A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein

Ashley St. Clair dropped out of college to become a full-time conservative influencer. Five years later, she was pregnant with Elon Musk’s child. Within months, the weight of the politics Ashley built her career on collapsed. Elon publicly disparaged Ashley and reneged on his fatherly responsibilities, and the influencer who once shamed single mothers on Fox News was one herself. Today, June (or JUNlPER, of Twitter fame) joins me to have a frank discussion with a newly reformed Ashley St. Clair. We probe her on profiting off anti-LGBT bigotry, the seductiveness of the right-wing influencer ecosystem, and making amends. And, of course, what it’s like for the leopards to eat your face.

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Candace Owens’s daily livestreams have more viewers than Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC combined. The woman who less than a decade ago was a liberal blogger in New York City is now one of the most powerful voices representing — and tearing apart — the American Right. Her latest and most successful act is that of a professional conspiracy theorist, spinning webs around Brigitte Macron’s gender, Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and of course, The Jews. Millions of people who’ve self-admittedly “never agreed with Candace” are finding themselves in her clutches. Today, fellow Connecticut native Taylor Lorenz and I take a trip into Candaceland to try to decipher why Candace is the way she is and what the Right may look like after Trump.

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When Nicki Minaj stepped on stage in Phoenix, Arizona, with one hand clasping Erika Kirk and the other waving to a crowd of white supremacists, even I was shocked. We’ve known the Queen of Rap to be many unsavory things: an insecure egomaniac, a steadfast defender of predators, an obsessive poster (she has my solidarity on that one). But “fascist propagandist” I did not see coming. Today, Olayemi Olurin, Kat Tenbarge and I draw a map of Nicki’s life to make sense of how she got here, what she hopes to receive from it, and if it’ll even pan out.

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When Samantha Fulnecky filed a religious discrimination complaint against her university after failing an essay assignment in which she only referenced the Bible, she was on a path to victory. Sure, the essay was a grammatical disaster and completely incoherent — not to mention offensive towards both her classmates and professors. Sure, the failing grade was deserved. But in the age of right-wing culture war domination, Samantha was poised to become a star. Her January 6th-loving mother, Turning Point USA (and their recent influx of cash), and the Oklahoma House of Representatives all threw their full weight behind her. Despite all this, Samantha Fulnecky became the last great joke of 2025. Today, Kat Tenbarge, Parker Molloy and I examine why she failed the grift (and the essay).

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On the afternoon Charlie Kirk died, Jeffree Star livestreamed a four-minute-long rant about how nonbinary people aren’t real. Star, with his pink hair, diamond nails, and prior openness to using “any pronouns,” doesn’t necessarily fit in with Turning Point USA’s target demographic. Or does he? In this long-awaited and much-requested episode, veteran YouTuber Kat Blaque and former full-time Jeffree Star reporter Kat Tenbarge guide us through the tragic, racist, celebrity-filled history of the Internet’s most prolific makeup mogul. Despite many changes in circumstance — just like Gwen Stefani, he’ll always be an Orange County girl.

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