The Untold Truth Of Kaitlin Bennett
She may constantly be going viral for her videos questioning college students about "safe spaces," inflammatory tweets, or posing with AK-47s, but the truth is that Kaitlin Bennett is still a bit of a mystery. Bennett, a.k.a. Kent State Gun Girl, went viral for the first time back in 2018 when she posted a college graduation photo to social media — pretty standard cap-and-gown stuff except for the gigantic automatic rifle strapped to her back. Bennett is walking away from the camera, carrying her graduation cap, which she festooned with the words, "Come and take it."
Speaking to The Washington Post at the time, Bennett said she chose to pose with the assault rifle in order to make a political statement. "I believe that if the government has it, we should have it. Machine guns — any weaponry," she said. "To make sure the government can't go against the citizens. We should be able to protect ourselves against a tyrannical government." We suppose a machine gun might also come in handy in the event of a zombie apocalypse.
Of course, we wanted to know more about the provocative grad. So come with us down the long, occasionally confusing road into Kaitlin Bennett's history.
She has denied the pants-pooping rumor
One of the more persistent, and embarrassing, Kaitlin Bennett rumors is that once in college she got so drunk she passed out and pooped in her pants. The story was first circulated by Barstool Sports, and has followed Bennett around everywhere she goes ever since. She's been heckled by chants of "Sh*t your pants!" and "Where's your diaper?" on the campuses of Ohio State University and The University of Southern Florida among other places. The rumor has even spawned its own parody Twitter account, Kaitlin Bennett Poops Herself.
But while the rumor has never died, it is still very hard to prove that it ever really happened. And while Bennett often ignores questions about the alleged poop incident, she has denied it in interviews before. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like any third-party witness has come forward to either confirm or deny the story. You'll just have to decide who you believe on your own.
Kaitlin Bennett once tried to come for Lil Nas X
If the internet has one golden rule it is this: Do not try it with Lil Nas X. The man has made social media trolling into a form of high art and if you pick a fight, you will absolutely lose. We don't make the rules, we just report on them. Nevertheless, Kaitlin Bennett did try it with Lil Nas X. It didn't go great for her.
Coinciding with Lil Nas X dropping the music video for "Montero," in which the rapper is depicted descending into the fires of hell on a stripper pole and then twerking on hot Satan, Bennett tweeted, "It's [weeks] like these that I'm thankful to be blocked by Lil Nas X." Lil Nas X promptly quote-tweeted with his response, "I still see ur tweets sh**ty pants." Bennett parried with a low-blow tweet: "Do you still see your dad?," since Lil Nas X has been open about his past strained relationship with his parents. She also tweeted, "The guy that takes it up the a** from Satan wants to talk about 'sh**ty pants'?" (via HITC).
But, forever undefeated, Lil Nas X was quick with a return body blow, "Yep and I might f**k yours." Let this be a lesson to us all.
The Trump team once denied Kaitlin Bennett a press pass
It's hard to get more pro-Trump than Kaitlin Bennett, so you'd think that the Trump World powers that be would welcome her coverage of a Trump event with open arms. But apparently Bennett's journalism bona fides — her gotcha video interviews published on the far-right website Liberty Hangout, which was created by her husband and bills itself as "The official home of Katilin Bennett" — weren't up to snuff.
Bennett reportedly applied for a press pass to attend a Donald Trump rally in Florida in July of 2021 but was denied, according to Salon. On the conservative social media site Gab, the Liberty Hangout account queried, "We applied for media credentials for the upcoming Trump rally and were promptly denied. Why do the people around Trump keep trying to alienate their biggest supporters that have risked injury, doxxing, censorship, and harassment to promote his campaign?"
But while she may not be an accredited member of the press, Bennett can at least comfort herself with the memory of the time she was invited to tour the White House.
Kaitlin Bennett and her husband are devout Catholics
Because there is so little publicly available information about Kaitlin Bennett's biography and upbringing, we can't be sure if she was raised in the Catholic church. What we can say with a pretty good degree of confidence, however, is that she's on board with Catholicism now.
For one thing, Liberty Hangout, "the official home of Kaitlin Bennett," writes in its mission statement, "We believe in the eminence of Jesus Christ and his fellowship on Earth through the Holy Spirit and the Roman Catholic Church." And we definitely know that her husband, Justin Moldow, was born and raised Catholic and that the couple had a Catholic wedding.
