Ari Jacob: TikTok’s First Millionaires: Ari Jacob’s Inside Story | DSH #1470

Summary

Title: Digital Social Hour - Episode #1470: Ari Jacob’s Inside Story on TikTok’s First Millionaires

Introduction

In episode #1470 of Digital Social Hour, host Sean Kelly sits down with Ari Jacob, the visionary behind TikTok’s first wave of millionaires. Released on July 30, 2025, their conversation navigates Ari’s ascent in the social media landscape, the challenges she faced, including a high-stakes defamation lawsuit, and her strategies for overcoming adversity. This detailed summary captures the essence of their dialogue, highlighting key discussions, insights, and noteworthy quotes with corresponding timestamps.

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1. Early Beginnings and Rise in TikTok

Ari Jacob opens up about her origins and initial foray into the world of social media. Born in Mexico City and later adopting American citizenship, Ari moved to Los Angeles to represent renowned boxer Canelo Álvarez. Her background in social media, including managing MySpace campaigns during her time at San Diego State, laid the foundation for her future endeavors.

Ari Jacob [00:47]: “I ran MySpace campaigns back in the day in San Diego and San Diego State. And anyway, when TikTok started to blow up...”

Recognizing TikTok's potential beyond the perceived "cringy TikTok dances," Ari foresaw its capability to transform into a powerhouse similar to the Disney Channel era. Inspired by Peter Thiel's philosophy from Zero to One, she aimed to capitalize on TikTok's untapped market, focusing on mentoring and representing burgeoning creators.

Ari Jacob [03:30]: “TikTok was like a TV channel with maybe 30 talents on there. And because people wanted to learn the dances, they would watch her videos and she went sky high.”

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2. Building Influencers.com and Success Stories

Ari recounts the rapid growth of her agency, Influencers.com, highlighting the success of clients like Charli D'Amelio and Addison Rae. By fostering collaborations through the "Hype House," a collective of TikTokers, Ari facilitated their transition into mainstream celebrities, securing lucrative deals for them.

Ari Jacob [04:46]: “Addison Rae got like a four-picture deal with Netflix. It just exploded so fast.”

This meteoric rise not only established Ari as a key player in influencer management but also attracted significant interest from Fortune 500 brands, exponentially expanding her business pipeline.

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3. The Onset of Challenges and Haters

As Influencers.com flourished, Ari encountered unprecedented competition and scrutiny. The influx of high-profile clients led to intense brand demands and heightened visibility, drawing envy and criticism from established talent agencies like United Talent Agency (UTA).

Ari Jacob [06:11]: “Once they found out that I had Charli, everybody wanted to be signed by me. And I was proud of it.”

Despite maintaining transparent agreements with her clients, Ari faced internal conflicts within the industry, setting the stage for future confrontations.

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4. Defamation Lawsuit Against The New York Times

The core of the episode delves into a pivotal moment in Ari’s career: a defamatory article published by The New York Times, authored by journalist Taylor Lorenz. The article falsely accused Ari of unethical practices, including alleged mishandling of contracts and mistreatment of influencers.

Ari Jacob [12:07]: “Taylor Lorenz... we're publishing in 24 hours.”

Faced with imminent reputational damage, Ari sought legal counsel to counter the allegations. She explains the complexities of filing a defamation case, particularly against a prestigious publication like The New York Times, referencing the stringent New York Times vs. Sullivan standard that protects media entities unless malice can be proven.

Ari Jacob [25:33]: “They have to have said a false statement... and it can't be a matter of opinion.”

Ari highlights the emotional and professional toll of the lawsuit, describing it as akin to being suddenly abandoned by all her clients and collaborators.

Ari Jacob [15:07]: “It was pretty devastating because my whole career I had just been like, a connector.”

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5. Strategies for Recovery and Reputation Management

Despite the overwhelming challenges, Ari employed innovative strategies to reclaim her narrative. She leveraged independent media platforms like Medium to publish her side of the story and utilized social media to engage directly with her audience.

Ari Jacob [42:16]: “I write down your story... I record what I wanted to say and I went to sleep and I would listen to it.”

Her appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show marked a significant turning point, allowing her to publicly address the allegations and present evidence countering the defamatory claims.

Ari Jacob [50:24]: “Matt Shoup got me on Tucker Carlson... I really got to say my piece.”

Ari also utilized targeted social media tactics, aligning her messages with ongoing conversations and leveraging influencer networks to garner support.

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6. Lessons Learned and Moving Forward

Reflecting on her tumultuous journey, Ari emphasizes resilience, strategic communication, and the importance of maintaining a robust personal brand. She advises others facing similar challenges to proactively manage their narratives and seek support from trusted allies.

Ari Jacob [54:18]: “If you're completely ghost dark on the Internet and somebody writes a negative story...”

Ari discusses her pivot to founding Creator Genius, an AI-powered digital agency focused on producing high-quality social media content, showcasing her ability to innovate and adapt in the face of adversity.

Ari Jacob [65:19]: “Now we're going to help with some of these tips and tools for getting un-canceling yourself...”

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Notable Quotes

1. Understanding Defamation [00:14]:

   “Number one, they had to have said a false statement, and it can't be a matter of opinion.”

2. Exponential Growth [04:46]:

   “Addison Rae got like a four-picture deal with Netflix. It just exploded so fast.”

3. Facing Defamation [12:07]:

   “Taylor Lorenz, this journalist that had been at the New York Times...”

4. Emotional Toll [15:07]:

   “It was pretty devastating because my whole career I had just been like, a connector.”

5. Public Response Strategy [42:16]:

   “I record what I wanted to say and I went to sleep and I would listen to it.”

6. Resilience and Rebuilding [54:18]:

   “If you're completely ghost dark on the Internet and somebody writes a negative story...”

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Conclusion

Ari Jacob's narrative on Digital Social Hour offers a compelling look into the volatile intersection of social media fame and traditional media scrutiny. Her journey underscores the importance of foresight, adaptability, and unwavering commitment to one’s truth in navigating the complexities of digital influencer management. For aspiring entrepreneurs and digital creators, Ari’s story serves as both a cautionary tale and a beacon of resilience, illustrating that with strategic action and authentic engagement, it is possible to overcome even the most daunting challenges.

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Connect with Ari Jacob:

• Website: Creator Genius
• Instagram: @AriJacobOfficial

Note: This summary is intended for informational purposes and reflects the discussion held during the podcast episode. For a comprehensive understanding, listening to the full episode is recommended.

Transcript

[Ari Jacob]

There's a lot of stuff that people don't understand about filing a defamation case, and I don't think anybody could really understand until you're sitting in the lawyer's office. If you want to find out if you were actually defamed, we can give you a short little checklist.

[Sean Kelly]

Okay.

[Ari Jacob]

Number one, they had to have said a false statement, and it can't be a matter of opinion.

[Sean Kelly]

Okay, guys, got Ari Jacob here, the woman behind TikTok's first millionaires. What a story. And you've dealt with a lot. I can't wait to dive into it today. Thanks for coming on.

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah, thanks for having me. This will be fun.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. And welcome to Vegas, too.

[Ari Jacob]

I live here now, so we're both Vegas locals.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. You escaped LA just like I did. You were there during the peak of all this TikTok craziness, right?

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah, it was insane. I mean, at the beginning, I was actually. I moved to LA because I was representing Canelo Alvarez, the boxer. And actually, I'm from Mexico City. A lot of people don't know that I was born in Mexico and I immigrated here legally when I was a little girl. My dad died and my mom married an American, and so he adopted me, and then I became an American. So very proud, proud, patriotic person over here.

