Ben Shapiro Tears Into YouTube ‘Shill’ Steven Crowder After Shock Jock Escalates Feud By Airing Secret Recording of Daily Wire CEO
The very public spat between hard-right shock jock Steven Crowder and the Daily Wire escalated on Thursday night and Friday morning after Crowder played a secret recording of his contract negotiations with Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing – who was offering Crowder an astounding $50 million to join the conservative media empire for four years.
“I’m asking it. Would you walk away? What would it take for you to walk away? And $50 million. Because it’s true. That’s exactly what I did. That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Crowder doubled down on his show Thursday night.
“And so long as these contracts out there include enforcement of Big Tech, of punishing conservative creators on behalf of the people we claim to fight, the people who have long since demonetized us and can’t stand me. And part of me doesn’t blame them. As long as these contracts include that, not even for me. But the next person, I wouldn’t take a billion dollars,” Crowder declared.
Earlier in the week, Crowder publicly declined the Daily Wire’s generous offer over terms in the contract, which he shared publicly, that would have reduced his income if he were to be kicked off major platforms. YouTube demonetized Crowder multiple times in past years for everything from launching homophobic and racist attacks to pushing baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
“I know and these people know and acknowledge exactly what’s being done to the next generation of creators,” Crowder added, insisting he was standing up for the little guy. Crowder then played a clip of his conversation with Boreing.
“Benched talent, young talent. They don’t get deals like this,” Boreing can be heard saying.
“They don’t get deals that?” Crowder shot back.
“They get to be wage slaves for a little bit, come over and make a salary and grow their brand,” Boreing said, using the term Crowder initially used in his public condemnation of the Daily Wire.
“That you then own,” Crowder hit back.
“Well, I own parts of it. They don’t know that they can win their contracts up. They can still go out, they’ll still be famous, they can keep doing their shows. They’ll go to a show somewhere else. It’ll be a far, far, far better place. You help make them,” Boreing replied.
“No, not with his contract. This contract owns it in perpetuity. Even after the contract, you’re paying a lease, but getting ownership. That’s what this contract reads,” said Crowder.
“On the content that we paid to produce. Yes,” Boreing concluded.
Crowder later shared a clip on Twitter, playing and replaying Boreing’s “wage slave” quote while smirking.
https://twitter.com/scrowder/status/1616214929047969797
Boreing hit back at Crowder on Twitter, writing, “I would play the part of that call where we talked about our kids, Christmas, and him buying baby formula for his brother’s children, but I wouldn’t even know how to secretly record phone calls with my friends.”
On Friday morning, Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro also responded to Crowder, saying, “It’s nasty to attack my company and DW+ hosts as “Big Con” by lying about the meaning of a non-binding term sheet. It’s despicable to plan weeks in advance to attack my best friend (and your friend!) by setting up and secretly taping a phone call, all to grow your email list.”
Shapiro, in a lengthy thread, defended the contract offered to Crowder and referred to a video Boreing made earlier in the week detailing the contract line by line.
“Once more, if you actually care about the supposedly horrific non-binding first offer term sheet offering $50M/4 years, Jeremy reads it line-by-line here. It is quite simple. If your show loses money, you lose money. This is how capitalism works,” Shapiro wrote, explaining the business strategy behind the contract.
Shapiro also offered some details regarding how the call between Boering and Crowder took place, claiming Crowder initiated it:
December 15: Steven announces he’s leaving The Blaze.
January 7: Steven texts Jeremy in friendly fashion to ask if they can talk.
January 9: Steven calls Jeremy and secretly tapes him
Shapiro pulled no punches in the end, accusing Crowder of curating his YouTube channel in a way to appease Big Tech in order to maintain his income.
“You know who knows this? Steven Crowder. That’s why he has a ‘Piss Off YouTube’ segment in which he deliberately does not say things that will get him kicked off YouTube, and directs people behind his paywall. He must be a shill for YouTube or something,” Shapiro concluded, accusing Crowder of hypocrisy.
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