Ethan Klein is coming for the grifters.
In the June 14th episode of his weekly live series, Off The Rails, Ethan interviewed men’s rights influencer Pearl Davis of JustPearlyThings— tearing into her for her misogynistic views and the damaging content she puts out.
Pearl is an anti-feminist creator who filled the gap for angry young men when Andrew Tate was thrown in Romanian prison. Her channel grew from 800,000 to 1.3 million subscribers in the first three months that Tate was in jail. She currently has over 1.5 million subscribers.
Pearl— whose real name is Hannah Pearl Davis (she presumably goes by Pearl because it’s more trad)— first gained popularity on TikTok by doing interviews on the street, asking people questions about whether a woman’s number of sexual partners is important or if sleeping around is worse if you’re a woman or a man.
Pearl claims her content explores the role of women in society and relationships.
Throughout the interview, Ethan debates Pearl on being anti-feminist, covering topics like the gender pay gap, divorce, domestic violence, women’s right to vote, and the age that women have passed their prime (22 years old, according to 26-year-old Pearl).
Unsurprisingly, Pearl makes numerous damaging claims.
At one point, she says that divorce should be illegal unless there is one-sided abuse. She claims that most domestic violence is mutual and that women live happier lives when they have a family. This belief leads Pearl to advise women to get married as early as possible.
Pearl has never been married, nor does she have children.
Perhaps most disgusting, however, were her claims that women should not have the right to vote because they are too emotional and that some aspects of slavery were “embellished”— a debate that led her to end the call and leave the interview early.
Though Pearl regularly spews this hateful rhetoric to her followers, she came shockingly ill-prepared for the interview. Many viewers are now questioning if Pearl genuinely holds these beliefs, or if it is a grift to make as much money as possible by being intentionally inflammatory and controversial.
Ethan and the H3 Podcast team also discussed this theory after she left the call.
“My takeaway from the last two days of looking into her, I don’t know this for sure. I know you didn’t necessarily agree with me Ethan, but I think it’s all fake,” said H3 executive producer Daniel Swerdlove after the interview. “I think she’s cynically leaning into it to get traction on the internet.”
When Ethan pushed her for stats and citations to back up her wild claims, the sources provided were often videos from other men’s rights YouTubers. She was also unable to provide proof of a correlation and/or causation between these “stats” and her beliefs.
In the aftermath of the interview, viewers note she didn’t seem passionate about her beliefs (unlike so many other creators in a similar space), and when pressed by Ethan, she would add caveats to her statements or even change her tune.
Another indication she may be leaning into these beliefs for clout was her reaction to Ethan bringing up the time when she said that some aspects of slavery were “embellished” while on a podcast with white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
Though she initially doubled down on her statement, she completely shut down after Ethan continued to press her— saying she doesn’t want to talk about this topic because of the intense backlash she received after saying it.
The H3 team suggested this reaction isn’t consistent with how inflammatory political figures typically react to backlash. As in, they normally don’t care.
“She gets backlash all the time for all the things that she says. Why is that one so off limits?” muses Dan. He goes on to say that he can guess it’s because she is aware that opinion is “insane.”
This theory aligns with the story told by Pearl’s former best friend, Emily, who says that Pearl did not hold these beliefs in their 22 years of friendship.
“I’m telling you, I have never heard one opinion like what she states now, ever in my life. In the 22 years I’ve known her, I’ve never heard her say [that] stuff. She was always so invested in, like, being a wife and what it takes to be in a relationship. […] It’s honestly like, sad. Because she was always trying to figure out what could she do to get a husband,” Emily said during an interview with TikToker Aunt Karen.
Emily also said Pearl was heavily invested in researching
Pearl has since taken to Twitter to drag Ethan for his interview style and attempt to redeem herself from embarrassment.