[Sean Kelly]

You had to clarify the legally part.

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was representing Canelo, and then I had always been in social media. Like, I ran MySpace campaigns back in the day in San Diego and San Diego State. And anyway, when TikTok started to blow up, I think that a lot of people didn't even recognize it as a real app. It used to be, musically, and I think people just thought it was a place where, like, cringy TikTok dances happen, maybe like for 13 year olds or something like that. And when I saw the views that these kids, like, wearing their little sweatshirts or little hoodies, were getting 10 million views, I. I'm just thinking, wait till the brands get ahold of this, because at the time, everybody was just paying attention to, like, Instagram and YouTube. And remember, Instagram didn't always have those vertical videos. So I thought as this could be the next Disney Channel type of thing. I had just read Peter Thiel's book. At 0 to 1, competition is for losers. That's what he says. And he says the winners build monopolies. And so it kind of gave me this idea of YouTube and Instagram is completely saturated. And there was people representing the bachelor stars and reality stars, and it was just oversaturated. So I'm thinking, here's TikTok. These people are getting millions of views and nobody's representing them, nobody's guiding them, nobody's mentoring them. So why don't I just reach out? And I ended up signing this one girl. She was the kombucha girl. She had this meme where she like drank kombucha and she made a face like, ew. And then she was like, oh, it's not so bad. Anyway, that went super viral. And then I went to New York because everybody wanted to meet her. So we took her to Barstool Sports. And I'm longtime friends with Gary V, who I met in like 2009. And so Gary, being sort of like the, you know, digital guru guy, he understood that TikTok was going to be the next big thing. And somebody in Gary Vee's office was like, there's this girl, Charli d'. Amelio. And I knew exactly who she was. But a lot of people, again, like adults, especially marketing people, they didn't know really that TikTok was going to blow up the way it did. And so they keyed up a zoom call with Charli d' Amelio's parents. And that's when really things exploded. Because Charli d' Amelio was this all American girl, didn't wear a lot of makeup. She just seemed like the girl next door. And her. She had a good family and she was making dance videos. And in the beginning of TikTok, and probably still somewhat now, the algorithm worked this way. If somebody watches a video several times over, the algorithm is gonna shoot it to the top of the for you page. And at the time, there wasn't millions of creators on there. It was like a TV channel with maybe 30 talents on there. And because people wanted to learn the dances, they would watch her videos and over. And she was the one that knew all the trending videos. So she went sky high on TikTok. And then after I represented her, I signed her sister, I signed Addison Rae, their friend. They were all in this thing called the hype house, which was basically just a collective of these tiktokers where they could collaborate with each other and do dances. And those people catapulted to mainstream celebrities. Charli d' Amelio and her sister. Forbes had an article that they made $70 million, like in three.

[Sean Kelly]

Holy crap.

[Ari Jacob]

And Addison Rae got like a four picture deal with Netflix. It just exploded so fast. So they became full blown celebrities after that. And once I found my unicorns I didn't realize that everybody was all right.

[Sean Kelly]

Guys, Sean Kelly here, host of the Digital Social Hour podcast, just filmed 33amazing episodes at Student Action Summit. Shout out to Code Health, you know, sponsor these episodes, but also I took them before filming. Each day felt amazing. Just filmed 20 episodes straight, and I'm not even tired, honestly. So cold Health, amazing products. I also take these at home, especially when I traveled. I used to get sick every time I flew, and I started taking that first time I haven't had a runny nose. Knock on wood. One standout element. I mean, it's so easy. You know, you got the travel pack here, but you could just take this, fit it in your pocket if you need to. Also, all natural, like, only saline solution in there, so you don't gotta worry about any crazy side effects or anything. Yeah, code's unique. With supplements, there's a of lot, lot of who knows what's in these, those ingredients. Code Health, I haven't seen much like this where it's just based off, you know, the code, the codes that are in the saline solution. So I would say they're very unique. It's going to be the future of health and medicine. Code Health has been awesome.

[Ari Jacob]

Feel the drop and go code yourself. Gonna want a unicorn. And that's where I got into a little bit of trouble.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, you grew fast. 85 clients, right?

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah. Once they found out that I had Charlie, everybody wanted to be signed by me. And I was proud of it. And I wanted everybody to know that we had Charlie. So my company was called influences.com. the influencers had, like, charliefluences.com on their Instagram page. So what's different about that is, like, for example, let's say you represent a big talent. Agency represents Brad Pitt. A brand can't just, like, go on Brad Pitt's Instagram and email Brad Pitt if you want to work with him. But in this scenario, I mean, Dunkin Donuts was emailing Charlie at Influencers, and guess who was getting those emails? So I was getting a flood of Fortune 500 leads, and my pipeline was in the millions of dollars. It was incredible. It was one of those moments as an entrepreneur, because I'd been. I mean, I dropped out of college to start a business at that time. I'm like, I finally made it, you.

[Sean Kelly]

Know, like, must have felt good.

[Ari Jacob]

It felt so good. And I knew what I was doing. I had worked in digital agencies and I had worked at search engine optimization. Like, I was selling SEO and so. And I always wanted to be A creator. But my only inspiration was Gary Vee. He's the one that was like, I believe in you. But at the time, people didn't get it. Like, if you were on MySpace, your parents were like, you're wasting your time. Why are you on this? And I think I saw that in a lot of the tiktokers where their parents were like, why are you doing this TikTok thing? It's like a waste of time.

[Sean Kelly]

100%. Yeah. Same with video games.

[Ari Jacob]

Oh, totally.

[Sean Kelly]

Parents told us not to play video games, and now kids are making millions playing video games.

[Ari Jacob]

Exactly. Let your kids use AI, please, because that will be the next thing.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. Schools are banning that, which is a terrible thing, in my opinion. Yeah. You're not going to stop AI?

[Ari Jacob]

No. You have to join it.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. Okay, so now we get into. I guess, should we start with the haters that started coming from this.

[Ari Jacob]

Sure.

[Sean Kelly]

And then get into the lawsuit stuff? Yes. You start crushing it. You get big clients. Is that when the hate starts? When you start signing these big names?

[Ari Jacob]

Yes, because it was so exciting at first that I didn't really see it coming and I had my head down. I was pretty busy making sure that all these emails were getting answered. Is me answered? Because sometimes, like, the. The brands would email you, and if you didn't get back to them right away, they're like, oh, sorry, we already, like, hired another creator because they were just literally, I think, spamming the emails on these tiktokers because they didn't know who they were. Brand managers knew who people. People from the Bachelor were. They understood, like the Instagram campaigns or the YouTube campaigns, but they weren't really sure how to work with tiktokers yet. Let me lay up the background here. The pandemic started. So what happened in Hollywood? Nothing. Right. Everything got shut down. There was no touring in Hollywood for music. There was no TV shows on, Remember, like, Jimmy Kimmel. All those things got shut down. No movies. So the talent agents got really hot hungry, and they were getting laid off by, I think one of the big town agencies laid off, like a hundred agents. So the only people that were able to make money were these tiktokers, Instagram people. And people were at home just scrolling. So it was a complete gold rush at that time. And I happened to be, like, sitting smack dab in it. People talk about how cutthroat Hollywood is. I mean, I watched Entourage back in the day. It really is like that, maybe 10 times worse. That's when some whispers that something negative was coming. But in my mind I'm doing everything above board. The creators are signed to agreements. I think I was taking between 10 and 20% depending how big they were. Because if they're really small maybe they're getting $500 deals. Like you're not going to make anything on 10%. And they weren't like signed to 10 year contracts. I think it was like one or two year contracts.

