So, You Publicly Fucked Up? (ft. Ned Fulmer)

Most of us have regrets: shitty things we did in the past as less-evolved versions of ourselves. 

There are definitely things I’ve done that haunt me…like that time in high school when I tried to jump over a fence to impress my fellow tennis team members, got stuck at the top, and exposed an ass cheek in the process. 

(Someone had to help me get down, and I went back to practice with a hole in my shorts.)

But the difference between me and a public figure — say, a creator or celebrity — is that most of my fuck-ups have been relatively private. They haven’t ended up on Deuxmoi, The Daily Mail, or, in the case of Ned Fulmer, Saturday Night Live.

Of course, there are exceptions to this, like the infamous Coldplay kiss cam situation, where (then) CEO and head of HR at Astronomer, Andy Byron, and Kristin Cabot, went viral for canoodling. But for the most part, we normies are spared from irreparable reputation damage when we do something embarrassing, immature, or downright cruel. 

Creators and celebs are not so lucky.

Lost Focus, Lost Fans

Ned Fulmer was a Wife Guy. That’s the part he played in the original Try Guys. And it was a part. In his own words: “I was playing a character, and I feel like I played it quite well.”‍

He says it started as an offhand joke, “Oh, my wife…,” became a running gag, and over time, a core facet of his brand.

Ned played the Wife Guy for 10 years, but toward the end, it started to wear on him.

As a fan of The Try Guys (and therefore, Ned), I was absolutely gutted when I scrolled past a blurry photo of him in an alleged affair moment with Alexandria Herring — a Try Guys associate producer — in late 2022. Alleged became confirmed when Ned was obviously edited out of Try Guys videos, and a weird clip of the other three guys sitting on a couch hit their channel:

What did Ned do exactly?

He cheated on his (now ex-) wife, Ariel Fulmer, with a Try Guys team member, Alexandria Herring.

Don’t get me wrong — it was awful, and I feel for Ariel and all of the Try Guys team. But Ned is not the first Wife Guy to have cheated on his wife. It is the way of many a Wife Guy (see: What’s in a Wife Guy? (Derogatory))

Ned no longer works with The Try Guys. He’s apologized to his fans, gone through counseling, and been very public about his remorse. Even so, it’s impossible to deny how much the scandal impacted his reputation. At one point, he had over 1M followers on Instagram; today, he’s got just under 640k.

Ned knows what it’s like to fuck up publicly, and this is his advice for anyone who’s done the same.

What to Do When You’ve Gone and Fucked Up

Step 1: Stop posting

Whatever you’ve done (cheated on your wife, bribed someone to get your kid into college, extorted a contractor working on your Malibu mansion), call a lawyer and a PR professional.

Lay low.

Once you’ve got a plan in place — one backed by your legal team — post your Notes app apology, then delete all the apps (yes, even Feeld) and stay off the grid for at least six months.* 

If you need to delete any old posts before your hiatus, do so. You can also turn off comments on posts to minimize discourse about the situation on your posts.‍

‍*Six months is based on the time YouTuber Cody Ko (transgression: had a sexual encounter with 17-year-old Tana Mongeau at the age of 25) waited before starting to post again. Ned waited three years before returning to social media. So, go with your gut — unless that’s what got you into this situation in the first place. Then listen to your crisis PR person and/or legal team. 

Step 2: Become a better person

When you do something bad in a public way, people will unfollow you. They might even use your profile as a playground for shitposting.

Whatever happens, it’s important to focus on healing and coming to a place of acceptance about what you did. Ned says he spent the first year after the scandal in recovery mode. He went through counseling and even lived at a treatment program center for a little while.‍

“In the span of a weekend, everything I knew to be true about my life just sort of disappeared, and it was all my fault. I had a ton of guilt and shame around that. So, the first year was just a lot of recovery — personal work and working on the relationship [with Ariel].”‍

Fast forward to 2026, and Ned is in a better place: co-parenting with Ariel, hosting his podcast, Rock Bottom, and working on his agency, Fulmer Media.

He says there’s something to be gleaned from his experience. Most creators center themselves in their content. And when you do that, it’s difficult for your audience to separate the art from the artist.

On that note…

Step 3: Fix the gap between your public and private self

If you feel that cognitive dissonance Ned described, where your public persona doesn’t reflect your private self, fix that.‍

“Try to repair that, both publicly and privately. Then, start to slowly shift your brand.”‍

He gave the example of Adam Rose, a comedy creator who went viral for his unique blue cardigan. Apparently, his engagement tanks when he doesn’t wear the blue cardigan, so he wears it.

All. The. Time.

“That's so weird, right? You kind of become this one-dimensional caricature, and if you change your shirt, people are like, ‘Wait a second. That's not the guy we want!’”

FWIW, wearing the same shirt every time you film probably does make creating content more efficient, but that’s not the point: Don’t let the algorithm or your audience turn you into a caricature. ‍

That might mean starting over on a new channel, but you can also just try wearing a different shirt more often so that people get used to seeing you in a color other than blue.

Step 4: Don’t pretend like it didn’t happen

Own your shit. That’s what people want on social media — the failures, not just the wins.

When Ned came back online, he launched his podcast and titled it “Rock Bottom” based on the last few years of his life. And for the very first episode, he invited the person he hurt most, Ariel Fulmer, to talk about the affair and the years since.

Ned later featured psychologist and affair specialist Lauren Larusso on the podcast, and they talked about all of the reasons why people cheat.

By all accounts, he’s done what he can to address his past mistakes and start to move on in a way that feels respectable. But then there is the reality of the internet. 

Step 5: Haters gon’ hate

Hating has become an online sport.

Ned gets no shortage of negative comments, no matter what he posts. It’s almost like people wait for him to post so that they can troll:

“It's been horrible wading through the negativity. I feel like I'm supporting a cottage industry of commentators who just pounce on any awkward thing that I do.”‍

He’s not wrong: a nano-slice of the creator economy consists of videos criticizing Ned Fulmer, even in 2026. These videos get hundreds of thousands of views, even though it’s been almost four years since the affair.

It is what it is; haters gon’ hate; and other millennial cliches that apply. Ignore the negativity and focus on becoming the best, most authentic version of yourself — personally first, then publicly.

Ned is still working on the latter (his public persona), and here’s where he’s at:

“I'm interested in telling other people's stories through my point of view, which is that of someone who had a lot of success, then self-immolated.”