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Conservative media host and commentator Steven Crowder can be seen on a Ring Camera video berating his wife Hilary, who was at the time nearly eight months pregnant, and demanding that she handle medicine for his dogs that she was concerned was toxic to pregnant women. In the video, he snaps at her to put on her gloves to give his dogs medicine, walk the dogs, and otherwise "perform wifely duties," as she is clearly emotionally distressed.
Towards the end of the exchange, Hilary Crowder says to her husband, "Your abuse is sick," he snaps at her, saying, "Watch it. Fucking watch it."
Moments later, off camera, Steven Crowder, by his admission, would lose control and scream at his pregnant wife in a threatening tone, "I will fuck you up," which led his wife to flee their home.
In a statement sent to me by Hilary Crowder's family, they say that she spent years hiding her husband's mental and emotional abuse from her family, that he lied about the circumstances around their divorce, and that he wasn't present for the birth of their children.
Documentary evidence I reviewed while reporting this story backs up their assertions.
The statement, in its entirety, is printed later on in this story. The Ring Camera footage documenting the moments leading up to the moment where Steven said, "I will fuck you up!" something that was at the pinnacle of aggressiveness in their marriage but was also part of a pattern of emotional abuse is posted in full at the top of this post and detailed later on.
Neither Hilary nor Steven Crowder is contending that there was physical abuse in their marriage or sexual infidelity. And in audio files and text messages I reviewed, Steven Crowder admits to some of his faults, which include a volcanic temper, repeatedly, and at times, regretfully.
But according to sources I spoke to who are familiar with their relationship, Steven Crowder's admissions often came after a sustained period of mental and emotional abuse, and he didn't seem to be able to control his impulses.
This story is based on conversations with multiple sources, none of whom would speak to me unless they were granted anonymity. I also reviewed text messages, extensive audio files, and personal videos documenting the Crowder's marriage.
Hilary Crowder was not available for comment or a conversation with me on more confidential terms. Two messages sent to Steven Crowder via his website requesting comment have yet to be replied to by the time this story was published. If he does reply or comment publicly about the details posted here, this story will be updated accordingly.
The Crowders were married in 2012 after dating for two years and being engaged for less than a year. Hilary Crowder filed for divorce in December 2021 after she learned that her husband had hired a divorce attorney a month earlier. Hilary Crowder welcomed twins via Caesarean section in August 2021.
Despite her best efforts, her husband was absent when their twins were born. Instead, he met their newborn twins later that day at the hospital.
The night before she gave birth, Steven and Hilary exchanged a series of text messages about separating. Hilary sent her husband one of the final text messages: "Steven, I'm afraid of you [and your] rage. You are scary. You scare me. I want to heal things, but you have to take responsibility. Stop blaming others. Stop feeling pain and sadness only for yourself."
In the past two weeks, rumors of their divorce, which the press had not discovered for over a year, began to spread on Twitter.
On Tuesday, Steven Crowder briefly spoke about the news on his popular show "Louder With Crowder."
Crowder said, in part:
"I have been living with a proverbial boot on my neck for going on years now; since 2021, I have been living through what has increasingly been a horrendous divorce. And no, this is not been my choice. My then wife decided she didn't want to be married anymore. And in the State of Texas, that is completely permitted. She simply wanted out, and the law says that is how it works. It's no one else's fault but my own in that I picked wrong. And that certainly isn't the fault of my children."
Crowder bemoaned Texas' no-fault divorce law several times in his statement. No-Fault divorce laws allow either party in a marriage to get divorced without requiring a cause like abuse or infidelity. It wasn't the first time Crowder had talked about his disgust for such laws.
What Crowder didn't mention was that his very private wife, who hardly appears at public events and is rarely photographed, had made a request via her attorneys that her husband not discuss their divorce at all.
Steven Crowder dismissed that request and spoke about the divorce and their marriage for about five minutes in a clip that went viral.
In a statement sent to me via email, Hilary Crowder's family said:
"Hilary is currently living alone in Dallas, apart from her family and support system in Michigan, and is focused on taking care of her young children. She is not prepared at this time to speak about her divorce becoming public or the misleading statements made by Steven about their relationship.
The truth is that Hilary spent years hiding Steven's mentally and emotionally abusive behavior from her friends and family while she attempted to save their marriage. She was the one who was asking to work on their relationship to keep the marriage intact for their unborn children.
In June of 2021, Steven left their home to pursue elective surgery. Hilary urged him to get the help he needed to address his abuse with the hope that their marriage could be saved and they could peacefully live together as a family. Instead, Steven refused to do so and chose not to be with his wife during the birth of their twin children. After the birth, Steven bought a townhouse and left their home permanently. Hilary was unaware that Steven had hired a divorce attorney and asked his assistant to cut Hilary off financially. There is significant documentation substantiating these facts.
We hope that Steven will cease speaking publicly about these personal matters in an untruthful manner. We also look forward to there being full transparency in the legal process so there is fairness and accountability for the actions that caused the divorce, and to ensure the outcome is what is in the best interests of the young children."
In the Ring camera video, which was captured on June 26, 2021, Steven Crowder is angry as he sits on the patio smoking, and Hilary Crowder is in a state of motion as she prepares to leave the house.