[Sean Kelly]

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[Ari Jacob]

Yeah, I wasn't really expecting anything. And all of a sudden I started hearing that Taylor Lorenz, this journalist that had been at the New York Times that was reporting on digital culture, technology, content creators, I don't even think that was like a term really. Maybe influencers started. Yeah, influencers was kind of a term. New York Times let her do what she wanted in that space because she was the one that knew the most about it and had been reporting on like team 10 and Logan Paul and all those people that kind of started that trend. And I had actually represented people from Team 10. I lived at 1600 vine, which was kind of like the dorm room for all these huge creators. I lived right next door to Logan Paul and Amanda Cerny and King Batch and they would make little skits there, but those people were huge on Instagram. And so TikTok came along. Taylor kind of knew what was going on, but I didn't. Again, I wasn't expecting anything. But all of a sudden we get a email from Taylor. She's saying we have all these allegations about you had all these questions. And she's like, we're publishing in 24 hours. And luckily I had some really good people around me with experience. Like I hadn't hired a PR team or anything like that. And my friend Matt Shoup was like, don't answer her directly. Like get your lawyer involved. And so I'm basically pulling an all nighter with my attorney because she's asking all these questions and I'm telling the attorney, well, let's just give her all the contracts. Like this is, you know, she's wrong about this saying that, oh, is this alleged that you didn't pay somebody on time or all this stuff? And I'm like, no, no, we did like we have the, the paperwork. And my attorney's like, well, it's not that easy, Ari, because let's just say that we tell her that XYZ Fortune 500 brand paid late and that's why the influencer didn't get paid until the brand paid. Well. You signed an NDA with the brand and if you go and tell their business that they paid late now huge Fortune 500 brand can sue you. So I'm like, up between a rock and a hard place. And he answers all the questions thoroughly. I'm still thinking, there's no way the New York Times can trash me because none of this stuff is true. Anyway, I go to bed and I'm like, thinking, okay, it's the New York Times. I can't write lies. Just, like, blatantly.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Ari Jacob]

I'm thinking, this is going to blow over. So I wake up the next day and I start getting text messages. Hey, are you okay? Hey, it's not that bad. I mean, you could change your name. And I'm like, okay. So I read the story, and 50% of it is lies. Like, flat out lies. And then 50% is twisting the truth a little bit to make something sound.

[Sean Kelly]

I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.

[Ari Jacob]

Bad. That wasn't actually bad. And it was pretty devastating because my whole career I had just been like, a connector. I've been positive. You know, I met your son, your staff earlier. They're like, oh, you're so nice. I mean, that is my personality. But all of a sudden, it felt like, oh, my gosh, I'm the Wicked Witch of the West. And it was a mixture of feeling heartbroken because I really cared about these people I represented. And so I'm thinking, did they talk bad about me? I just felt kind of like I'd gotten broken up with by 85 boyfriends on the same day, you know, people I mentored and cared about. And then on the other side, I'm like, what does the New York Times and Taylor Lorenz have against me? Like, I couldn't figure it out. I was a little bit, like, started, you know, I think after it hit, I'm like, putting together, like, the red threads, you know, the yarn on the wall. Like, why are they attacking me? I just didn't understand it. And so later I come to find out that Taylor Lorenz actually had a huge conflict of interest. She was represented by my competitors, which was a behemoth talent agency called United Talent Agency, uta. And then my big cl. A lot of them signed to uta. Once they left, you know, once, my business was basically destroyed overnight.

[Sean Kelly]

So it was planned.

[Ari Jacob]

I mean, I believe it was for sure. And she had just gotten a book deal from uta. You know, I don't know. Like, maybe it was just like a little bit of, like, hey, you don't like her? And maybe she was a bit Jealous, because I was also kind of like, right smack dab in this world that I think she wanted to be in. Like, she didn't hang out with the creators. For the most part. They were. I think I was like a big sister to them or like a mama bear. Like, you know, it's kind of like Kris Jenner meets Scooter Braun meets Gary Vee. That's kind of what I was, my vision, what I wanted to be. And that pretty much went away overnight. And I had a pipeline of millions of dollars in deals that just disappeared. Like a DocuSign contract that had been sent to me, and then it canceled the docusign.

[Sean Kelly]

I've never seen a hippie so successful. Because you lost all your clients, right?

[Ari Jacob]

You know, there was, like. I want to say there was, like, maybe 10 that were like, you know, we would stay. But at that point, I'm like, first of all, I wasn't in a headspace to continue running my business. Like, I didn't think I was. But also, I didn't want to be a burden on these people that I thought would be successful. You know what I'm saying? Like, I didn't want them just have this loyalty for me. And then the brands aren't calling me because, you know, the brand. Some people at the brands were like, we love you, Ari, but we can't be associated with this. Like, you have to figure out a way to fight back. And I'm like, okay, why do I do that? So I go to see litigation attorney. So different than my contract attorney that was helping me communicate with Taylor. And I basically go and sit in the office, and they're like, great attorney. But he's like, you can't sue the New York Times. And I'm like, well, what do you mean you can't? Well, you got screwed here completely. But they haven't lost a defamation case since the 1960s. Wow. And even if you were a bazillionaire, which I was not at that point, you know, I had a big pipeline, but the money wasn't necessarily in the bank. So they said, you're really only option here is maybe we can sue UTA for, like, tortuous interference because they interfered with your contracts. If there was really, like, an organized thing. But I'm like, how can the New York Times just get away with this? And that was a lesson in, like, don't let anybody tell you what you can't do.

[Sean Kelly]

Oh, yeah, yeah. So you still wanted to go after them even though he said that? Basically, New York Times, well, I wanted.

[Ari Jacob]

To go after everyone. When you get defamed or canceled and you're innocent or you feel like it's unfair, you want to go after everyone. Right. In my mind, I'm like, I wanted to go after some of the tiktokers that, by the way, they weren't kids, they were like 23 years old, so they knew better. But I wanted to go after some of those people that were quoted in the article and that lied. I wanted to go after UTA because I'm like, this was definitely an inside job. They wanted not just the influencers, but I had big time agreements with big Fortune 500 brands where they were like, we'll pay you half a million dollars to spread out all this money across all the tiktokers that you think we should spend it on and also get paid for the creative and all that. But Taylor and the New York Times, I remember one of the executives that I had spoken to who said, we believe in you internally, but you got to fight against this. She was like, you got to go after Taylor Lorenz because it seems like she's done this a lot in the past to other people. And the New York Times, shame on them, you know, because they are kind of considered one of the most prominent news organizations in the world.

[Sean Kelly]

I used to think so. But my opinion has changed over time.

[Ari Jacob]

Right. And when they had covered one of the stories about the TikTok houses, because I had three TikTok houses, I had rented these basically mansions and they did a positive story about the influencers. In my opinion, that's kind of how she got in with them. She like, she got their contact info because I said I teed up like a positive story about my houses. They got a little bit of clout, which at the time, remember you had to have in order to get a blue check mark on Instagram, you had to have all this press.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Ari Jacob]

And also on Twitter. And that was like the holy grail for these tiktokers because a lot of them were verified on TikTok, but they weren't verified on Instagram.

[Sean Kelly]

Oh yeah, I remember those days, which.

[Ari Jacob]

Is crazy now because I think it's harder to get verified on TikTok than it is.

[Sean Kelly]

No, when I got verified on IG, there's a video of me like dancing in a restaurant. Like it was a big deal back then.

