Ned Fulmer and Wife Ariel Are Separated 3 Years After Cheating Scandal (Exclusive)

Ned Fulmer and his wife Ariel Fulmer are separated, three years after Ned admitted to an extramarital affair with an employee of his production company, PEOPLE confirms.

Ned “cares deeply” for Ariel, and they are working on something new, a spokesperson for Fulmer told PEOPLE on Tuesday, Sept. 16. They even traveled to Greece this summer together with their two children, the spokesperson exclusively tells PEOPLE.

TMZ first reported that the couple was no longer together romantically.

In the debut episode of Ned’s new podcast, Rock Bottom, the pair will have their first public conversation about Ned’s infidelity since the cheating scandal broke in 2022. Following the allegations, Ned exited The Try Guys, the production company and YouTube channel he co-founded after it started as a Buzzfeed series in 2014.

Before the release of the podcast, Ned sat down with PEOPLE for a wide-ranging interview about his years out of the spotlight and his decision to make his public return.

“For a long time, I wanted nothing to do with social media or the internet,” Ned said of the aftermath of his cheating allegations. “I didn’t think it was particularly beneficial to my mental health.”

But after coming clean to his wife about his infidelity and starting couples therapy — which he said allowed them to build a new “foundation of trust” in their relationship — he told PEOPLE that he was interested in returning to content creation once more.

“I started to want to create and miss making things,” said the internet personality. “I mean, I’m the type of person that’d be in a community theater show getting paid nothing. I just love it.”

To answer this craving, he decided to launch his podcast, where he will interview people about their lowest moments — essentially “anyone who’s overcome something challenging,” he said.

“It’s made me a lot more interested in other people’s challenging times,” Ned said of his last three years. “When someone does something that they’re really ashamed about or that is deeply traumatizing, life goes on. So what happens next?”

With this new venture, however, Ned acknowledged that his old Try Guys formula would no longer work, both because he said he’s changed “as a person and as an artist” and because he’s wants to move away from the “one-dimensional type of person” he used to portray himself as on camera.

“It’s pretty well known that I was presenting myself as a wife guy who talked about his adorable relationship,” admitted Ned. “It was something fans seemed to resonate with and I leaned into consciously. It certainly was a part of my life.”

“I understand that that’s why it was such a big scandal — because it’s ironic and it feels like a rug pull to people,” he added. “That must have been really painful and devastating to the viewers.”

The gap between this public persona and the realities of his marriage, Ned said, is partially why thinks he acted the way he did three years ago: “It’s obviously not how real relationships work. And I think that disconnect was challenging for me to deal with, and I obviously dealt with it in a very self-destructive and painful way.”

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As he moves into this new era of content creation, Ned said that he plans to establish more rigid barriers with his audience, keeping his kids and his relationship with Ariel more private than before.

“Having that break and the ability to reassess what privacy meant to us was like completely transformative,” said the creator of his time out of the spotlight. “It helped us realize that we don’t want our kids to be in videos, that we don’t wanna discuss our family life or our relationship in videos.” 

It also means that he’ll be less invested in the comments this time around: “I think I’ve come to understand that I have to tune it out a little bit,” said Ned, referencing the online reaction he anticipates from his podcast. “Listen to it to the extent that it’s helpful, but to really just let the work speak for itself and move on to the next episode.”