How Trisha Paytas' and David Dobrik's friendship fell apart

• David Dobrik and Trisha Paytas seemed to be friends during her brief stint in the Vlog Squad.
• Paytas was a prominent feature in Dobrik's YouTube videos while she was dating Jason Nash.
• After the breakup, and several dramas over the coming years, the friendship disintegrated.

In the summer of 2017, YouTubers Trisha Paytas and Jason Nash started dating. This meant that Paytas, one of the most long-standing and controversial creators on the platform, was automatically inserted into the Vlog Squad - the YouTuber collective led by David Dobrik.

Dobrik and Paytas appeared to became friends, but from the get-go, Paytas and Nash's relationship was a punchline for many of his skits that made their way into the vlogs. Dobrik jokingly called Paytas a slut and a whore on several occasions, and repeatedly asked her and Nash personal questions about their sexual histories and sleeping with people outside of the relationship.

Despite these comments seemingly being meant in jest, Paytas, who was a willing participant at first, visibly started to feel the pressure of her love life constantly being the butt of Dobrik's jokes. This stress she's said, both on her mental health and her relationship, only grew with time.

Dobrik and Paytas' friendship has now completely disintegrated, and they have not spoken in two years. Here's a timeline of what went wrong.

Trisha Paytas started appearing in Dobrik's vlogs in 2017

Paytas' involvement with Dobrik's crew began when she and Nash got together, and their relationship became a goldmine for laughs almost immediately, which Paytas seemed to be happy to go along with. In one of Paytas' early appearances, she and Dobrik are discussing how Nash is "crazy" for putting up with her.

"I think he likes you because you're psychotic," Dobrik says. "He likes you because he never knows what he's going to get. You're like a box of chocolates that are all poison."

In another vlog, Paytas pretends to propose to Nash, and he back away while screaming "no" repeatedly. It was a planned bit, but foreshadowed many of the arguments and insecurities between them to come.

Paytas bore the brunt of being the Vlog Squad's entertainment several times, such as when she was hooked up to a supposed lie detector machine. Dobrik had the operator decide whether Paytas was telling the truth or lying about her attraction to other members of the squad, in front of Nash.

To Paytas' embarrassment, she was told she was lying multiple times, and did in fact have sexual feelings towards Nash's friends. These tests, despite being used in videos by many other influencers including Shane Dawson and James Charles, have been deemed dubious by psychologists. Nonetheless, the results caused much laughter from the group at Paytas' expense.

Paytas was the victim of many pranks by Dobrik during her time in the Vlog Squad

Dobrik learned early on that Paytas always reacted dramatically to pranks - something Dobrik has said he loves -and so it became a regular pastime.

When Nash was driving over to Paytas' house one time, he snuck Dobrik in to scare her. Paytas was so visibly shocked that Dobrik repeated the prank multiple times. Most notably, when Nash and Paytas landed in Puerto Rico for a holiday, Dobrik was hiding in their hotel room bathroom.

Paytas, who appeared to be nude, was visibly terrified when Dobrik jumped out at her from the shower.

Paytas has spoken about her fear of strangers multiple times. She has had to move homes before because stalkers kept coming to her house. A video of her crying after one of these pranks, while Dobrik laughs in the background, has recently resurfaced online.

Pranks are accepted as part of being in the Vlog Squad. There's a good chance that if you hang out with Dobrik, you'll be on the receiving end of a surprise, good or bad, at some point.

Other pranks on Paytas seemed to try and set her up. One involved Dobrik and Nash following her and hiring an actor to approach her in a store parking lot and ask her out. Paytas recently recounted this experience on the "Frenemies" podcast, saying she now sees it as manipulative because she believees Dobrik was trying to get her to admit she would cheat on Nash.

For almost every relationship high and low, Dobrik seemed to be around

Dobrik seemed to be around Nash and Paytas for a lot of their relationship. When cracks in their romance started to show, Dobrik was there with a camera. Multiple private conversations about potential cheating, insecurities, and how Paytas had gone through Nash's texts with other women, were made public and monetized. Dobrik was even present when Paytas met Nash's children for the first time.

Nash and Paytas would often recount their turbulent arguments to Dobrik, who made light of some pretty serious issues, such as Paytas screaming and running around with no clothes on, and forbidding Nash from leaving her house. Paytas also posted personal videos about her and Nash's various arguments and difficulties as well.

