'H3' podcast hosts call 'Vanity Fair' article on Colleen Ballinger 'intentionally hacky,' 'misleading': 'They didn't reach out to anybody'

In the July 22 episode of Ethan Klein’s H3 Podcast, co-host Olivia Lopes broke down the recent Vanity Fair article on Colleen Ballinger and called it a “puff piece.”

Lopes argued that the article, published on July 19, was an attempt to “minimize Colleen’s offenses” and “smear the ‘face’ of the movement, Adam McIntyre.”

Allegations against Ballinger, who is professionally known as Miranda Sings, have been mounting since McIntyre posted a YouTube video in early June reiterating accusations that Ballinger had been inappropriate with underaged fans. McIntyre first alleged Ballinger had treated him inappropriately when he was a 13-year-old fan in 2020.

Two weeks later, Ballinger responded to the growing backlash with a 10-minute ukulele song on YouTube that had fans fuming, thinking she wasn’t taking the allegations seriously enough.

Since then, Ballinger’s national tour has been canceled, as has her new podcast with co-host Trisha Paytas. Paytas, who considered Ballinger a friend, addressed the controversy in her YouTube video in early July and accused her former co-host of allegedly hosting viewing parties with fans to make fun of Paytas’s OnlyFans content.

“I’m embarrassed to be associated with her,” Paytas said. “I will never speak on Colleen again. She just does not exist to me anymore.”

Klein, who also used to host a podcast with Paytas, got involved with the Ballinger saga after analyzing her apology video in a July 10 episode. Klein tweeted that he thought Ballinger had uploaded the song to CD Baby, an independent music distribution company, and was now trying to sue for copyright claims.

He later clarified in an episode that he did not think Ballinger was responsible for the upload. Ballinger’s representatives reiterated that she didn’t upload the song either in a comment to BuzzFeed, saying: “We don’t know how it got published on those platforms.”

Ballinger’s copyright claims against Klein have been dropped.

But now Klein is alleging in the most recent podcast episode that the July 19 Vanity Fair article on Ballinger is “hacky.” Lopes and Klein highlighted multiple parts of the article that they found “intentionally misleading” about the allegations against Ballinger.

The H3 hosts claimed the article failed to include all of the allegations against Ballinger and only reached out to Ballinger’s legal representatives for a quote, who called the accusations “simply a regurgitation of the baseless and unsubstantiated claims that other media outlets and individuals on social media have reported previously.”

“They didn’t reach out to Adam, they didn’t reach out to Johnny, they didn’t reach out to anybody,” Lopes claimed. The published article does not state whether the reporter or Vanity Fair reached out to anybody else.

In terms of the allegations against Ballinger, the article calls them “murky,” “unverified” and “left to endlessly circulate as they fall under that ever-expanding umbrella of ‘inappropriate behavior.'”

“Even if he is a huge fan, he knows that this reporting is intentionally hacky,” Klein said, referring to the Vanity Fair reporter, “because he’s not mentioning the most important part of [McIntyre’s] video.” The “most important part,” according to Klein, is McIntyre’s accusation that Ballinger sent him underwear, which Ballinger confirmed in a 2020 video.

McIntyre also responded to the Vanity Fair article with a YouTube video and slammed the publication for “trying to paint me as a stalker … [and] as a liar.”

Klein and Lopes continued to discuss their confusion over the article throughout the 20-minute podcast segment.

“It’s clearly them going on the offense against Adam,” Klein alleged, referring to Ballinger’s team. “How do you get this? Did they really pay off Vanity Fair? I’m alleging that, I obviously don’t know, but how do you explain such a hacky article?”

In The Know reached out to Condé Nast, Vanity Fair‘s parent company, for comment and got no response.

Condé Nast’s Code of Ethical Responsibility has a section on journalistic accuracy that reads: “Employees, especially journalists and editors, should make all reasonable efforts to ensure that information and content is reported honestly, accurately and fairly.”

“It lacks so much research,” Lopes accused, referring to the article.

“This is intentionally misleading,” Klein alleged.

Since the publication of the article, the reporter’s social media accounts have gone private and a Change.org petition was published to get the reporter fired from Vanity Fair. The reporter is not a full-time staff member at Vanity Fair.

The H3 team also connected the article with a recent Cosmo profile of YouTuber James Charles that was published about a week prior. In April 2021, Charles posted an apology video in response to allegations that he was sending inappropriate messages to minors. The video has since been deleted but Charles started losing sponsorship deals and even a YouTube TV show hosting gig after multiple underaged boys came forward with grooming accusations against Charles.

The Cosmo article, which on the podcast Klein called a “puff piece,” is headlined: “James Charles Would Like to Be Un-Canceled, Please.”

McIntyre also tweeted several times at Vanity Fair asking how the article is “so factually wrong” and didn’t reach out to him, but the publication has not publicly responded. Vanity Fair‘s tweet promoting the article now features a community note that reads, “Colleen Ballinger’s inappropriate sexual and offensive behavior is in her content and live shows. Adam McIntyre’s claims have been verified by witnesses. Other people have come forward with their experiences with her. This evidence intensified because of her response song.”

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The post ‘H3’ podcast hosts call ‘Vanity Fair’ article on Colleen Ballinger ‘intentionally hacky,’ ‘misleading’ appeared first on In The Know.

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