Brandon Hatmaker Is Not Going to Discuss His Affair
Brandon Hatmaker is not going to discuss his affair. Except to US magazine. Where he will discuss not discussing it.
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Brandon Hatmaker is not going to discuss his affair. Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of him. I know you want all the sordid details (did he do it with a fox, on a box, in his socks?) but Brandon Hatmaker is not going to dignify that with a response. He already told you how hard his infidelity was for him on his Substack. And being vulnerable about how none of this was his fault the context of his cheating was very difficult for him. So you’re just going to have to stifle your curiosity about Brandon Hatmaker’s wandering dick. This attention has sent him into a shame spiral and he’s going to need a lie down and a weighted blanket.
I’m sorry Tracy. What are you nattering on about?
Who is Brandon Hatmaker?
Guys, we discussed this last week in the Mea Culpa Men! He’s the ex-pastor, minor HGTV contestant, and disgraced ex-husband of Christian author Jen Hatmaker, who wrote a tell-all book about her marriage.
Brandon has his own fan club, which describes itself as “the ultimate hub for everything Brandon Hatmaker.” (Except his affair.) He’s an “author, biker, and a huge fan of the underdog.” (Underdog may be the name of his penis.) The fan club exists “to celebrate and share the many achievements of an author who constantly seeks to leave a lasting, positive impact on the world.” (Many achievements, except his affair.)
Was having his own fan club Jen Hatmaker’s first clue that Brandon might be a narcissist?
That and the constant use of “impact” as a verb.
He only wanted to be ‘helpful.’
Former HGTV star Brandon Hatmaker is choosing to no longer publicly discuss his divorce from Jen Hatmaker after his past affair scandal.
Brandon, 53, explained via his Substack on Friday, September 26, why he’s stepping back from the drama, writing, “Over the past few days, I’ve taken time to affirm what is true and respond to some of the speculation and misinformation surrounding my divorce in 2020. I did so because I believed, and still do, that it would be both hopeful and helpful.”
Brandon only cares about the Underdog.
The former pastor noted that “living in the past doesn’t heal anyone,” so he was ready to move on.
So, Brandon, are you going to stop mentioning your time on HGTV? Because that was in 2014 and it seems to come up a lot.
Anyway, Brandon is moving on. He made a podcast. Well, one podcast, but he posted it on Substack and it’s about trauma. Family systems trauma. If you’re a cheater and you’re looking for some FOO mindfuckery, you might want to give it a listen. Hurt people hurt people.
Let’s talk about things, but not THAT thing.
Brandon concluded: “Thank you to those who have read with empathy and understanding. Your support means more than you know. The future of this space is bright, and I’m looking forward to talking about the things that bring life, hope, and healing. Here’s to what’s next.”
Brandon has re-brandoned with a new wife and a new life. The future is bright. Everybody please stop discussing what a phony, self-pitying man baby Brandon Hatmaker is. Thank you.
I heard Jen Hatmaker speak on her author tour this week. She talked about overcoming devastation and creating an incredible new life. We heard about her new grandson, her boyfriend (who co-hosted!) and her community who supported her.
Brandon was not a part of the story unless you count Jen’s sly recitation of that good old Anne Lamott quote “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
Jen’s book “Awake” is number three on this week’s NYT bestseller list. Lead the Chump charge, Jen!
I cannot say that I was familiar with the writings of Mr Hatmaker before I followed the link that CL provided. Judging by his work (if I can call it that), he is someone whose sole purpose in life is to turn Bud-Light into casual misogyny and self-loathing.
Yuk!
LFTT
I read Jen’s new memoir Awake. In it, she gives Brandon more grace (and more cover) than he deserves.
But if you read between the lines, you realize that he was a shitty, selfish husband and dad for most of their 26-year marriage, and that Jen spackled like a true champ.
And, as it turns out, like a chump.
I haven’t read the book, but I wonder if she doesn’t offer “grace” to Brandon because she doesn’t want the scorned, bitter bunny backlash from her Christian audience. You can tell the truth, but always with a veneer of forgiveness, me thinks.
She got that anyway, from a a subset of her community. Shortly after her D-Day, someone accessed the divorce filing and leaked it to some evangelical Christian site.
However, Jen Hatmaker had already been largely shunned from evangelical Christian circles around 10 years ago (her books taken off Christian bookstore shelves and, in one case, taken out of print) when she took a stand as an LGBTQ ally.
I kinda wish she’d been more unvarnished in her portrayal of her FW ex, but clearly it doesn’t take much to wound his fragile ego.