"It's an honor to have completed the Sacrament of marriage in the Catholic Church," Moldow tweeted after the nuptials. In the Catholic religion, it is forbidden to be married in the church unless both parties are fully Catholic — which first requires several religious rituals and ceremonies called "sacraments." It's complicated. Suffice it to say that if they "completed the sacrament of marriage in the Catholic church" as Moldow says, Bennett would definitely have to be a full-fledged, mass-attending, confession-going Catholic.
Kaitlin Bennett's nemeses include Turning Point USA
Kaitlin Bennett isn't exactly what you'd call "popular" with large swaths of the internet or college campuses in general, and it turns out that it's not just political liberals who have beef with Kent State Gun Girl.
Bennett was once the president of the Kent State University chapter of Turning Point USA, the country's most famous conservative youth group, started by Charlie Kirk (himself a walking controversy generator). It was in this capacity that she helped put on her second-most talked-about stunt, featuring students parked outside campus buildings dressed in actual diapers to mock "safe spaces."
After a photo of the demonstration went viral and was roundly mocked, Bennett resigned from Turning Point, saying that she had been hung out to dry by the group's leadership. "As of right now, I am in disbelief at how I went from being so upbeat, enthusiastic, and passionate about this organization to being disgusted, frustrated, and embarrassed to have invested my entire senior year into an organization founded by a college dropout who hires some of the most incompetent, lazy, and downright dishonest people I have ever encountered," she wrote, via The Independent. She may have lost the support of Charlie Kirk, but seeing as we're still talking about her, she seems to be doing okay.
Her husband formed Liberty Hangout which is where she publishes
More of a citizen journalist than a straightforward reporter, Kaitlin Bennett doesn't work for a regular news organization. Instead, "The official home of Kaitlin Bennett," is a far-right website called Liberty Hangout, where she publishes most of her videos and blogs. If you have heard of Liberty Hangout before, you may also know that the site was originally started by Bennett's now-husband, Justin Moldow. The "About Us" page explains: "Founded as Young Jeffersonians on February 11, 2015, Liberty Hangout is a conservative media outlet which strives to bring readers relevant insight into current events, as well as promote the common good. We believe in faith, family, and freedom from tyranny."
According to the website's "Meet the Team" page, Liberty Hangout is staffed entirely by Moldow and Bennett themselves. In addition to providing a home for Bennett's videos, the site also reports on Bennett's recent activities and feuds as well as hot-take blog posts with headlines like "If You Don't Support Secession You Support Slavery" and "Fake Scientist Meets Fake Economist: Prove Climate Change is a Socialist Hoax." Most of the articles don't have a byline listed, so our best guess is that they're written by either Bennett herself or Moldow.
Make of this what you will.
You may find Kaitlin Bennett on Cameo
Whatever you think about Kaitlin Bennett's economic theories, she does seem to know that freelancers like herself should always try to diversify their income. So it wasn't entirely a surprise to discover that she has her own Cameo account.
For the uninitiated, Cameo is a site where (generally minor) celebrities charge everyday humans a certain amount of money to record a personalized video. Prices for these greetings range wildly but can make great gag gifts for a loved one's birthday or other events. Bennett's page advertises, "You can request shoutouts, happy birthdays, or a simple hello for you or someone you know! I also love sending a thank you to the haters & losers for their support."
Unfortunately, "Kaitlin Bennett is currently not taking any bookings at this moment," according to the site. However, you can sign up to be alerted when she does open up her schedule for more personal shout-outs. We're waiting with bated breath.
Kaitlin Bennett has equated birth control with abortion
Unpopular opinions are kind of Kaitlin Bennett's bread and butter, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised by any of her bold opinions. Even so, there are a couple of more "out there," ideas she's thrown out, one of those being the idea that birth control is no different from abortion. The official Liberty Hangout Twitter account tweeted, "Birth control is just another form of abortion. You cannot be Christian and participate in the willful termination of children's lives. Thank God for the Catholic Church for consistently opposing this evil for 2000 years."