[Ari Jacob]

It was a huge deal. And so I think that Taylor Lorenz dangled a little blue check carrot to the creators and that's how she got in with them. And then all Of a sudden, when she wanted to write the negative piece, she all of a sudden had all those contacts and, you know, the influencers, they saw her as like, she can get me more press, she can make me more famous, that kind of thing. I decided I'm going to go after the New York Times because you have to kind of pick a horse. Like, you can't just be like, I'm mad at everyone. And I didn't have the money or the focus to go after everyone. I ended up. I did end up suing uta, but, you know, it's just so difficult because when you have to work with these people, I mean, I figured if I want to work in entertainment, like, I'm going to probably run into uta. I don't really want to have them as a major enemy in my life.

[Sean Kelly]

That's a good point. Because there's only three big agencies.

[Ari Jacob]

I don't think it was like the whole company. I think there was like a few people at the company that got greedy and they're like, hey, this girl has all the influencers. And to be honest with you, if I would have been smart, I was a little stubborn. So when I first encountered uta, they wanted to be the agents for one of my creators. And I said, that's fine, you guys take 10%, I'll take 10%. I'll be like the manager, you guys be the agent. But there's not the same rules in with tiktokers doing brand deals as there is with, like, actors and like the guilds and all that kind of thing. So you don't. I think there's a distinction between a manager and an agent where an agent has to have a talent agency license. They There's a manager can't, like negotiate a deal. It was just different when it comes to digital creators. And I did have a talent agency license. In fact, I went and got it just in case I needed it. UTA was like, okay, yeah, you could be the manager, we'll be the agents. But, you know, all those emails you were getting from, like, Dunkin Donuts and all those leads you're getting all, we don't want you to touch that. We don't want you to call them back. We don't want. Basically, they don't want me to have any of the relationships with the brands. And I said, well, no, those are incoming leads. Like, you guys want to be order takers? No, you guys go out and be sharks. Your agents, your talent agents. You want to go get her a deal with Dunkin Donuts and Go call your contact at Dunkin Donuts and get her the deal and we'll split it 50, 50. Well, they didn't want that. They said, no, we want every deal that comes in the pipeline on their email and we'll split it 50, 50. Now that's where my stubbornness, because in my mind I'm like, that's not fair. I sign these creators, I can negotiate the deals just fine and keep the 20%. Do you get what I'm saying?

[Sean Kelly]

No.

[Ari Jacob]

Why do I have to pay you 10% for doing nothing?

[Sean Kelly]

I'm siding more with you on this. I could see where they're coming from because they want the leads so they can do future deals with them.

[Ari Jacob]

And well, not just that, they wanted to get these like overarching deals with l' Oreal or whatever company right to where they can they get that half a million dollar deal so they can spread out the money across their people or whatever. So maybe had I just played along, played good, little Hollywood person that just. I think what happened is I just was too stubborn. I didn't understand that this is just the way it works in Hollywood. If you want to play with these big dogs, then you better get in line and don't try to do something different.

[Sean Kelly]

You got to suck up in Hollywood when you're starting out.

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah. And so I think maybe I was a little too big for my britches because, I mean, looking back, I do think it was the right thing to do, but I could have made a lot of money if I just fell in line.

[Sean Kelly]

So it's interesting. It's like, how much are you willing to sacrifice to get what you want in Hollywood? Right?

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah.

[Sean Kelly]

You hear these crazy stories, you know?

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah. I mean, and so sometimes I think when you're looking at a business opportunity, if there's a bigger company and there's a way you can work with them and you're maybe a little more green, then just take the deal if it's a good deal. And you know they're not going to completely have the ability to cut you out entirely. Maybe it would have been smart for me to take that deal. But I didn't see what was coming. In my mind, I'm like, why? I have them signed an agreement. Like I'm doing UTA a favor if I give them the 10%.

[Sean Kelly]

So anyway, so you go off to Taylor. Is NY, NY Times protecting her? Are they separating from her? Like, what happens from there?

[Ari Jacob]

There's a lot of stuff that people don't understand about filing a defamation case. And I don't think anybody could really understand it until you're sitting in the lawyer's office and they're like, sorry, there's nothing you can do. If you want to find out if you were actually defamed, I can give you a short little checklist.

[Sean Kelly]

Okay?

[Ari Jacob]

Number one, they had to have said a false statement. And it can't be a matter of opinion. She was manipulative. Opinion, she committed fraud. If it's false, that's defamation. So if you can prove that they said a false statement about you. And so when I'm looking at the article, the New York Times, I'm going through every line and is this defamatory? Is this defamatory? And what I found is, like, a lot of it was. Could be considered opinion. And so the next one is they have to actually say it to the public. They can't just DM you or say to you in a private room, you know, things they don't like about you. And you say, well, that's defamatory. Some. A third party has to hear it.

[Sean Kelly]

Got it.

[Ari Jacob]

The other part is that they have to have caused you actual damages. So you have to prove that, yes, I lost all my clients. But not just that. You have to prove this specific statement in the article caused XYZ person to leave. And how do you prove that? Right. Do you have to have them in court saying, yeah, we left specifically because of the article, said this one line. But if you can prove the damages.

[Sean Kelly]

In that way, that's probably the hardest part. Right?

[Ari Jacob]

That's hard because also, let's say you've ever done a podcast or you have a social media account, you have a public opinion online, somebody does one article about your business, now all of a sudden, you can be considered a limited public figure. And why does that matter? If you're a public figure, you have a higher standard for defamation. In 1964, there was a landmark case. It was the New York Times versus Sullivan. And in that case, the media, basically, they were fighting to tell stories about the civil rights movement and all this stuff, and they were getting sued left and right for defamation. Essentially, the laws changed so that the media could report on stories. And even if they got something wrong, they weren't automatically liable for defamation. So if you're a public figure, so at the time, if you were like a government official or somebody like that, and the media was criticizing you, they didn't want the media to be able to get sued because then they wouldn't tell those stories. But nowadays, everybody's Basically can be considered a public figure. And so that's what they were saying. I was. So now, not only do you have to prove that they lied, but you have to prove that they knew that they lied before they published a story and went along and did it as well.

[Sean Kelly]

Damn, that's hard.

[Ari Jacob]

That's like trying to get into somebody's head. Unless, literally, unless there's an email saying, like, we know this is false, but run with it. How are you gonna prove that?

[Sean Kelly]

You would have to get access to their text, I'd imagine, to prove that. I don't see another way. Honestly.

[Ari Jacob]

It's really difficult. It's really difficult to prove. And that's why with the Johnny Depp case, he didn't sue the Washington Post. He sued Amber Heard. And, you know, that's why you see this. There was a lot of people following the Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively case got thrown out. And I knew it was gonna get thrown out because there wasn't any type of statement in there that you could consider false and defamatory. The other thing is, we have litigation privilege in the United States. So if you file a lawsuit against someone, everything that's in that lawsuit can be quoted by a journalist and not considered defamatory, even if it's untrue.

[Sean Kelly]

Wow, that is nuts. This is all crazy.

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah. I'm taking notes because basically, when people were like, oh, just sue the New York Times. That's like saying, just go be a brain surgeon.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. Also, this was peak cancel culture. I feel like when. When this happened to you, there were so many big cancellations, and it was.

[Ari Jacob]

Before sort of the Internet sleuth culture started to happen. I think Johnny Depp's case really changed the game when it came to.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, it made her look really bad in that case. Yeah. She. She probably regrets ever filing that.