I kept reading and wondering who the heck is Brandon Hatmaker. Now I’ve heard of Jen Hatmaker, but her ex was a total mystery to me. So I went to his website. He’s one of those tatted up “modern church” types who know a good racket when they see one. You just have to make a big show of caring about people (when you don’t actually care) and say that God told you stuff. Religious narcissists with their fake piety show up in EVERY religion. Because they claim to have a special connection with God, the true believers usually respect them and give them lots of money. There is a special place in hell for people like that.
And I love the way he keeps repeating and repeating that the wonderful lady he married (who ‘literally’ saved his life!) is NOT the one he had the affair with!
But I think that is a dig at his ex, Jen, as well, insinuating that if she’d been such a wonderful lady, he never would have chosen to cheat. It’s all her fault! Why wasn’t she as wonderful like his new lady? She made me do it! I had not choice! She was such a terrible wife!
Bitch, please…
He still won’t take responsibility for his own choice and actions. The consummate victim and deflection. “It wasn’t my fault, I just wasn’t happy and had to satisfy my wandering dick.”
What a loser! What a coward. If you have enough balls to cheat on your spouse and sneak around and lie/cheat, you should have enough balls to OWN IT!
“Me thinks…” Everyone knows the rest of the line. 😉
This post reminds me to give endless thanks to CL for being the first to really and truly identify and highlight the self pity setting on the cheater/abuser channel. Well maybe Tennessee Williams did with Stanley Kowalski’s “Stella” scene but somehow most people still don’t get it.
It’s too bad because the truth will not only set people free but sometimes can also make them laugh themselves sick. And it seems one enduring, universal, hilarious truth is that NO ONE in the history of planet earth or the human race is more outrageously self-pitying than FWs and domestic abusers in general.
But it’s obviously still not said enough because, whenever I point this fact out to other chumps who haven’t yet discovered CL or CN, they can have seismic reactions to it. For instance, I have a friend who discovered her ex’s affair before my own D-day and she was having a very grim and gloomy time for several years dealing with post-separation abuse during a contentious divorce. She’s always been such a funny person but she never seemed to laugh during that ordeal. I was worried for her so once when we were talking on the phone and the name of her ex came up (in some typical grim and heinous context), I squawked back in my best petulant whiny baby voice, “Awwwww, don’t say mean things about poor Widdle Wubba Wubba Boo Boo! Wubba Wubba Boo Boo thuffered thooo much!”
My friend laughed so hard that at one point she couldn’t speak and had to run to the bathroom to keep from peeing herself. From then on, her ex was always referred to as “Wubba Wubba” at which point we’ll both go into a riff for five minutes where we outdo each other making noises like grotesque, wingey-whiny blubbering, petulant toddlers which always sends her running back to the bathroom.
Lampooning her ex as the world’s most piteous man baby seems to have struck a good kind of nerve. Seems CL’s liberating perspective is contagious.
2 to 1 he starts a new church.
That’s just what these guys do. They like to hear themselves preach and that is where the attention and money is. It will be called “Redemption Church” and it will be all about second chances. A warehouse building with the ceiling painted black, a stage with a backdrop of used pallets, a loud sounds system and fog machines! It will be dark in their, except for the spotlight that follows brother Brandon and his tight pants. With the bright light those tats will just pop! His wife will sit in the front row, pretty as a picture, but worried about his female sycophants turning into side pieces. Because you know…
The couple will make the rounds of the second tier Christian Broadcasting Network shows and streaming podcasts to talk about how “God has done a great work in their lives” and it is “all for His Glory”, But she noticed how that makeup artist with the intoxicating perfume and scoop neck blouse knew how to show off her boobs to him while applying TV makeup. Did they do a couple lines when she left the room? Hmm.
Dang, I think you’re describing the “Four Way Temple” and Reverend Drew from the Coen brothers’ most recent film Honey Don’t (except the film throws in a bit of clownish BDSM).
Betting you didn’t even see it so it’s probably harmonic creative convergence that you just wrote part of the screenplay– the good part since, other than the church send-up, it’s not one of their better projects.
Why is it newsworthy that this adulterous, cheating liar wants to “move on” from his abusive past and “not talk about it anymore”? He’s nothing but a cliche’. ALL cheaters want to “move on” – that’s what they do best. Why validate and acknowledge their betrayal and abuse when “it’s in the past”? Why look in the mirror and own up to who you really are when you can instead see yourself reflected in the new victim’s adoring eyes? Mr. Hatmaker is nothing special – just another faithless man moving on and leaving devastation his wake.
