'm getting my revenge now and helping Hilary", and that's likely what he's been doing. Crowder got wind of this somehow (maybe in discovery related to the divorce?), and started threatening to basically forget he exists or else, Jared wouldn't, and here we are.

Maaaaaaaybe Hilary contacted Jared, rather than the other way around. I have no way of knowing.

But I do think Gerald has a point that Jared is gleefully helping Hilary with the super-contentious divorce battle, and isn't just a broke family man trying to make a living while Crowder torments him for no reason.

Jared is trying to get revenge, which even if partially justified, isn't what he was presenting to us yesterday. Neither side looks great at this point.

[Dan Druff]

Jared now threatening to sue people in Crowder's camp who are talking about him regarding this situation:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/TheJaredMonroe/status/1773093737750475197


Again, this isn't going over well.

Jared needs a PR manager. He got off to a great start with this whole thing, raised over $70k in one day, and had everyone's sympathy/support.

Gerald's rebuttal wasn't very good, and just ranted a lot of conspiracy theories about Jared and Crowder's ex.

Had Jared just ignored it, or if he responded by pointing out that Gerald avoided the main subject (and then openly asked Gerald questions back), he'd still be in the driver's seat.

Now Jared looks like a Gofundme grifter, as well as a vindictive asshole who inserted himself into Crowder's divorce proceedings. And now he's threatening to sue people while complaining that he's the victim of frivolous suits.

[DrSayre]

Had Jared just ignored it, or if he responded by pointing out that Gerald avoided the main subject (and then openly asked Gerald questions back), he'd still be in the driver's seat.

I agree with this. Gerald pulled Jared into the divorce stuff (whether that was the intent or not by Jared), which deflected from the actual allegations Jared made, and Jared seems to be playing into that, which I dont think is good.

[DrSayre]

Lauren Southern put up a really good video about Crowder and Hilary/Jared

[DrSayre]

Matt Bruenig has filed charges against Louder with Crowder with the National Labor Relations Board https://www.nlrbedge.com/p/i-have-fi...labor-practice

The charges claim Louder with Crowder violate these unfair labor practices:
* Maintaining an illegal confidentiality rule in an employment agreement.
* Maintaining an illegal confidentiality rule in a separation agreement.
* Maintaining an illegal non-disparagement rule in a separation agreement.
* Engaging in unlawful interrogation and surveillance by seeking to obtain information about protected activity using the tools of judicial discovery.
* Sending legal threats instructing Jared to not engage in protected activity.
* Filing a baseless, retaliatory lawsuit that seeks the illegal objective of enforcing illegal confidentiality and non-disparagement rules.

If these charges prevail, all former employees will be released from their NDAs and LwC would have to reimburse Jared for all legal expenses.