[Ari Jacob]

Then Trump was saying, fake news everywhere.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Ari Jacob]

And one of the things I learned that I thought was really interesting was that it's valuable to know what side of the aisle a publication is on at the time the New York Times article came out. And I'm thinking, this story is untrue. You know, I'm an immigrant. I came here legally from Mexico when I was a little girl. I worked my butt off to be an entrepreneur. I bootstrap. I'm a woman. I'm a Latina. Like, you know, all these liberals in Hollywood, they have to at least admit that I'm not just some elite aristocrat or something. You know, white male. Man. I feel like they would attack that easier Right. I'm thinking, okay, maybe, maybe somebody's going to not feel sorry for me. But think like, okay, this isn't right, what happened? And so one of my friends worked at a Univision, which is a Latin owned media company. And I said, do you think that they could tell my side of the story? Because the New York Times lied and this isn't true. And basically she came back and she tried and she said, yeah, Univision won't touch this. It doesn't matter that you're Latina. Basically nobody wants to go up against the New York Times. We like the New York Times, you know, they're this liberal leaning company and we are also liberal leaning. And so. And they have the best fact checkers, they have the best journalists. So everybody's just going to consider this gospel. And so I'm thinking, like, what do I do? And my friend Matt Shoup, he has a PR company that represents a lot of conservative candidates. Basically, he's like, I can try to get you on Tucker Carlson or like, you know, we can try to get some articles on Fox News. Like just as a favor, as a friend. My friend at Univision was like, don't go on Tucker Carlson, please. Like, you know, they didn't like Trump conspiracy theorists. Yes. Like, they just hate it became this political thing. And so I remember one of my mentors who I think leans liberal, when I told him the opportunity, he said, like, you have to go on there because you right now, what are you gonna do? Write a blog? I mean, you're gonna be in front of millions of people and your story isn't really political at all. You know, like it's right and wrong. But what I realized was that the media, it's all black and white, it's red and blue. So if a media company from the left comes after you, you might have some allies on the right. And if the right comes after you, you're gonna have allies on the left. Right. So you have to kind of align. And I had friends, you know, if, if they said, why are you going on Tucker? It kind of felt like, well, if you're bleeding out on the side of the road and Tucker Carlson comes with bandages and willing to take you to the hospital. Are you getting in the car? Yeah, but I, I liked Tucker. You know, I thought he was fair. And so it was really cool that I had the opportunity to, to go on.

[Sean Kelly]

I mean, he goes off to the right too. He just had a really viral interview with Ted Cruz.

[Ari Jacob]

Oh, I saw that abolished him.

[Sean Kelly]

So, Tucker, I feel like, it's a pretty fair reporter. Journalist.

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah, absolutely. So I didn't really go on there until. So I filed a lawsuit. You only have, like, about a year to file for defamation, so you got.

[Sean Kelly]

To move fast on defamation. I didn't know that.

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah. And at this point, I have no money, but I'm like, obsessively, like, tracking everything that Taylor Lorenz is doing because not only did she write the article in the New York Times, after the New York Times article, I was like, okay, I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna. I'm gonna do a platform for content creators, kind of like what I'm doing now. But anyway, I was starting to try to see if I could raise capital. And so one journalist reached out to me from the business of business. Her name's Christy Smythe. And she was kind of like, I just wanna hear your story. Like, tell me about your startup. Tell me about what happened with the Tiktokers. But we weren't gonna trash Taylor Lorenz or anything like that. All of a sudden, she calls me and she's like, well, I'm working on the story, but Taylor Lorenz just called my editor, her boss, and ranted that you're a literal abuser that doesn't deserve positive press. And to shut this article down, it's inappropriate to give you a platform. So she was not only drowning me, she was holding my head underwater. I mean, why would Taylor Lorenzo care about little old me if she hadn't completely lied? You get what I'm saying? It's almost like she wanted to make sure I was dead dead. So that that kill shot from the New York Times article made sure I went down. So that really upset me. I think that's when I was gonna just, like, move forward with my life. And then when I heard that, I'm like, oh, hell no. You messed with the law with the wrong Mexican chick. Okay, My feisty will come out. And so I just obsessed about looking up everything about Taylor Lorenz, anybo that she had wronged. And I started kind of taking notes. And it was really like a war room with the red yarn going back and forth, like, who is she connected to? Who is she smearing? And anybody that she had done a negative article about, I started reaching out to them, like, what. What really happened? And I started to find all these allies where I'm like, oh, this person wasn't so bad either. I have to accept that if she wrote these negative things about me, maybe some of these people that I think, oh, I Don't know if I want to talk to that person. Maybe they're not so bad either. So. And then I got into this clubhouse room. Taylor was attacking Marc Andreessen online. And Mark. So Marc Andreessen is this tech billionaire that basically invented the Internet.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. A 16. That's a big opponent to go after.

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah. And he's basically funding. He has, like, the biggest tech fund in Silicon Valley. And she had tweeted that Marc Andreessen said retarded in a clubhouse room when they're talking about the Wall street bets thing going on. But actually, Mark Andreessen didn't even speak in that room. And she was basically being a hall monitor that was like a Karen hall monitor. Like, hey, someone said a bad word. You know, this is the same reporter, by the way, that wrote a full article about Mr. Beast and how he's apparently homophobic because one time he tweeted my printers being gay. Like, she's unhinged. This is not a person that is. Well. And I don't like to speak poorly of people, but I'm just saying, like, this is somebody that destroys people for no reason, apparently gets, like, off on these canceling people. Just. I didn't. I don't understand that type of mentality, but these people do exist. So I'm in the clubhouse room. I think it was called, like, you know, screw the New York Times and Taylor Lorenz or something, you know, and she kept getting booted off of clubhouse. Like, she hated it, because if you block her, I think she couldn't go in the room. And so this is like a neurotic reporter that's like, everybody's talking about me in this clubhouse room. Anyway, she wasn't in there, but Marc Andreessen was in the room. And I got up on stage and told my story about what had happened to me. And in that room afterwards, somebody DM me and said, hey, I think I'm an attorney that will take your case. And I'm like, really? I mean, I don't have a lot of money, you know, basically nothing at this point. And I meet with the attorney, and he takes my case on contingency, which basically means you have to pay anything up front only if you win. And remember, the New York Times hasn't lost since 1964, so the chances are slim, right?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ari Jacob]

But I had a really good case. Taylor Lorenz had actually done some, you know, those emails that she was sending me before the article came out. So in the article, there was a line that said something like, Quoting another creator, Ari leaked my nudes and sent them to business partners and people in my house as revenge because I wanted to leave her agency, which was 100% false. You want to the story quickly. The creator, somebody, another manager, DMed me and was like, or text me. And he said, hey, by the way, one of your, the head guy of the drip crib, there's a telegram group with like a hundred thousand people in it and it's saying that he sent nudes to a 14 year old girl. I'm his manager. So out of professional responsibility, I'm like, can you show me what you're talking about? Like, and so he screenshotted the thread, the telegram thread that already hundreds of thousands of people had seen. And it was just like, you know, it was barely, you couldn't see. It wasn't nude photos, it was like a thumbnail image, like tiny, tiny. But you could see where somebody had posted. He sent these to a 14 year old girl or whatever. So immediately I screen record that thread with the manager and I send it directly to the guy who was being accused. And he goes into a text rant, oh, my phone got broken into. My icloud is leaked and leaked my nudes everywhere. He leaked his own nudes. I did nothing. All I did was basically like an HR thing of like, hey, is this true? He said, no, it's not. And then I, I let my attorney know and somebody that was in charge of the house is like, hey, heads up. I heard this was going around. That's it. Taylor, published in the New York Times, already leaked my nudes everywhere, basically. But prior to that she had asked my attorney, is it true that Ari, blah, blah, blah, leaked these news? And he, my attorney said absolutely not. And so Taylor wrote in the email, nobody is alleging that Ari leaked nudes publicly. So the only line that got through passed a motion to dismiss. So for almost four years later, this is after I'm fighting this case for four years. The judge says, okay, the case can go forward on one statement. And it was that leaked. And why? It's because Taylor had emailed me and said, nobody's alleged that Ari leaked nudes publicly. So now we're only hinging on two words of the whole article and maybe like a comma leaked my nudes and sent them to business partners. You get what I'm saying?

