Steven Crowder punishes pregnant wife for not doing “wifely things”

Newly surfaced security footage from 2021 is causing outrage online as viewers watch conservative commentator Steven Crowder prohibit his wife Hilary Crowder, then eight months pregnant with the couple’s twins, from using the car to pick up groceries.

On Wednesday, Steven announced that the couple would be getting a divorce, going against Hilary’s wishes about publicly discussing the couple’s legal battles. After Steven delivered the news on his Louder With Crowder podcast, his wife responded by releasing the video from 2021 that shows her husband’s alleged abusive tendencies.

Newsweek reached out to Steven for comment through an online contact form available on the Louder with Crowder website.

Hilary released the footage to journalist Yashar Ali, who proceeded to share it to Twitter on Thursday.

“1. EXCLUSIVE I’ve obtained over three minutes of video of Steven Crowder being emotionally abusive toward his pregnant wife, Hilary. In a statement sent to me, her family says she hid the emotional abuse she was dealing with for years,” Ali tweeted, with a 20-second clip of the video.

Meanwhile, Rolling Stone politics reporter Nikki McCann Ramírez shared a longer clip of the security footage.

“Steven Crowder telling his heavily pregnant wife she can’t use their car to get groceries because she hasn’t completed the ‘wifely things’ he requires of her is a perfect example of the way conservative men weaponize religious expectations to justify abuse,” Ramírez tweeted Thursday evening.

In the video, Hilary and Steven are arguing on what appears to be the couple’s patio. Hilary is requesting to use the car to pick up some groceries, but Steven prohibits her from doing so because she refused to do “wifely things.”

“You are not taking the car, because if you refuse to do wifely things, then I will go pick up the groceries,” he told her. The clips on Twitter don’t reveal what “wifely things” Steven was expecting her to do.

Hilary then proceeds to tell him if she can’t take the car, she will ask for someone to pick her up. Steven asks her if that was a threat, and then orders her to use a rideshare service instead. He then raises his voice and tells her that by taking the car, she is leaving him at the house with no transportation.

“I can’t go to the gym, I can’t go to my parents,” he said. “You’re going to take the car and leave me here. Hilary, just think of how boxed in you’ve made me!”

At one point in the video, Hilary accuses him of abuse.

“I love you, but Steven, your abuse is sick,” she said.

“Watch it,” Steven responded. “Watch it.”

Later in the relationship, Steven refused to attend the birth of their twins. Hilary proceeded to file for divorce in December 2021, which has been ongoing for nearly 18 months. The couple’s contentious divorce and the claims of abuse have recently surfaced on social media, in part due to an ongoing feud between Steven and conservative commentator Candace Owens. According to Steven, Owens hinted at his divorce on her show prior to him announcing it publicly. He then accused her of extortion, and the pair have been feuding ever since.

Owens commented on the video of Steven and Hilary in a video that she shared on Twitter, calling it “horrific” and difficult to watch.”

“The video essentially reveals how emotionally abusive he has been,” Owens said Thursday before playing the 3-minute clip.