NEED TO KNOW
- Ned and Ariel Fulmer have shared the moment “everything changed” in their marriage amid Ned’s extramarital affair with an employee of his company during their first joint appearance together on Ned’s new podcast Rock Bottom
- The podcast episode’s release marks the first time the two have spoken out together, three years after Ned admitted to cheating allegations and exited The Try Guys
- Earlier this week, Ned sat down with PEOPLE for his first interview since the infidelity scandal, sharing details about his time out of the spotlight and his plans for future content creation
Ned Fulmer and his estranged wife Ariel have shared the exact moment “everything changed” in their marriage amid Ned’s affair with an employee of his production company.
During their first joint appearance together since Ned admitted to infidelity allegations and exited The Try Guys three years ago, the pair revealed that they are no longer romantically together and recalled key moments in their separation — including when Ariel confronted Ned about a photo she was sent of him with another woman.
“I found out about your affair from the fans,” Ariel said to Ned on the debut episode of his podcast Rock Bottom. “And I was so blindsided that somebody sent me a picture, and I couldn’t — it was like my brain couldn’t compute.”
Ariel said that, initially, she believed the other woman in the photo was Ned’s sister, and when he picked her up from the airport, she asked him why his sister had been in town.
“I looked over to you in the driver’s seat, and I asked you, ‘Why was Grace in New York? I didn’t realize Grace was in New York,’ ” she recalled. “You looked over with me with this look on your face, and it was like the veil just fell.”
Continued Ariel: “I knew in my brain that something was going on, but I just sort of refused to believe it. And then when I saw that, just, wildly guilty look on your face, like you wanted to tell me something — I didn’t even let you say anything. I was like, ‘Turn this car around.’ ”
On the episode, Ned replied that he remembered it a bit differently: “You asked me a couple of different follow-up questions, and I just sort of answered them,” he told Ariel. “And once I answered it in such a way that you knew exactly who it was and what had happened, you were like, ‘Take me back to the airport.’ ”
“It all just sort of fell down, where I totally could see how devastated and just completely traumatized you were,” continued Ned. “Everything changed for me as well.”
Elsewhere in the podcast, the pair addressed the status of their relationship, sharing that they are not together romantically, live separately and are coparenting their two children.
A spokesperson for Ned previously confirmed to PEOPLE that they are no longer together.
“We are still friends, we have children together, we go on trips together,” Ned revealed. “There is a spectrum of being together-not together. There’s ways in which we’re together, but the way that everyone wants to know, like, ‘Are you still, like, an item? Are you still a couple?’ No.”
Despite remaining friendly, Ariel said she had “absolutely not” forgiven Ned for his infidelity.
“People ask me, ‘Do you forgive Ned for what he did,’ ” said Ariel in the episode. “How can you forgive somebody for lying to you. For cheating on you. No. F— no.”
Continued Ariel: “We’ve been together for a long time, and you are the father of my two beautiful children, and we know each other really well. We’ve worked through a lot of stuff, and the fact that I can be around you and still have a good time and enjoy spending time with you and enjoy spending time with my kids — I think that’s a win.”
During the episode, Ariel, through tears, recalled the early years of her marriage to Ned as a “fantasy world.”
“I just trusted you so completely. And we grew up together,” she told Ned. “I just think, how could you do that to me. Like, who are you?”
Ned responded: “The dream started to break apart for me. Then, rather than being able to talk about it or confront those feelings, I wanted to — I guess I was too afraid to say how I was actually feeling. And it seemed, I don’t know. I chose to deal with it, deal with feelings I was experiencing, in a way that was really self-destructive and hurtful to you. And it wasn’t anything you did or we had a bad marriage. It was about me and choices that I made and just actions that I took that I’ll always regret.”
Earlier this week, in his first public interview since the cheating allegations in 2022, Ned sat down with PEOPLE for a candid conversation about his infidelity, his time away from the spotlight and his decision to return to the internet.
“For a long time, I wanted nothing to do with social media or the internet,” said Ned said of the months after the scandal broke. “I didn’t think it was particularly beneficial to my mental health.”
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Ned told PEOPLE that the pair used their time off-camera to rebuild a “foundation of trust,” adding that the two have “a much clearer sense of boundaries — understanding and respecting each other’s boundaries — as well as integrity and being direct with each other, even when it might be unpleasant.”
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