To be clear, scientifically, birth control is not abortion. Abortion refers to terminating a pregnancy. Birth control prevents a pregnancy from happening. This was pointed out in the replies. One user tweeted, "By that logic are you saying menstruation is also abortion???" Another wrote, "So is not having sex during ovulation also murder?" One person joked, "sorry babe i cant wear a condom liberty hangout said its murder." Other controversial tweets Bennett and Liberty Hangout have been roasted for include one saying, "Make birth control illegal again," and another that reads, "Pro-choicers who demand that people pay for their birth control or childcare so that they don't get an abortion are seriously deranged."
While some in the Catholic church argue that contraception is morally the same as abortion, if we're talking about biology, these are not the same thing.
Her college major may surprise you
Judging by her public persona and general political crusade, you may have guessed that Kaitlin Bennett majored in something like political science or even business in college. Nope! It turns out the Kent State Gun Girl majored in biology, according to USA Today. Now, we have a couple of reasons to find this a little strange. In the first place, she's put forward ideas conflating birth control and abortion which are disputed by biological fact. She's also been known to float misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines, which even resulted in a Twitter user quipping, "How did you graduate from college and understand so little science?"
We're not sure what Bennett originally planned to do with her degree in biology, but we're willing to hazard an opinion that she's found a pretty lucrative calling outside of the world of STEM. Maybe political activism is her true calling.
She's been accused of racist statements
Those familiar with Kaitlin Bennett's work will know that she has some very strong opinions about racism, though, they are not exactly what you'd call mainstream opinions about racism. She has tweeted that "There is only institutional racism against whites" and commented on a LeBron James tweet about police brutality against Black people, "You're a racist."
But she's also been flagged for more troubling ideas. Mediaite reported that she allegedly "liked" a Facebook post by a known Nazi sympathizer that read, "My favorite part of getting on a conversation with strangers is watching their reaction of disgusted surprise when they realize I basically just advocated for genocide of all the demographic groups they support instead of agreeing with their garbage." She has also been accused of making anti-Semitic comments in a private group chat with other Liberty Hangout members. Per the Independent, alleged screenshots of the convo published to a Leftist blog show Bennett making disparaging remarks about Jewish people. One person wrote, "Can't wait to get back to being normal Nazis."
Liberty Hangout has also been flagged for anti-semitism after the account Tweeted a poll asking if the holocaust "happened as we've been told," via Snopes. The tweet was later deleted.
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Logan Paul and Kaitlin Bennett have had words
Another famous name on the (rather long) list of celebs and media figures that Kaitlin Bennett has publicly tangled with is YouTube superstar Logan Paul, who invited her on his podcast, "Impaulsive" in 2019. After a, let's say lively, debate about gun control and the second amendment, both seemed to sour on the would-be-friendly relationship. In fact, Paul seemed to regret hosting her at all.
"I really do try to give people the benefit of the doubt," Paul said on a later podcast episode. However, he also said that he might have made a mistake in inviting her on. "When you show zero signs of change or improvement, or anything, I... we had her on the show, and she's the first guest that I'll say I'm ashamed I had her on the show." While you can still listen to the episode, Paul actually removed the video of the episode from his YouTube channel.
In return, Bennett posted to her own YouTube channel (basically as co-host Mike Majlak predicted), with edited clips from their conversation, with the title, "Kaitlin Bennett Exposes Logan Paul." Bennett said the real reason they pulled the episode was to control the narrative and "destroy any evidence they have of me behaving the exact opposite of what they want people to think of me."
Kaitlin Bennett's net worth is mysterious
So what does causing a general hullabaloo on the internet on the regular pay, anyway? As a matter of fact, creating a personal outrage machine can be kind of lucrative.
Popular YouTubers can rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars on YouTube ads alone, per Business Insider. Bennett's YouTube channel, Liberty Hangout, has about 630,000 subscribers, and most of her videos generate around 100,000 views or more. Business Insider reports that creators can make anywhere between $3,400 to $40,000 on a single video with one million views. Because Bennett's content isn't always advertiser-friendly, we'd guess she's bringing in less than top earners.
But that's not her only revenue stream. Bennett also has a Patreon, with 719 subscribers as of this writing, and $5, $10, and $15 per month subscription packages. Even if every one of those is only paying the lowest tier, that's already $3,595 per month. Then there's the merch. Bennett keeps up a lively merchandise business, selling t-shirts, hats, tumblers, and the like with provocative statements like "Stop being a Marxist" and "Real dads vote red."
So what does that all come out to? Because rates vary so widely, we can't speculate with any certainty. What we can say is she's not about to starve.