What happened to the ACE family? The McBrooms’ separation, explained

For about 8 years, the ACE family regularly documented their life on the Internet, painting it as the idyllic influencer life. Yet, many of us suspect the day would come when that facade cracked.

There’s a reason Catherine Paiz mentioned feeling “liberated” in her statement addressing her divorce from Austin McBroom. Saying that, even though everything appeared to be fine on the surface of social media, the years from 2018 to 2022 were the hardest of her life. And again, we can, with relative legitimacy, assume why.

That being said, Catherine is not solely a victim of this situation. The couple has long been scrutinized for how they included their children in their public online life. A Redditor satirized her IG statement, joking:

“My husband and I are parting amicably but remain together in our desire to exploit our children for money. While we no longer will be romantic partners we remain united as partners in our desire to grift the public and take away our children’s privacy ”

Either way, a separation should be for the best.

The saying goes: “Once a cheater, always a cheater”

It’s true that you never know what is happening behind the scenes. But, with sufficient information, scattered here and there, we can speculate. And many netizens speculated how Catherine Paiz could endure the fact that her husband, allegedly, cheated on her. He’s denied the allegations, but the evidence and claims have come from multiple separate sources. One of these sources was YouTuber and influencer Tana Mongeau:

Austin, of course, clapped back and diverted the focus:

Later, another influencer would claim the lip liner was hers. But Tana wasn’t done, she also accused Austin of creating a “fake nanny company to cheat.”

Tana recorded a full video explaining the situation and going into more detail.

Besides this, there have been more voices over the years accusing Austin of infidelity – influencer Monica Bush, for instance.

Thinking of what Austin has shown of his character over the years, you get to decide whether those claims might hold merit or not.

Damage Control, PR moves, and Snapchat

Both parties claim they are on good terms. They are also posting consistently on Snapchat – although Austin McBroom has been mocked by some netizens for “cringe” snap stories – in one, he’s doing cartwheels like a giddy child who’s just learned how to do cartwheels and really wants to show their parents. He’s also presenting himself as someone who’s doing everything to improve and be enlightened, emphasizing how he’s been going to church regularly.

In another, he filmed himself – and made multiple subsequent posts – sharing how he woke up feeling sick and how he hoped it was not Covid-19.

Catherine would later film her own video saying that the day he woke up feeling ill, he was supposed to move out of the house:

“He just laid down all day, rested, went to the doctor to get some medicine, because he got really, really sick. So, I’m just here praying for him because he’s going through a whole purge, right now. Everything’s connected.”

Either way, the manner in which both have been posting regularly on Snapchat, makes one think that, like other creators before them, they have some arrangement that provides them with enough revenue to motivate them to keep posting on the platform.

Speaking of money, some netizens have reasons to feel skeptical about the true nature of their divorce and its specific timing:

However, there can always be multiple reasons. It’s not always “either-or” in these kinds of cases. A divorce can come as a consequence of an accumulation of things, bad memories, poor dynamics, ugly arguments, you name it. Most netizens, of course, do reasonably think that the cheating scandals had a huge part to play and impact on the relationship.

The truth is, as much as we can speculate, we’ll never know the full, unadulterated truth. We can know enough to speculate, we may have gathered enough details to dislike one or both parties, but, at the end of the day, people should think of the kids before casting stones at the house they also live in.