[Sean Kelly]

Wow. So it came down to two words.

[Ari Jacob]

Like surgery, this crazy. And that's why the media is not afraid of it because they can basically say anything that they want.

[Sean Kelly]

They know how to Word it.

[Ari Jacob]

But Taylor made a mistake.

[Sean Kelly]

Wow. So that's what costed them the. You ended up settling, right?

[Ari Jacob]

Yes. By the way, you don't get any discovery. Like, you don't get to see the emails between Taylor and her editor, her and the influencers. You don't get any of that stuff until the judge says you have a case and you can get discovery. So now once you're at that stage, even if you have lawyers on contingency, which was a miracle that I got that, most people won't get that. And good lawyers, by the way, once you get that, now you have to pay for expert witnesses to prove, like financial accountants that would say, well, yeah, she was a TikTok influencer and she would have made $11 million. You have to pay those people tens of thousands of dollars. So in order to continue then depositions, my attorneys wanted to depose Taylor Lorenzo so bad. I mean, those would have been memes for the century. Because, by the way, Taylor Lorenz is the definition of a cry bully. Do you know what a cry bully is?

[Sean Kelly]

Cry bully? Yeah, they cry when they get bullied.

[Ari Jacob]

Basically. They're like these people that dish it out, but when they get, you know, held accountable or somebody criticizes them, they cry.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Ari Jacob]

And Taylor actually famously went on NBC and cried and said, like, I'm getting bullied and it's so unfair. And all this stuff when she's like, the master bully is just crying crocodile tears.

[Sean Kelly]

Was that during the United Healthcare stuff?

[Ari Jacob]

Oh, no, this is like, way before then.

[Sean Kelly]

Oh, okay. Yeah, she got a lot of heat for that one, too.

[Ari Jacob]

Well. Oh, because she has a crush on Luigi Mangio.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, she was like, thank God he. Or. I don't want to misquote. She might come after me. But yeah, she got a lot of heat for that.

[Ari Jacob]

Right. I think Taylor Lorenz just tries to put herself in the news. Anyway, she. I got on Tucker Carlson and that was like a big deal for getting my story out there after I sued. So one of the ways I got my story was like the actual complaint. Right. Because then it says like, all the receipts in there, you could like. I could actually send that to brands and be like, this is what actually happened. But that's really expensive to do that.

[Sean Kelly]

Right.

[Ari Jacob]

You know, to file a lawsuit. But some of the other ways that I got my case in front of people was that shout out to Matt Shoup. He got me on Tucker Carlson. And that was really interesting because it was like, imagine like a year pent up of like, I want to say like, everything she did. But I have three minutes. So I watched every episode that I could of Tucker and I wrote down as much data as I could. Like, if I liked one of the people on there, I would write how long they spoke for, what they talked about, how long Tucker talked. And I like timed it.

[Sean Kelly]

Wow.

[Ari Jacob]

So when I finally got to go on there, I had prepped like, hey, I'm going to talk for X amount of seconds and then I'm going to let him talk and whatever. And one of the things that I learned was write your story down like you're telling it to a 12 year old, because if you get lost in the weeds, people are not going to pick up on your story. So I just did like a couple hit points of like, I repped these huge social media stars that were making millions of dollars. And then Taylor came down with the megaphone of the New York Times and did this to me. And a lot of people ask, what did she say in the story? Right. And another good piece of advice that I got was don't focus so much on the negative stuff. Like, I didn't talk about the. She said I leaked nude photos because one of the pieces of advice I got was like, imagine you get a Super bowl commercial and you got 30 seconds. Are you going to spend that time talking about the negative things about you? Or she said some false defamatory things. And this is why I'm standing up for myself. And this is why it's not right. And this is why you should join me in standing up. You get what I'm saying. Instead of focusing like, oh, she said this about me. And then you're just kind of regurgitating, like, drama that you don't even want associated to yourself. So I felt like I really got down what I wanted. And then I. I recorded what I wanted to say and I went to sleep and I would listen to it. And so when it finally came time for that three minutes, I would get with Tucker, partly him talking, partly me talking, I was so nervous. I had never really spoken publicly and this is live television and I didn't even really see his face. You could see an X mark to where you're supposed to look. Halfway through, I think I blacked out, but because I had to sort of memorize what I want to say, I came right back to it and finished. And I just remember leaving the studio and just like bawling my eyes out because I felt like this, like, release of like, finally, like, I just got to say my piece. It's the worst thing in the world when you get canceled. And in my situation, it cost me my business. But some people get canceled way worse. You know, like somebody says that you were inappropriate with somebody or whatever. The point is, if you get canceled, just know that there's a way out of it. I'm glad that I waited till that moment to say everything what I wanted to say, because I was measured. I had had time to think about it. I didn't go after these like, you know, young adult teenagers. My clients were over 18. They made it seem like I went after tiktokers. Cause, you know, I call them kids. But to me they were kids. But the point is, like, take a beat because I could have maybe said some things I regret in the moment had I come out and done a YouTube video about everything that happened right away.

[Sean Kelly]

That's where a lot of people, their first reaction is to respond immediately. Right?

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah.

[Sean Kelly]

Make an apology video or some type of video.

[Ari Jacob]

Right.

[Sean Kelly]

And that's when you're reacting too emotionally so you can't think rationally.

[Ari Jacob]

Exactly. Another thing that I did that I think other people can use is I kind of bootstrapped my crisis PR. So crisis PR in Hollywood costs like 20 grand a month and it doesn't do the same thing. A lot of those people are not versed with Reddit and Twitter and YouTube. And now there's Law Tube and YouTube, lawyers that talk about cases and all this stuff. And I was well versed in it. I basically spent the last amount of money I had on crisis pr and they didn't really do anything. They didn't get any articles on any of this stuff. And so nobody before, I mean, before Tucker, nobody had really told my side of the story. So I went on Fiverr and I hired an award winning journalist who had past credits for actually reporting on real stories. And I hired him for like 300 bucks. And I said, can you take all my receipts, all my screenshots, all the emails and write the story in a way that's truthful but not emotional? Like, don't just. It's not a puff piece. I just want my side out there. And he agreed to put his name on it once he saw like everything that he read. And we put it on Medium. So out of all the search engine blog sites, I think Medium is the best with SEO. Fast forward to today. Google is actually indexing Instagram posts. So if you optimize your Instagram for search, you're going to see that in what people are talking about. But at the time that helped me a lot. So we had a full article written, and then I started kind of riding this Twitter wave. And so what I mean by that is, anytime something came up about Taylor Lorenz or the New York Times, I would ride that wave in. You know, I would like attach to the story and be like, hey, this happened to me too. And this is going on. So when. Remember when Elon Musk took over Twitter and he was just going completely gangster on, like, all these different things? One of the things was that they were attacking him with releasing the location of his private jet. So all these journalists were getting. They were getting banned from Twitter for doxing. So he's like, anybody that does doxing, you're going to be suspended from Twitter. And so all these journalists were like, this is hurting my freedom of speech. And they were criticizing him, but they had triggered him because I think people were like, tracking his plane and his son was on there. So I'm watching this, and people are getting suspended and past doxing action. I'm like, hey, Taylor Lorenz docs the location of my TikTok house, which I was living in at the time, which was really dangerous, if you think about it, because there was, like, famous content creators living there. And she actually, like, put the location linked to a Zillow. And so I tweeted, I think it was like, either Marc Andreessen or Elon Musk. I had notifications set up for anybody that hated Taylor. And so right away I tweeted. And then Elon Musk responded, and he said, this behavior is unacceptable, or something like that. And then the next day, she got suspended from Twitter. It basically got linked back to me that it was like, for a past doxing action. So she was only out for, like, a couple days, but it was like, right before Christmas. And I remember everybody started texting me, early Christmas present.