Steven Crowder insists that Hilary not take their one car to run errands as it would keep him housebound and that she, at nearly eight months pregnant, should take an UBER.
He also berates her for not doing her "wifely duties," like grocery shopping, in a way that pleases him.
Tensions rise as Steven Crowder gets more agitated.
"Feeling some constraint?" Crowder said to his wife.
Crowder gets irritated and says that if Hilary, his very pregnant wife, takes the car, he can't go to the gym, see his parents, or see his friends.
"The only way out of it is discipline and respect," Crowder said to his wife.
Hilary Crowder, in an attempt to leave, tells her husband that she loves him and that she's committed to the marriage.
Steven Crowder gets angrier and suggests that if she is committed to their marriage, she should put on gloves to give his dogs the medicine that his wife was concerned was toxic for pregnant women and walk their dogs.
As they headed inside, Crowder got angrier and angrier and was, by his admission (via audio I reviewed) yelling angrily and said, "I will fuck you up." According to both Crowders, Steven immediately pulled back and realized what he said. But by that point, Hilary was frightened and left the house.
In the review of audio, video, and text messages, Steven Crowder repeatedly admits that he has a volcanic temper and has been working through therapy to control it. However, at one point in one of the audio files I reviewed, Steven Crowder gets upset because he is frustrated that he is not getting enough credit for not having lost his temper for months but adds that he can't promise he won't lose it again in the future.
Two people who worked for Steven in the past say that he has created a cult-like atmosphere in the workplace and is intolerant of dissent. "You're either fully for him, or you're his enemy," one former employee told me in a conversation on Wednesday.
In an interview on Michael Malice's podcast, Dave Landau, who used to be a co-host on Louder With Crowder, said that Crowder had surrounded himself with "yes men."
Landau added about Crowder, "He's become the bully, and he doesn't realize it."
Crowder's career in mainstream conservative media started at Fox News in 2009, where he appeared as a guest on programs and wrote for Fox News' website until he was let go from the network in October 2013. His show "Louder With Crowder" aired on CRTV and later the Blaze from 2017 through the end of his contract in 2022.
Crowder's media footprint is substantial; on YouTube, his two channels have over seven million subscribers and have garnered over 2.2 billion views. In addition, he has millions of followers across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
On the conservative online video platform Rumble, Crowder has over 1 million followers.
In March 2023, Rumble announced that at least 58,000 people had subscribed to Crowder's channel paying $89 a year each. That would mean over $5.1 million for this particular revenue stream, and the numbers that Rumble shared were in the pre-launch phase. The numbers have likely grown since.
It's this success, and an ideological alliance, that led the Daily Wire, the conservative media company co-founded by Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing, to make an offer to Crowder in October 2022 to bring his show to their company.
The offer was later revealed to be $50 million over four years. Crowder would be responsible for his production costs as part of the deal. And Boreing later made it clear that the $50 million was just an initial non-binding offer to start negotiations and that they would have likely paid much more to secure Crowder for their growing list of conservative hosts.
Like so many things in his life in recent years, Crowder's temper and paranoia led him to destroy his relationship with Shapiro, Boreing, and others at Daily Wire when he posted a video on his channel suggesting that the Daily Wire (without naming the company) was attempting to align itself with "big tech" by mentioning in their initial offer to him that if he was demonetized on social media platforms that it would reduce his overall compensation.
The Daily Wire responded that they couldn't be expected to compensate him at the initial contract rate if they were losing revenue streams they had accounted for as part of determining his compensation.
Crowder responded to a video by Boreing by playing audio from a call he had, unbeknownst to Boreing, taped.
Crowder said that the call with Boreing was only the third conversation with a friend he's taped in his entire life.
But in the interview with Michael Malice, Crowder's former co-host Dave Landau said that Crowder would regularly tape calls with people without them knowing.
While it's clear that Crowder is making millions from his conservative media mini-empire, it's unclear if he will receive an offer like the one he got from the Daily Wire team again.
Crowder's willingness to publicly destroy a relationship will likely lead other conservative media funders to be cautious about getting into business with him. The self-destructiveness is not surprising to people who know him but still shocking given his constant concern with money, according to people who know him well.
In reviewing documentary evidence related to their marriage, Steven Crowder appears obsessed with the idea that his wife is only interested in him for money. Hilary Crowder started dating him well before he became famous and wealthy. He was making less than $100,000 a year when they got married.
On April 22, 2022, Crowder was talking on his show about his distaste for no-fault divorce; he said, "If you're a woman that comes from meager means, and you want to get wealthy – you've never worked, you didn't get a degree, you have no skill set, but you're good-looking – your best path to victory is simply to marry a man, leave him, and take half."
By the time Crowder said this, it had been five months since he retained a divorce attorney, but his audience was unaware of this move.
Six months later, he would walk away from a $50 million opening offer from the Daily Wire.
Four months after the news of the Daily Wire offer became public in January 2023, and his comments about the proposal led to the destruction of his relationship with Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing, the public would learn that a dispute with the Daily Wire was the least of Steven Crowder's problems.
Exclusive: Video Reveals Steven Crowder Emotionally Abusing Wife. In Statement, Hilary Crowder's Family Says She Hid His Emotionally Abusive Behavior For Years