Each day, millions of people log onto YouTube to watch entertaining videos from their favorite creators, catch the latest scoop, and explore new and unusual ideas. Now, viewers are flocking to YouTuber Jake Paul, who is known for his vlogs depicting his lavish and extraordinary lifestyle. Recently, he made a weighty accusation in one of his video his channel, stirring up quite the controversy.
Paul has been under fire for a while, starting from when he kicked his ex-girlfriend out of his house and recorded a diss track about her causing some pointless drama with his brother and her. Next, he was blasted by the press for being an annoyance to many of his neighbors by setting furniture on fire, honking his car's horn frequently, and not dealing with the fans seated outside his LA mansion. And a few days ago, Paul uploaded a video in which he disclosed that his assistant, Megan Zelly, was attacked and assaulted the previous night in a popular LA club known as the Warwick. Zelly and a few members of Team 10 (Paul's group of internet creators) happened to be in the club at the same time as Paul's aforementioned ex-girlfriend's boyfriend, known as FaZe Banks, another YouTuber. As they were leaving the club, Zelly claims he quote "clotheslined me and put his arm out in front of me and tried to like, pull me into their table where they were... I was looking up at him and our faces were really close...". Paul proceeded to show photos of Zelly's bruised neck.
In the story, they recounted that Banks was cheating on his girlfriend, drinking an obscene amount, and assaulted Zelly for no reason. However after the video was uploaded, Banks responded with his own video stating that he had done nothing to Zelly, but believed he was drugged by a member of Team 10.
Regardless of who is in the right, if Banks assaulted Zelly or if a member of Paul's team drugged Banks, my issue is with how the situation is being treated. These Youtubers are heedlessly throwing around accusations left and right. They aren't taking the situation seriously in the least. The vlog Paul uploaded was not solely about the assault of Zelly; instead, it beganas one of his normal vlogs, with the discussion thrown in randomly between the fun hijinks. It also came to my attention that Zelly only talked a few times during this discussion, with Paul speaking for most of the time describing a situation that he wasn't even present for. Additionally, the next day, Paul uploaded another vlog titled "Here's what's really happening" with an image of him talking with his brother, however the video never addressed any concerns over Zelly's assault, and instead had a black screen at the end stating that Paul was going to talk with Banks in person as he believed the situation was being handled immaturely. The worst part is that he used click bait to simply get more views on a subject like assault.
However, Banks is at fault as well. He spent little time denying that he assaulted Zelly, instead pointing out ways that Team 10 was wrong and manipulative and accusing Paul of abusing his ex-girlfriend and other women. The way these men are handling something as serious as assault is horrific, they're only pointing fingers at each other and trying to sway their children audience in their favor. Their statements of "Not wanting to cause drama" are thrown completely out the window when you can see how badly they want to get subscribers and views on each of their videos regarding this subject. But abuse, drugging, assault and overall hurting another human being are not topics that should be used for personal gain under any circumstances. To Banks and Paul, stop painting yourself as the hero and mature adult, and instead, address the situation as seriously as it is. Because assault is no joke.