[Sean Kelly]

Did she reach out to you when that happened?

[Ari Jacob]

No, she actually went on a TikTok Live or something and basically acted like a crazy ex girlfriend and was like, elon banned me. Like, he knows who I am. That's what it felt like. I mean, she's so bizarre. She got reinstated, like, a couple days later. But. But, yeah, so, I mean, I did those things. And then I also went on. So there was, I think the Johnny Depp trial was going on at the time. And so I would go on these law tube channels where I knew people cared about defamation and injustices, and I would just super chat like a hundred bucks, and I'd be like, hey, I was defamed. In the New York Times by Taylor Lorenz. And you know when you, when you send a hundred dollar super chat to like a YouTuber, most of the time they'll read your thing or they'll like get to know you. And so I built a lot of retail. It was kind of like a pay to play thing. But at the time, I mean, I'm sorry, but you have to do what you have to do. It's your name. You're not going to get another one. And I sure as hell wasn't going to change my name just because Taylor Lorenz lied about me in the most prominent newspaper in the world.

[Sean Kelly]

You know, I love how scrappy you got. That's such a smart idea. I never would have thought of that. But it's such a targeted audience on Law tube. So to donate 100 potentially get some advice or legal work out of it.

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah. The only one that didn't read it was H3. H3, Ethan Klein. And at the time I think they. Because they were in with Taylor and she would. It's weird. Like Taylor's in with like tmz I think and.

[Sean Kelly]

But she's got connections. I'll give it to her. She is good at networking.

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah. And she's friends with like that guy Hasan.

[Sean Kelly]

I forget Hasan Abi.

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Ari Jacob]

But I think now H3 doesn't like Taylor Lorenz. So shout out. I would go on there and tell the real story about her, but it's all relationships, right? Like she had built some early relationships and she was smart about it. Like in the article, you know, she didn't like I was representing Bella Thorne on deals and she didn't trash Bella Thorne. I don't even think she like included her name in there. I think she said I was renting Bella Thorne's house. But you know what I'm saying, Like she was very selective in how she went about trashing me. So she didn't trash any of the contacts that she would later care about.

[Sean Kelly]

Does she still have the same power as she used to? Because now I feel like hit pieces aren't as powerful personally, you know, Lorenz.

[Ari Jacob]

Has become somewhat of like a cartoon. I don't think people on the left or the right like her anymore because she's so outrageous. Like it almost feels like she goes on Piers Morgan or whatever just to say the thing that will get clipped and she'll get criticized for. I don't know if like her parents didn't hug her as a child. I just don't really know. There's A lot of other people like this exist out there. I mean, it's not just Taylor Lorenzo, but when people like Taylor Lorenz become successful by basically trashing other people unfairly, that's when it needs to get called out so that other people don't see it and say, well, she's doing it. It's working for her. So let me just do it, too. I called out Dylan Danis when he was attacking Logan Paul's wife, and I actually ended up like a little clip in the one on his show because, you know, I stood up for her because I'm just like, come on. When I know somebody is getting burned unfairly, like, it just. It's like I can't hold it. It's like that same feeling, like I want to defend them because I got out of the situation, but I felt really alone. And to feel alone as a celebrity, a billionaire. I mean, a lot of billionaires, they don't know what to do when they get defamed because it doesn't matter how much money you throw at it, most people don't know how to do those scrappy things that I did.

[Sean Kelly]

Right. Yeah. I feel like even if you. If you don't have money, it's even worse, though, because then you can't fight it and everyone's going to believe it and you don't have a voice.

[Ari Jacob]

Absolutely. I think that Dave Portnoy style of, like, getting ahead of it in the beginning is probably the best way. You know, when he does emergency press conference. Yeah, a measured emergency press conference, I think is smart because in the past, when you used to get canceled, the crisis PR people would just say, don't draw attention to it. They call it the Streisand effect. I don't know what happened with Barbara Streisand, but it was like she was like, oh, don't look at my house, or something like that. And then everybody looked at her house or up her house, and so they say, like, don't draw attention to it. But in the world we live in now, people are going to find it anyway, so you might as well scoop the reporter by telling it, by coming out on your own platforms and getting ahead of the story. Hey, Taylor Lorenz is about to lie about me tomorrow in the New York Times. And I want you guys to know the real story. Here's the question she's asking. Here's why it's wrong. You get what I'm saying?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, I think that works if you're independent, but I don't know if you Followed the Shannon Sharp case. But he, he pulled that movie you just explained and it didn't really work. But I think if you're independent, it could.

[Ari Jacob]

He was at the difference too. If you have the truth on your side.

[Sean Kelly]

Right. That's. That's obviously a big factor too. Yeah.

[Ari Jacob]

I think that if you don't and you did something, it's probably better to just own it and apologize.

[Sean Kelly]

Like Portnoy with the sex tape video handled it phenomenal.

[Ari Jacob]

Yeah.

[Sean Kelly]

Like now people are like, good shit.

[Ari Jacob]

Like, right.

[Sean Kelly]

You own.

[Ari Jacob]

But also Portnoy was already a cultural icon. When these things happen for somebody that has no name. Here's the problem. And I think people need to think about this when they think about their personal brand. And that's basically what you. And you know, you do this for a living. Your clips go completely viral and there's an art to that. But it's, you know, I think that you have to have a personal brand in order to. If something bad comes up about you, if somebody Googles you, there's going to be other stuff about you already on the Internet. People are already going to have maybe an opinion about you. But if you're completely ghost dark on the Internet and somebody writes a negative story, that negative story, when they Google your name, it's going to land on the top of Google. And that's the most infuriating part because the New York Times has all this credibility and because of their status as a New York Times, anything they write with your name on it is probably going to land at the top of Google. It wasn't until like I told my story and then Fox News put articles. I mean, now at least there's several articles. Maybe the New York Times article is six down or it's still up, but yeah, it's still on the first page. When it comes to reputation management, you can't just get something off. You have to push it down with newer artists.

[Sean Kelly]

Well, I thought they. Because of the lawsuit, I thought they would have taken it down.

[Ari Jacob]

But no, crazy. We did settle the lawsuit, but basically all I got out of it was that I can tell a story. I'm not gonna. I didn't have to pay their legal fees to shut it down. We're just gonna shut this down. You're not gonna make any money. I'm not gonna make any money. But I'm telling you, like, if I would have continued, it would have been four more years or who knows how long. And not just the fact that I had to prove they defame me. Think about this. They could say, well, okay, let's just say that they prove that she defamed me. They could say, well, there's no damages because she went on Fox News afterwards. She ruined her own reputation. That's why she can't get any clients, was because, you know, she's obsessed with Taylor Lorenz. They could literally just say, you ruined your own reputation, so we're not going to pay you. And not only that, they're going to go through every text message you've ever written. You know, like, I don't know what I said to my parents after the New York Times article. I probably unleashed about how I felt about Taylor Lorenz. I just felt like at some point you got to let it go. Like, I did get my reputation back. I got a lot of people in my corner. Sometimes you have to realize that. I don't know if you're religious or people believe in God.

