A Texas courtroom certainly got louder with Crowder as conservative internet commentator Steven Crowder’s divorce trial got underway.
During proceedings last Thursday in Denton County both Crowder, 35, and his wife Hilary Crowder’s legal teams were rapped repeatedly by the court reporter for chaotically speaking over each other.
“There was so much interrupting and talking over each other from both parties that the court reporter scolded the parties multiple times saying he was struggling capturing the testimony,” reported Current Revolt, a site that covers Texas news.
Crowder’s attorneys also asked the judge to seal the courtroom, saying it was for the benefit of the pair’s nearly 2-year-old twins, Magnus and Charlotte.
The move would have stopped his estranged wife’s testimony being reported, but the judge refused, saying the public has a right to know about the case.
According to Current Revolt, Hilary testified that her soon-to-be ex-hubby has rage issues and punches holes in the wall, while Crowder asked for full custody of his children claiming Hilary exhibited “erratic behavior.”
As examples of the “erratic behavior,” Crowder alleged that Hilary had not informed him that their home address had been posted on Twitter for several months — and accused her family of leaking now viral Ring footage of him berating her while she was pregnant.
Hilary’s attorney noted that she has no public social media presence.
The demand for full custody of the 1-year-old twins raised eyebrows among former staffers of his media company, who said it clashed with his very-publicly expressed conservative beliefs that “children need both parents,” and that mothers are primary caregivers.
Hilary testified that Crowder wasn’t present during her IVF treatments, and he was also absent during the birth of his children (he has said he had surgery at the time.)
Furthermore, she said, he had moved out of the family home even before their twins were born in August 2021.
A former staffer said Crowder was a “hypocrite” pointing to a number of tweets and public statements about parenting, including saying father so babies are “largely useless,” disparaging remarks about paternity leave, and crediting his wife for her maternal touch.
“It’s hugely ideologically inconsistent and just vengeful. It clashes with his stated views on child rearing and family values,” said the source.
On September 9, 2021, Crowder tweeted: “Men and women are very different. Mothers and fathers are very different. They are not interchangeable.
“My haphazard attempts at keeping boy/girl twins alive in comparison to my very adept wife makes this incredibly clear. I am effectively furniture with arms.”
Another former Crowder employee who knows the couple — and asked to remain anonymous because they had signed an NDA — told The Post the right-win influencers appeared to be trying to “scare” his estranged wife.
“Of course, if you file for full custody, you’d think you would lead with stories of outrageous behavior like drunken binges or child abuse,” the source said.
“Something more than her not telling someone about a leak on Twitter, when she says she doesn’t even have a Twitter account. It’s punitive and feels like a threat to make her scared.”
The judge said she was not going to change the custody arrangement at that time and said she was “‘dismayed by the volume of motions.”
Representatives for Crowder did not return a message for comment.
The couple tied the knot in August 2012 and Crowder penned an essay for Fox News boasting that they had waited to have sex until their wedding night.
In 2015, he wrote another piece for the outlet entitled, “I’m a guy, and I will never bad mouth my wife.”
Eight years later, Crowder has changed his tune.
In late April, a leaked Ring video showed Crowder berating his eight-months pregnant wife, telling her that he didn’t love her and that she refused “to do wifely things.”
In response to the shocking footage, Crowder said the videos were “deceptively edited” and that ultimately when it came to his marriage, “I picked wrong.” He called the end of his union, “my deepest personal failure.”
After the video surfaced, ten former employees told The Post how it showed he had a pattern of abuse as a boss, which included him exposing his genitals to staff.
“I’m not shocked, but it was pathetic what he did to Hilary,” a former staffer told The Post. “That might not be the Steven you see on his show, but that was the real Steven.”
A source told The Post that since the Ring video went viral, Crowder seems to be shedding views and followers.
Crowder signed a deal with free speech platform Rumble in March, after an ugly public spat with the Daily Wire, and his livestreams had been netting between one to two million views.
But in recent weeks, they have held steady at between 600,000 and 700,000.
“He’s down about 90,000 YouTube subscribers since May,” said the source, citing figures from analytics website Social Blade.
“And in May, he lost over 12,000 Instagram followers. For the most part, his IG growth has always been in the positive. And previously, he’s never had negative growth on his YouTube channel.”
The source added: “Steven has for years done to make people mad, poking fun at celebrities and sacred cows, and his following liked it. But this is the first time that his own audience has rejected him in a quantifiable way.”
