David Dobrik talked about a prank that a former Vlog Squad member now calls sexual assault in an old podcast episode

• In resurfaced podcast audio, David Dobrik talked about a prank on Seth Francois.
• Francois now says he considers the incident, where Jason Nash kissed him, sexual assault.
• Dobrik says Francois was chosen because he's from Compton where homosexuality is "not so accepted."

Audio has recently resurfaced in which YouTuber David Dobrik speaks about planning a prank on his friend and former Vlog Squad member Seth Francois, and says he was the "perfect" target because of his background.

The clip, from an old episode of the podcast "Views with David Dobrik and Jason Nash," was posted by YouTuber Ethan Klein, who recently interviewed Francois about his experiences in the Vlog Squad - the YouTuber collective led by Dobrik. The original episode is still on Spotify and was published on June 15, 2017.

Francois said he has come to think that the prank from 2017, where he was tricked into being kissed by Nash, was sexual assault. While many viewers were supportive of Francois, some were more critical, claiming that everything that happens in Dobrik's vlogs is scripted and thus Francois must have known what was going to happen.

In the newly resurfaced audio clip, Dobrik appears to contradict this idea, noting that Francois had no prior knowledge that he would be kissing Nash. Dobrik also seems to suggest Francois, a Black man, was a good target for the prank because of his background growing up in Compton, California, and the fact that homosexuality is not widely accepted where he is from.

Dobrik says he told Francois he wanted to film a "dream sequence" where he kissed fellow Vlog Squad member Corinna Kopf, whom Francois found attractive.

"I'm like yeah, Seth, don't hold back, you can make out as much as you want, use as much tongue as you want, just keep kissing her," Dobrik said. "But what Seth didn't know is that I replaced Corinna with Jason."

Nash then says he put his hand on Francois' knee and rubbed his back. He adds that homosexuality "is not so accepted where he comes from."

"His friends are probably going to chew him out for that for the next three, five, years of his life," says Dobrik. "Seth's from Compton, it's literally the perfect setup - a guy from Compton made to make out with another old man," he continued, building on racist and homophobic stereotypes.

—Ethan Klein (@h3h3productions) February 27, 2021

Francois told Insider in an interview on February 15 that he was of two minds before choosing to tell his story.

On the one hand, he says he was so traumatized that he wasn't sure he wanted to bring more attention to it. He said he felt like his masculinity was stripped from him, and he's had to rebuild and redefine himself again since. But overall, he wanted to share his experience to inspire men who may have been sexually assaulted to come forward.

Francois never wanted to "cancel" anyone, he said. All he ever wanted was for the videos to be taken down. He says he's asked Dobrik to do this several times over the years without success.

"I'm just training my mind to just be strong enough to just like completely get over it," he said. "It wasn't my fault. I didn't sign up for it. I didn't ask for that to happen to me. And it did. But that's something that I just personally have to live with."

Neither Nash nor Dobrik have issued a public statement on Francois' complaints. Representatives for Nash did not respond to Insider's requests for comment. Dobrik's representatives denied Insider's requests for comment.