The host of the right-wing talk show Louder With Crowder, which is based in Dallas, found internet fame with his "Change My Mind" videos, in which he'd debate college students over arguments such as "There are only two genders" and "Male privilege is a myth." Crowder announced on Tuesday that his wife, Hilary, filed for divorce some time ago. Then on Thursday, journalist Yashar Ali released a video recorded from a Ring camera in 2021 on his Substack account showing Crowder arguing with his then-pregnant wife at their home.
Ali obtained the footage from "multiple sources, none of whom would speak to me unless they were granted anonymity," he wrote on Substack, along with text messages and audio files from conversations between Steven and Hilary.
Hilary Crowder's family said in a statement that the video is just one instance from years of Steven Crowder's abusive mental and emotional behavior that she tried to keep hidden from her friends and family. They also said that Steven Crowder initiated divorce proceedings, contradicting a video statement he made on his various channels announcing his divorce.
Ali's video shows Crowder sitting in his backyard patio with a cigar in his hand arguing with Hilary about why he would not allow her to take the car "because if you refuse to do wifely things, then I will go pick up the groceries."
He adds, "Hilary, how do you respect the man? The other man, you see, the mother comes back."
The video shows Hilary Crowder trying to leave, but Steven Crowder insists she is not taking their car and recommends that his wife, who is eight months pregnant at the time, according to Ali's report, "get in an Uber" instead.1. EXCLUSIVE
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) April 27, 2023
I've obtained over three minutes of video of Steven Crowder being emotionally abusive toward his pregnant wife, Hilary.
In a statement sent to me, her family says she hid the emotional abuse she was dealing with for years. https://t.co/U28rGt2aSH pic.twitter.com/ZN8ai04fvK
"You wanna walk out right now?" Steven says. "Listen to me. I can't go to the gym. I can't go to my parents. I can't call my friends. I can't, I can't be home. You're gonna take the car and leave me here? Hilary, just think of how boxed in you've made me."
Hilary offers to pick up whatever he wants while she has the car but Steven insists "that won't work either." Then she appears to start crying.
"The only way out of this is discipline and respect," Steven says. "It's the only way out of it when we're at an impasse."
Steven continues to berate his ex-wife when she caves for "giving up so easily." That's when Hilary tells him, "I love you but Steven, your abuse is sick."
"Watch it," Steven responds sternly. "Watch it. Fucking watch it."
Hilary offers again to run errands for Steven and tells him a second time, "I love you. I love you very much."
"I don't love you," Steven responds. "That's the big problem. I've never received love from you."
Steven accuses Hilary of weaponizing her statements of love against him and calls her words "disingenuous."
"Become someone," Steven says while punctuating his words with his cigar in hands, "listen to me, day in and day, worthy. A wife worthy."
Later in the video, Hilary refuses to argue and insists again that she loves him and is committed to him as she tries to walk back in the house. Steven sits forward and says, "Put on some gloves. Are you committed enough to do those things?... Walk the dogs, put on some gloves. Are you committed enough to get the medication?"
Ali reports that the "medication" in these statements refers to a medicine for the couple's pet dogs that Hilary refused to administer because she feared they were toxic to her pregnancy. Steven gets angrier "and suggests that if she is committed to their marriage, she should put on gloves to give his dogs the medicine," according to Ali's story.
The video concludes with an on-screen statement which says that as Steven got angrier, he yelled at Hilary, "I will fuck you up." The statement is not heard on the video, but Ali reports that Steven confirmed it "by his admission" in other audio recordings sent to him by his sources.
"According to both Crowders, Steven immediately pulled back and realized what he said," Ali writes. "But by that point, Hilary was frightened and left the house."
Crowder posted his divorce announcement video on Tuesday on various social media channels and YouTube, all of which have since been removed. He says in the video that the decision to divorce was Hilary's "and in the state of Texas, that is completely permitted" and went on to imply that he's not for no-fault divorce in which a spouse can file for divorce without having to prove abuse, infidelity or wrongdoing on anyone's part in the marriage.
This seems to contradict Ali's reporting that Steven Crowder is the one who initiated divorce proceedings in the summer of 2022 when he hired a divorce attorney. The report also says he did so without Hilary's knowledge until she learned that he "asked his assistant to cut Hilary off financially" and in fact had moved out of their house into a townhome. Also in the previous year, when Hilary gave birth to twin boys, Steven was not with her at the hospital at the time of delivery.
"I've always believed that children need a mom and a dad and divorce is horrible and I still believe that children need a mom and a dad, and divorce is horrible but in today's legal system, my beliefs don't matter," Steven says. "In Texas, divorce is permitted when one party wants it, period."
Crowder went on to claim that several people knew about the dissolution of his marriage and that some "in positions of power," including Daily Wire commentator Candace Owens, made threats to reveal his divorce in order to discredit him and "knowingly putting my children in harm's way."
Crowder has been feuding with Owens and with Ben Shapiro's conservative media company since January, when he refused a $50-million contract renewal, calling it "a slave contract" and accusing the company of bowing to "Big Tech" for including stipulations that he'd lose money if YouTube demonetized his show. He then played a clip of Owens responding to Crowder's criticisms by asking viewers to "pray for him."
"They also knew that the safety of my children included keeping it private," Crowder says. "So if you're familiar with the idea of extortion, then you know the feeling well."
Owens responded to the extortion claims on her Daily Wire show as patently false and characterized his behavior in the leaked home recording as showing him being a "monster" to Hilary. The video's description reads, "This is the behavior of monsters. There is no justification. Change my mind."
"We purport that we are the party of family values," Owens says. "How can you look at that video and defend him in any way?"
