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Feb. 20, 2024 - Candace Owens
09:19
Is He REALLY a Deadbeat Dad?
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Trauma dumping, trauma dumping.
Look, actually, I do feel better after dumping some of my own trauma in the monologue.
I'm obsessed with this new trend.
It's just fascinating, psychologically, what people are doing on the internet.
But let me get right to the story, because this was trending all over X this weekend, and people were divided on whether or not this was the right thing for a parent to do.
So let me back up and tell you what happened.
So there was a young woman, her name is Maddie, she is 24 years old and she decided to go on to,
yep, you guessed it, TikTok, to dump some trauma about her childhood.
Now to be clear, Maddie's got millions of followers on TikTok and this video went viral,
I mean it got tons of views.
Let's take a listen to what Maddie had to say.
What's a piece of trauma that you have?
It has to actually be funny.
I'll go first.
My dad abandoned my family when I was five years old.
That is, um, a wife and four kids.
He abandoned us and then pursued amateur breakdancing.
And he got really good.
He, like, blew up.
Like, he became, like, a D-list celebrity status, like, viral breakdancer.
He became, like, the oldest actively competing breakdancer in the world.
Then he got on Good Morning America, and talk shows, and Washington Post wrote about him, and he went super viral, and he did all these interviews, and he danced with Paula Abdul.
Here, I'll show you.
Take a look at this 60-year-old breakdancer.
Yes, 60 years old.
50 years old.
Amazing.
That's Ben Hardy.
He's competing at a breakdancing competition in Philadelphia, and he may not have won, but he, I tell you what, he is winning over a lot of people on the internet.
He really is.
this guy wouldn't pay my medical bills The worst part?
Damn it, he's good.
He should not be able to move his body like that.
It's like impossible.
It's beautiful.
Hey, dad.
Like, there was no split custody or anything, like, he just, like, left four kids to do that!
He may not have paid for some of my medical bills growing up, but he did give me this breakdancing merchandise.
So that's him, he's on his head.
Benny Hanna is his b-boy name, because his name is Ben Hart.
You know, I'll get texts like this, happy birthday question mark, and then, like, links to his- to his breakdancing videos.
If you have funny trauma, like, actual funny haha trauma, I need to hear it.
Thank you.
All right, Maddie.
So first and foremost, I'm going to say that video is very entertaining.
It's a very good production, and she seems like she's remarkably positive.
But don't let that distract you from the fact that actually what she's doing is quite sinister.
She's not concealing her dad's name.
She's telling you exactly what his real name is and also what his name is on all of these shows.
Yeah, like when he breakdances, he goes by Benny Hanna.
Here's his actual name, Ben Hart.
So she knew with the following that she has on TikTok that people would descend on her father and that they would tell him that he was trash, essentially, right?
Like, oh my gosh, the storyline there is very clear, but she's telling you this is a guy who left his four kids and his wife To go pursue dancing, right?
Break dancing.
He sounds like a total frickin' loser, and it's even worse to think that he achieved some fame and was on Good Morning America while he left these children, these poor children.
And then she tells you that, obviously, this little tidbit, that he wouldn't even pay her medical bills.
And that is how you trauma dump successfully, right?
Because you're pretending that, like, oh, this is all funny, but you know Dad's gonna get it.
And Dad did, in fact, get it.
And dad didn't just take it sitting down, apparently.
I think the reason that Maddie, by the way, is so entertaining is because, well, she may have genetically received those traits from her dad, because he's pretty entertaining, too.
Listen to what he had to say in the response.
Okay, I wake up at 6 a.m.
to do some work, I get my coffee, I sit down, I open my computer, and what am I greeted with?
Well, hundreds of comments calling me a deadbeat dad, a child abandoner, and all manner of other insults.
So I think, what's this all about?
Well, after a few minutes of investigation, I discover that my daughter, Maddie, has made a video about me.
She's a screenwriter in Hollywood.
She's also a big social media influencer with millions of followers.