The warning has to go out and the gloves have to come off on men/ woman who state they are Christians and are completely changed from horror filled wolves into sheep’s wool tops. The cry must go.out!!! CL takes these goats/ wolves by the neck and exposes the additional lies as they con all other woman, within hours or months of an affair that they have been transformed, changed..and you are the reason for this change..which by the way, you will Also be the reason they stray again. Who wants a mother???
A Godly man / woman would act more like a unicorn…there is no comparison for cheap Christian talk to real life behavior. It is a double barrel for churches to deal with this boatload of lies, but so easy to believe and keep it nice and clean. I’m on that soap box because my church was taken captive by my award winning actor Ex who is still going strong with wife #3. I just watch from a church next door. I’m still a follower of Jesus who by the way, spoke out on all lies, but I am a truth teller and will share details to all who care- though few do. Still I stand tall and no longer throw my pearls to the hogs. These fakers are so dangerous to the hearts of chumps everywhere. I wish I knew what else to.do but I’m no Jen Hatmaker or Tracy, but wish I was!
My generation’s adulterous preachers/religion scammers tended to wear white suits, white shoes and flamboyant ruffled shirts, rather like used sports car salesmen which set off warning bells.in my head whenever turning the old turret tuner on the tv console ( pre remote days) brought their unwelcome presence in our living room. But nothing ever really changes: they’re dressed differently, now the clothes are very casual, however the cheating is still such a huge part of who they are. I my wife’s AP was a deacon and very adept at performative religiosity, A man who professed to honour the scriptures and follow the ten Commandments, where infidelity is cited twice as an immense no-no. So when I read of the sexploits of people like Brandon Hatmaker, my hackles are raised.immediately..What a betrayal of trust in every possible way with these.people!
What I don’t understand is what any woman ever saw or sees in either the vintage pompadoured preacher cheaters or the new tatted-up Carl Lentz versions.
I’m male, so this is a guess, but – profile? Just more sad chimp-sh*t to compliment the silverback strutting, would be my guess. But I am an engineer, not an anthropologist, so I am probably wrong. (From my UK perspective, the church here is sufficiently weak that anyone pursuing profile from within it is not hard to spot, and pretty laughable from the off. That’s a good position to be in, in my (Christian) opinion, though it is possible that our recent lurches to the right might eventually deny us that luxury of easily-spottable-church-w*nkers.)
I read/view a lot from journalist (and Presbyterian minister) Chris Hedges and, in his view, the age we’re in is spawning a lot of “crisis cults.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxSN4ip_F6M&t=19s
It seems cultural despair increases people’s tendency to fanatically follow radical and particularly violent ideologies so, by that token, the ranks of culty Pied Pipers of all stripes (religious or existential) would predictably explode to meet demand.
They might also become more outrageous and easier to spot as competition increases. I’m imagining an endless sea of Jim Jones greasy pompadours and elaborately manscaped bro preachers in outdated skinny jeans and spangled trainers.
It looks like he authored his own Fan Club Page. It lauds his many accomplishments and business ventures-er, sorry, charitable ventures, including his “Legacy Investors Group LLC.”
When I searched it, and the first result was from the FBI:” Seeking Victim Information in Legacy Investors Group … Do you believe you are you a victim of a potential investment fraud by Anthonie Ruinard doing business as Legacy Investors Group?” and including a link to file a report.
The second result was from the SEC, stating, “The investment adviser you have selected is NOT currently registered and is NOT filing reports with the SEC or any state.” It also states that its registration status was terminated in Florida, Ohio and Virginia.
I don’t know if this is Brandon’s company, or if he made an unfortunate choice of name.
I did search for his charitable endeavors on GuideStar, a voluntary reporting agency, and found nothing with HIS name.
Great sleuthing. You’ve got some investigative journalism chops. 😉
Pathetic POS stuck on the Self pity channel. The 3 channels CL describes is so spot on. My exH favorite one is Self Pity too.
It saddens me however there is no shortage of girls and women who are “pick me” females willing to be a sidepiece or marry a known serial cheater. All our girls need to grow up knowing and doing better!
Not excusing but giving “context” (for the little people who do not understand). Sooooo narcissistic!
For 5 seconds I was confusing this guy with the Jumbotron man. Okay, now I get the difference (I’d never heard of either before). Okay so this guy is Church-y and the other is Tech-y.
Okay then. F#ck this guy. And the other guy.
Fuckwit hanging out in the nazi bar (aka substack). Seems like a good fit.