[Sean Kelly]

I'm open.

[Ari Jacob]

But there's this prayer that I know now, and it's like, if it's not for me, God take it away. And it hurts sometimes when it gets taken away, but you have to know that it wasn't for you. Like, God didn't want it for you. And about two weeks before the New York Times article came out, I was sitting with Sino McFarlane. He's like a famous therapist in Hollywood, has all these famous clients. And I told him I was in over my head with these tiktokers. A couple of them were, like, very manipulative and, like, sociopathic, narcissistic, but very successful. And they were kind of some of the more they were kind of driving the. They were influential to the other creators. But I was kind of like at my wit's end with them, like a parent, you know? And so I said, can I bring them in? And you meet with them? So they go in and they meet with him. And the next time that I meet with him for my own session, he's like, I think you need to shut down these houses, like, the whole business. I think you need to shut it down. I can't. What do you mean? I'm in, like, three houses deep of got leases. And he goes, these people don't respect you. They don't value what you bring to the table. And they're going to kind of suck you dry of your energy, and they're just. They're toxic. They're going to destroy you. And he's like, I don't know if you believe in higher power, but I do believe that if you don't shut this down. It's going to be shut down for you. And not two weeks later, New York Times thing happened.

[Sean Kelly]

Wow.

[Ari Jacob]

So I really think it wasn't for me, you know, and now, and after the whole thing happened now I, I mean, I have an AI powered digital agency that makes basically clips, you know, better than anybody. You can't grow on social media without video. Consistent video clips for plastic surgeons, for small and medium sized businesses. It's very difficult to produce that level of content on a, you know, daily or every other day basis. And so that's what I do now. But I also kind of like in my spare time, I will find cases where I'm like, this is unfair and this person needs somebody to speak up for them. And I will do that on Twitter, I'll do that on my YouTube channel. I have consulted with people, with very wealthy people on legal cases and things like that, on public reputation and perception. But for the most part, I do it kind of like for free, not for fun, but I feel like a duty to do it because I also know how to read an article and realize, like words that get twisted. So for example, in the Justin Baldoni case, New York Times wrote, he was. Did something that made Blake Lively feel uncomfortable. Okay, I could say something right now, Sean, and it can make you feel uncomfortable.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, it's subjective.

[Ari Jacob]

Does that mean that, like you deserve to be, you know, the Justin Baldoni deserves to be branded as a sexual predator because he made somebody feel uncomfortable for 30. You know what I'm saying?

[Sean Kelly]

That's what they wanted everyone to believe.

[Ari Jacob]

Exactly. But I know these words, right? And they, they twist things. One of the things that really hurt my feelings in the article was that I had gotten one of my clients a Super bowl commercial. Actually, two. And on that super bowl commercial call with Gary, Gary Vee was the one that signed them to it or gave them the opportunity. On that call, Gary said to the creator, he said, you're great in everything. And I'm so excited telling the creator you're great and everything. We're excited to have you part of the super bowl commercial, but the reason you're getting this opportunity is because of Ari and because I get to do a favor for a long time friend who I adore. And so I just want you to know that we're so excited. But this really is all about Ari. And because Ari did this for you, I mean, like, that was so cool of Gary to say that about me. Right? Well, this creator turned around. She's working with UTA she turned around and was quoted in the article saying, ari goes around saying she knows Gary Vee and that he'll help you with your career. And then it's Taylor Lorenz. We reached out to the New York Times or we reached out to VaynerMedia, and they said that Gary is not affiliated with influences. True statement. Right. He's not my business partner. But when they wrote it like that, it made it sound like I was a name dropper, liar. And then I roped Gary Vee into it. Somebody that I admire and adore. You know what I mean?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Ari Jacob]

And I mean, there's way worse things in article, like the new thing. But that was what, like, really hurt my heart because, you know, I'm like thinking, I let Gary down. Does he think any part of this is true? But, you know, in the end, the day the article came out, I got a call from another really esteemed mentor of mine who basically ran the television academy and had several Emmys. And he called me. The article comes out, it's terrible. And I'm like, tail tucked under. I'm thinking at this point, it's all my fault. I, I, I ruined everything. I don't know what I did, but it's all my fault. He calls me and he's like, welcome to the freaking big leagues, Ari. I'm like, excuse me, did you read the article? And he's like, yeah, I read it. He's like, I know it's not true. And I know, but, like, he's like, ari, it was just a matter of time. These people, they. You were sitting on a gold mine. You think they're just gonna let you, this means you made it? Because they don't waste time, The New York Times doesn't waste time on some little peon that doesn't matter in the world. You did something that nobody else had done. And it really triggered these people because they are greedy and they wanted what you had. So are you gonna roll over and die? Are you gonna stick up for yourself? Are you gonna see this through? Because at the end of the day, it's either gonna be a great story, documentary, whatever you wanna call it, whether you win or lose that lawsuit, your story isn't over. And that was like the trigger where I was like, okay, if this guy believes in me and he knows what I had been like, I was so excited to have made it. He saw the whole story arc. If he says I can make it through, I will. So I talked to him before I came on today, and he's like, still Somebody that I just admire so much. And it's like, I love that you have to stay with the people that believe in you when, like somebody, even if you did do something wrong, I really believe this. You just stay around the people that know you, that understand that you make. Everybody makes mistakes. I have some accountability. I bit off more than I could chew, for sure. Maybe I should have just kept Charli d' Amelio and not signed one other person. Right. Maybe I shouldn't have signed. Maybe I should have let go of those kids or the. The tiktokers that were manipulative and not respecting me. Right.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Ari Jacob]

So there's some accountability there. But for everything else, stand up for yourself. Like you got. That's the thing that Taylor Lorenz and the New York Times didn't anticipate was that I had nothing to lose and I had the truth on my side.

[Sean Kelly]

Truth always wins, right?

[Ari Jacob]

I think so. And I think people are sick of these media injustices. It's just completely. It's just not right. I think we're living in a time where every single person is going to get canceled in some way, shape or form.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, absolutely. We're at that point now for sure.

[Ari Jacob]

Right. Whether it's like you're. You got posted in a Facebook group. Are we dating the same guy? Right. And like an ex girlfriend wrote some lies about you, and now everybody that goes on a date with you thinks that you're a cheater or you've got crabs or something. I don't know. I mean, there's a way to fight that too. Right. And I think that like all the kind of. I know I'm talking about big picture, New York Times and all this stuff, but you can use some of the things that I. Some of these tips and tools to get your name back. If you're getting smeared, you know, in your workplace, in a dating situation, it's important to stand up for yourself.

[Sean Kelly]

Very important to know. All right. I can't believe it's been an hour away already.

[Ari Jacob]

Thank you so much. I know this has been fun and hopefully I gave some tips that people can actually use. I pivoted my influences.com is going to be. Was my old company. Now we're. I'm going to like, help with like some of these tips and tools for getting. For un. Canceling yourself and, and yeah, now I make social media clips for people that. For boomers, basically, who appreciate me. And my business is called Creator Genius.

[Sean Kelly]

So, yeah, we'll link that below and your Instagram as well. Thanks for coming on.

[Ari Jacob]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. Check her out, guys. You need some clips, check out her company. I'll see you next time.