Now, about not paying medical bills, that's just not correct.
Here was the financial arrangement of the divorce.
Maddie's mom, my ex-wife, got $2 million at the get-go.
Out of the gate.
A lump sum payment.
Plus, I was paying her $18,000 per month in child support and alimony.
This was later reduced to $12,000 per month.
And, of course, I paid health insurance and out-of-pocket medical costs.
I also put $600,000 into the kids' college fund.
In all, I paid out about $5 million to my ex-wife to cover costs for her and the kids.
And this is in 2005 dollars.
So add 50% to account for inflation.
In other words, I was not a deadbeat dad at all.
I did not abandon the family for breakdancing.
I have a career.
I'm in the advertising business.
Built an ad agency.
That's how I was able to afford to pay Maddie's mom $5 million.
Maddie's mom and I separated in 2004 and divorced in 2005.
I took up breakdancing entirely by accident in 2012 as a way to get in shape at the age of 54.
But the more I watch the video, the more I like it.
And her video certainly is true from her perspective.
Even though a few details are off.
No doubt because of what she heard from her mom.
And I do think it's a great storyline.
That a 54 year old dude left his family to pursue breakdancing.
Even if not quite true, factually.
But perhaps it speaks to a bigger truth.
A truth that is really truer than the actual facts of the matter.
This could be a very funny movie plot.
So maybe Maddie will make this movie about her 66-year-old breakdancing dad.
I love you, Maddie.
You are very creative and talented.
Keep doing exactly what you're doing.
So let me tell you why I absolutely love this response.
And I do want to give some credence to the claim, and my colleagues have actually made
Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh are like, this isn't actually good, because at root here, you're talking about a divorce.
It's playing out on the internet.
That is all very true.
And I think it was Michael who pointed out the fact that he's basically saying, I paid money, so that makes me not a deadbeat dad.
well, of course, money is not a substitute for a parent.
And obviously, something went awry, because otherwise, why would she be making this video?
But let me tell you why I have to separate from them in terms of me believing that this is actually a great
video.
First and foremost, some things that we left out.
The dad also talks about how well all the siblings are doing.
One of them, I think he says, works at a hedge fund.
The daughter, Tori, works at a hedge fund.
He says what his son does, what the other person does.
You know, the kids all made out well.
And he also then talks about the fact that he owns that 70% of this divorce was his own fault.
Him and his ex-wife were not exactly compatible.
And that he fully understands her mentality of believing this narrative, because she was a child.
He says that she was five years old.
And so to a five-year-old, it might look like dad just walked out, but obviously, a lot more took place.
And since she was living primarily with her mother, as she indicates, she's going to have her mom's side,
her mom's version of events.
and mom clearly did not share with her child or her adult, 24-year-old adult, that, you
Dad was definitely paying.
I wasn't paying the medical bills.
That definitely doesn't make sense, especially when, like he said, that would mean that he virtually gave her $10 million over the years.
If you accounted for inflation today, it would be $10 million that he gave to his ex-wife.
I like this video, though, because the dad is tremendously light-hearted in his response.
He's not being sinister.
Like I said, he's admitting that he had fault and admitting that he understands why she would have had this perspective, which I think very much takes the heat off of Maddie.
Doesn't make people go after her and go, you're a liar, or anything like that.
Actually, what it really does is it casts some heat To his ex-wife, you know, for allowing this narrative to exist.
And it really points to just how toxic, I think, as we are watching this play out, how toxic divorces can be, in that children are always forced to choose a side.
The reason why I like this also is because it challenges the public to recognize that just because somebody says it on the internet doesn't mean that it's true.
We now exist in this time of, like, outrage mobs, right?
You get these people.
who all it takes is the first here and they accept that this person is the victim.
And we have showed you over and over and over again, and definitely on this show, that that
just isn't always the truth, right?
The first person to say that I am sad is not necessarily the victim.
And that is what he is doing, I think, in a very upbeat manner.
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