The Try Guys try to set boundaries.
Keith Habersberger and Zach Kornfeld as a group stood behind their decision to fire Ned Fulmer — even saying he would never come back as an employee.
After a week-long hiatus, the Try Guys released a new podcast episode on Thursday in which they gave fans an inside look at how they felt after learning that their co-founder was cheating on his 10-year-old wife, Ariel Fulmer.
However, when producer Miles Bonsignore asked them “if this hadn’t gone public, is there a world where Ned would have come back and been a cast member,” both Kornfeld and Habersberger simply said “no.”
“Look, what happened, it violated our trust, it was a workplace violation. It would mean to all the people in the office who knew what they knew […] that we were not true to who we said we are in our values,” Habersberger explained.
“Very simple, he would have been removed. It wouldn’t have been this public spectacle, we would have tried to avoid it for the sake of the other people involved, but it happened the way it happened.”
Kornfeld noted that as a brand, they represent a set of values that their followers look up to.
“We want this to be reflected through Keith’s leadership, Eugene [Lee Yang] and myself, in the values of our company,” he added.
Habersberger and Kornfeld also delved into the “emotions” they felt when they discovered everything ranging from confusion and anger to sadness and frustration.
The former went on to explain that Ned was placed under review and eventually fired “felt like a rift.”
In 2014, the Try Guys first started working together at Buzzfeed, where they appeared in multiple videos.
Four years later, they launched their own production company with Ned, Lee Yang, Habersberger and Kornfeld taking on the roles of co-managers and co-founders.
That was all recently uprooted when they found out that Ned was having an affair with one of their producers, Alexandria Herring.
The Try Guys even revealed that they had known about his affair since early September and had fired him before the news broke on September 27.
In their first video since breaking ties with him, Habersberger said that Ned “confirmed the reports and has since confirmed [the affair] had been going on for a while, which was of course very shocking to us.”
“We just want you to know that we had no idea this was going on,” he clarified. “All that information was as shocking to us as it was to you this week.”
“We are incredibly shocked and deeply hurt by it all,” Yang said in the video, holding back tears. “This is someone we have built a company and brand with for eight years. We feel sad, not only personally, but on behalf of our staff and fans who believed in us.”
A tearful Kornfeld added: “I don’t know if we can put into words the pain we feel right now. It’s hard to revisit old videos that we love and are proud of, we lose a friend, someone we built a business with, that we have countless memories of […] We’re sorry this ever happened and we don’t know what else to say.”
Despite the Try Guys breaking up with Ned, Ariel may be staying by his side as they were both seen on September 28 wearing their wedding rings.
They share two sons: Wesley (4) and Finley (1).