Paytas and Nash broke up briefly a few times - once because Paytas thought Nash was criticizing her weight and eating habits, and another because Nash and Dobrik had a running joke about Nash, who is in his mid-40s having a threesome with Paytas and Tana Mongeau, who was a teenager at the time.

Nash told Dobrik he would buy him a Ferrari if he convinced Mongeau to take part. This joke made Paytas uncomfortable, and she would get upset every time it was brought up. One time, she started taking all her clothes off because she thought it would mean it was cut out of the vlog, but the clip made it in anyway.

After one of their brief breakups in June 2018, Dobrik ambushed Paytas at the airport to confront her about Nash.

Paytas told Dobrik she no longer considered him a friend, but laughed along with his jokes about her making a lot of money via her exposé videos about Nash.

Paytas started recounting her experience in the Vlog Squad after she and Nash broke up for the final time

Paytas revealed in an emotional kitchen floor video in May 2019 that she and Nash had broken up for a final time three months earlier. She said their relationship ended via a FaceTime call, after which she accidentally mixed alcohol with pills and ended up in the hospital. She has spoken about this several times in subsequent videos, and on the "Frenemies" podcast. She said Dobrik visited her in the hospital.

Immediately after the breakup, Paytas seemed confused, and acted erratically, posted several positive tweets about Nash and how he was too good for her. She also sporadically commented on Dobrik's Instagram photos, commenting things like, "Ur so hot. Can we f--- tho ?"

But over the next few months, she changed her tune. Paytas released two videos in August 2019 claiming that Nash only broke up with her because Dobrik told him to.

"The minute David told him to dump me, I get dumped," she said. She also said she and Nash continued to meet up in secret for three months following the breakup.

In these videos, Paytas then started making accusations towards other Vlog Squad members. She talked about one member, Jeff Wittek, ignoring her in a Starbucks, and refuted his claim she "f---ed over" his friend Nash. Paytas also claimed to have damaging information about the Vlog Squad. She said Dobrik tells everyone in the Vlog Squad not to publicly respond to drama, and that he cuts people from the crew when they're no longer useful.

"You have no f---ing clue what you're talking about or what your little friend group is about, or maybe you do," she said. "Sexual assault ... All this s--- in the Vlog Squad that you have no f---ing clue. I have the f---ing receipts."

Paytas is incredibly outspoken, and it's expected that when something has upset her, she makes a video about it. Paytas is also viewed by some as a "boy who cried wolf" character by the wider YouTube community, because she's admitted to "trolling" in the past with some of her videos and claims.

In a recent "Frenemies" episode, she discussed with Ethan Klein how this narrative of her being "crazy" has been used against her to discredit claims she has been making for a year and a half.

Dobrik has not publicly spoken about Paytas since she and Nash broke up.

Paytas has been vocal about claims made by other Vlog Squad members this year

In September of 2020, Paytas started a weekly podcast with fellow YouTuber Ethan Klein, who cohosts the massively successful H3 podcast with his wife Hila Klein. Paytas and Klein have their own tumultuous history, which is why the podcast is called "Frenemies."

The Vlog Squad has been a common point of discussion on recent episodes, particularly since former member Nik "BigNik" Keswani went on the H3 podcast at the beginning of February, and said the group was "toxic" and like a "cult."

"I always remember talking to my friends afterward, like 'Yo, I've got to get out of this, I can't do this,'" he said. "That was me behind the scenes the whole time. I was just constantly stressing about 'How do I escape from this.'"

Another former member, Seth Francois, who is Black, appeared a few days later and spoke about racist jokes and skits he was a part of while filming with Dobrik. He also alleged he was sexually assaulted while during a prank - in a vlog from 2017, he was kissed by Jason Nash, while seemingly under the impression it would be a woman.

Paytas has commented on both situations on "Frenemies," and said she believes Dobrik pressures people into doing things they don't want to do. A video resurfaced about a week later, that showed Paytas upset with the prank. Dobrik yells at her and calls her crazy for reacting negatively.

Neither Dobrik nor Nash has publicly responded to any of Paytas' allegations. Paytas has moved on from Nash and is engaged to Klein's brother-in-law Moses Hacmon. Dobrik has taken a break from the vlogs during the pandemic, but has recently set up a new channel for his podcast with Nash, called "Views."