ProJared allegations



Jared Knabenbauer, better known as ProJared, is a YouTuber that had a following due to his humor and takes on various videogames, both good and bad. Unfortunately, on May 8th, 2019, he tweeted that he was getting a divorce with his wife, but shortly after said announcement, allegations followed that he was cheating on his wife and other inappropriate scandals.

Background
Soon after Jared's announcement, Heidi O'Ferrall, his ex-wife, tweeted that Jared had blocked her on Twitter. In that same tweet, she stated that Jared had been cheating on her with YouTuber Holly Conrad, a.k.a. Commander Holly. (Conrad has previously married to Ross O'Donovan of Newgrounds, mh:awesomegames:Vinesauce, and Game Grumps fame. They divorced in September 2018, and it is assumed that Jared's affair with her was a catalyst).

Besides supposedly cheating on his wife, he was also found sending images of questionable content to fans, some of them underage. Said questionable content included nudes, while another had him cosplaying the Sailor Moon character, Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno, in an equally questionable pose. This has apparently been going on since 2016. To make matters worse, he had also allegedly requested inappropriate photos from said younger fans.

Aftermath
On the ProJared subreddit, he lost his mod status via demotion from the subreddit founder. Additionally, many users of said subreddit had gone their way to express their disappointment, to the point where the description simply says "Jared cheated on his wife" and the subreddit shifting focus to other NormalBoots personalities.

On May 9th alone, he had lost over 100,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel.

He finally addressed the situation with an apology on May 17th, but it was panned and seen as not only insincere but also manipulative and it didn't address the situations with minors.

On May 20th, Holly made a Twitter thread explaining her side of the story. She claimed that Jared had asked all people for both age and consent before sending or asking for any questionable images. She also said that the "affair" had been Heidi's idea, who at the time was enjoying an open relationship with another man, wanting Jared to do the same. She claims the relationship was platonic and that after some time Heidi had become jealous and vindictive towards them. Among her claims, Holly mentioned that Heidi was abusive towards Jared, a claim that has been supported by others including Austin Hargrave (PeanutButterGamer), and that she threatened Jared with ruining his career and labeling him as a cheater and an abuser if he went through with the divorce.

3 Months Later...


On August 27th 2019, Jared finally broke radio silence and uploaded a 42 minute video titled "YOU'VE BEEN LIED TO". In the video, he covers many of the accusations levied against him, including the illicit sexual activities, in which he shows evidence that one of the "minors" who accused him was in fact of legal age (and lied about it), and that Jared had asked them if they were. He also responded to accusations from a cosplayer named Pamela Horton, who accused him of searching for her nudes and other lewd behaviour towards her during an E3 panel with MatPat, by pointing out that he had never attended an E3 panel, let alone on a panel with Horton and MatPat together.

ProJared also made it a point in this video that he only accepted nudes if the other person was comfortable with it, and he made it a point that he ensured that recipients were 18 or older.

Jared also stated that he wasn't fired from NormalBoots, but rather he resigned from the website to prevent other members of the site from being dragged in as collateral damage. As for Heidi, Jared claimed to have wanted out of the relationship since October 2018, but was unable to leave because she was threatening to damage his career if he did. This would also explain the massive gap in uploads on his channel. He also criticised the YouTube commentary community for jumping on the bandwagon without even reaching out to him to hear his side of the story.

Whether people believe him or not is down to interpretation, though he has slowly regained subscribers since the video went live.