By Perez Hilton

Copyright perezhilton

OMG. Y’all remember this??

Three years ago, back in 2022 — if you can believe it’s been that long already — The Try Guys faced a MAJOR scandal when then-member Ned Fulmer was caught and later admitted to cheating on his wife, Ariel! And with someone from work! Crazy!

He’d been viewed as the “wife guy” among the group, so it was a big deal that he was suddenly caught up in a workplace affair! And partly because of this reputation, the scandal went VERY viral! It didn’t help that he was immediately kicked to the curb by his former colleagues, Keith Habersberger, Zach Kornfeld, and Eugene Lee Yang (who has since left the group), who not only forced him out but edited him out of future content right away. They were NOT here for the drama!

At the time, Ned put out a pretty standard, since-deleted statement in which he apologized for his actions and said he was going to be fully focusing on his wife and their two kids. But now, he’s REALLY ready to spill all the tea as he prepares for his comeback!

Ned broke his silence on the cheating scandal for the first time in three years in an interview with People out on Tuesday. The biggest shock of all?! He’s STILL married to his wife! She really stuck by him through it all! Whoa.

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The content creator, who got his start with the Try Guys on Buzzfeed in 2014, said:

“I feel ready to share my story and to move on into a new chapter.”

Ned explained he vanished from social media after the affair blew up online — and he wasn’t sure he’d ever return:

“For a long time, I wanted nothing to do with social media or the internet. I didn’t think it was particularly beneficial to my mental health.”

His forced break from social media gave him plenty of time to finally be honest with his wife and spend time “trying to understand why I had done what I had.” And despite his actions, he insisted he “cared the most about” Ariel through it all. Sigh. If only he cared enough about her not to cheat. Would’ve saved them both a lot of trouble!

Ned opened up about how challenging it was to witness Ariel come to terms with his infidelity, noting:

“That was most devastating to work through and to realize — how much pain I had caused her. If I were looking at a past version of myself, how I’d really want to change [is] the way I’d been interacting with her.”

To work through things, they started going to couples therapy — even when there were “many points” that he doubted if their marriage could survive! But through therapy, they were able to address what wasn’t working in their relationship. For Ned, this included realizing how uncomfortable honesty made him feel. Oof. He better figure that out…

And maybe he has? Ned said the pair have since built a new “foundation of trust,” strengthened by their ability to stay together after this scandal. He thinks their romance is stronger than ever! He gushed:

“It’s certainly stronger than it was before. We have a much clearer sense of boundaries — understanding and respecting each other’s boundaries — as well as integrity and being direct with each other, even when it might be unpleasant.”

“Every cent that we spent on therapy was worth it for the improvements in our family life.”

According to the internet personality, they’ve finally reached a “place of healing” — and so now, he thinks it’s the perfect time to pick up a camera and, inevitably, expose them to a new way of negativity! Oh, boy.

Ned will be launching a new podcast on Wednesday called Rock Bottom, all about interviewing folks about their lowest moments — whether they’re fellow canceled celebs or struggled with addiction or faced legal issues. He explained:

“I started to want to create and miss making things. I mean, I’m the type of person that’d be in a community theater show getting paid nothing. I just love it.”

But his headline-making past influenced him to want to create content with deeper meaning than the Try Guys’ silly videos, and so he’s inviting “anyone who’s overcome something challenging” to come chat with him:

“It’s made me a lot more interested in other people’s challenging times. When someone does something that they’re really ashamed about or that is deeply traumatizing, life goes on. So what happens next?”

And he’s starting with himself…

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Ned will be joined by his wife for the first episode, in which Ariel calls the cheating scandal experience “terrifying,” per the outlet that saw a sneak peek. It’s set to be a very raw interview, the entertainer recalled:

“The conversation was so brutal at times that we wanted to get up and walk out of the room.”

He detailed:

“It’s one thing to talk about in a therapy setting. It’s a really hard thing to have that conversation in such a way where you know people are watching it. But once we watched the full episode, it was something we were really proud of.”

He will also be venturing back on YouTube for future projects, stressing that the last three years have changed him “as a person and as an artist.” Specifically, he no longer wants to be “a caricature or this one-dimensional type of person” like he used to be:

“It’s pretty well known that I was presenting myself as a wife guy who talked about his adorable relationship. It was something fans seemed to resonate with and I leaned into consciously. It certainly was a part of my life.”

Pointing out how jarring his naughty actions must’ve been for loyal viewers, he expressed:

“I understand that that’s why it was such a big scandal — because it’s ironic and it feels like a rug pull to people. That must have been really painful and devastating to the viewers.”

That said, he stressed that viewers were never seeing the full picture:

“It’s obviously not how real relationships work. And I think that disconnect was challenging for me to deal with, and I obviously dealt with it in a very self-destructive and painful way.”

But just ’cause Ariel will be opening up in the premiere episode, don’t expect to see too much of her or hear about their relationship much in the future. They’re drawing a hard line in the sand, Ned told the publication:

“Having that break and the ability to reassess what privacy meant to us was like completely transformative. It helped us realize that we don’t want our kids to be in videos, that we don’t wanna discuss our family life or our relationship in videos.”

He’s also happy to have a new platform that will allow him to chat with others about their lives and not “just [be] talking about myself all the time.” Meanwhile, Ariel “wants to become less involved in social media” going forward. The poor thing’s about to be thrown back in the deep again by resurfacing this drama! So, why talk about the past?? Why not continue trying to stay on the DL? Well, Ned just wants to move on fully — and thinks the only way to do that is to share his side of the story first:

“As a creator, you have a responsibility to reestablish the context of who you are after something like that. know that addressing the past is something that people care about and want to hear about from me, so it’s kind of this necessary step to move into a new chapter.”

He laughed as he continued:

“In terms of the online reaction, I think I’ve come to understand that I have to tune it out a little bit. Listen to it to the extent that it’s helpful, but to really just let the work speak for itself and move on to the next episode.”

We’re not so sure the internet’s going to be so willing to move on that fast, but we’ll see…

Thoughts?? Will you be listening to his pod? Tell us (below)!

[Image via Try Guys/YouTube & Ned Fulmer/Instagram]