Clinton Kane addresses online fight with ex Brooke Schofield

TThe public back-and-forth between ex-girlfriends Brooke Schofield and Clinton Kane took the Internet by storm this summer, drawing tens of millions of viewers who watched the escalating drama. Even Vice President Kamala Harris’ office got in on the fun, using audio from one of Schofield’s videos to taunt Donald Trump on TikTok, and the video currently has over 21 million views.

Kane, a singer with about 2 million followers on TikTok, sparked online drama in late June when he posted a video to promote a new song. The video’s text reads, “When you’ve gotten over your relationship for two years but she won’t stop blabbing,” a reference to Schofield, a podcaster and content creator, speaking publicly about how she discovered Kane was lying to her while they were falling in love.

His initial video attracted millions of views and started an online battle with Schofield. She posted a 16-part video series on TikTok in which she shared that during their relationship, Kane lied to her about many things, including his age and the death of his mother. The videos have had more than 121 million views and led many social media users to accuse Kane of emotional abuse and manipulation.

Kane countered this with his own 30-part video series that has racked up over 69 million views. He off the comments section of each video, signaling a reluctance to engage in any debate or discussion with their followers. And although he posted so many videos, viewers made it clear that he hadn’t clarified all your doubtsleading to the reaction.

The public wanted answers from Kane about Schofield’s claims, including the lies she said he told. One of them was Kane’s statement about his mother’s death. In 2022, Kane said in an interview with Zach Sang that his mother, brother and father died in the same year and that one of her songs was about mourning the death of his mother, with whom he had a complicated relationship. Sang invited Schofield’s Canceled Podcast co-host Tana Mongeau on the show in April 2023 and in that conversation, he claimed that Kane had lied about his mother’s death. Mongeau agreed and added that, at the time, Kane had written on Instagram that he wasn’t talking about his biological mother, but a “mother figure.”

In one of the videos that Schofield posted on TikTok, she says that when she found out that Kane was faking his mother’s death, she tried to confront him and he stated that it was true and became upset with her. “He made me feel horrible for accusing him of lying about something like that,” she says in the video. “I felt so disgusting and so guilty. I thought I was going crazy.”

TIME reached out to Schofield for an interview, but his representatives declined to comment. In an interview with Glam published on August 1stSchofield talked about how she navigated the situation and ended up collaborating with a brand aptly named Boys Lie to release a hoodie that features a little angel holding a sign that says, “Block his number.”

Kane, whose mother and brother are alive, called the lies Schofield called “mistakes” and attributed the online backlash to “groupthink” in an interview with TIME. He says online content creators or public figures in general can’t “make any more mistakes” because they are always front and center.

Kane’s latest song, released on August 1 and called “Make Me Your Monster,” clearly focuses on the drama with lyrics like “Burn the house down, baby. What are ex-boyfriends for? Go ahead, make me your monster.” He says he wrote for people “who are bullied, people who are disappointed in life, people who have been there.”

Kane says there was no thought process behind posting the initial video in June that started the discussion. “She’s been talking about it for two years… it was just a matter of timing,” he says. “I haven’t said anything about anything about the relationship or her name, nor have I spoken badly about it in a long time. So I thought, ‘Why not? This will be funny.'”

“It’s like, ‘How can someone grow as a human being, as a person, if they don’t make mistakes?’” Kane says. “I think that’s the saddest part because I highlighted the mistakes and took responsibility for the mistakes I made in that relationship. There’s nothing I can do to change anyone’s mind; You believe what you believe, and I totally respect that.”

That’s why he disabled the comments section on all 30 response videos. “The purpose of these videos was not to get approval, views or likes… No one’s opinion on the subject really matters. I was supposed to put out the things I needed to put out there, and people can say what they need to say.

When asked why he lied about his mother’s death, he referred to the 10-minute video discussing the situation.

In a statement later sent by Kane’s representatives, he says that his biological mother is still alive and that he is estranged from her because he grew up in a very religious environment. “When I was traveling, I met someone who I had a really wonderful, beautiful connection with, who has been a mother figure to me ever since. And when she got sick and ended up passing away, for me – the emotions were so intense that for me it was as if one of her parents had died,” he writes. “Unfortunately, at the time, I didn’t have the tools to process these emotions and that led me to where we are now. When I joined that podcast, everything was still very recent and I didn’t want to talk about it, so I said I wasn’t comfortable. I’m not making an excuse.”

Kane adds in the statement that he didn’t know how to convey publicly that the woman he viewed as his mother, not his biological mother, had passed away and that he wished he had spoken out and clarified that in private.

But Schofield’s characterization of their relationship drew additional ire online. In other stories Schofield shared in her video series, she says they quarantined together during COVID for days and when she would try to leave to be alone and cool off at home, he would get upset and ask to go with her. He also accused Schofield of “worsening his trauma,” she says, and would say she reminded him of his mother, who “was so horrible to him and I should be a lot more sensitive to everything he’s going through.”

When asked about Schofield’s claims in her videos, Kane says, “Did I make mistakes in the relationship? I think every relationship is 50% each person’s responsibility? Yes. All these people commenting and thinking and all these things are making it seem like it’s something more than two people who just didn’t work out after three months. And that’s it.”

He says he feels like he needs to give himself grace for being a person who, at 22, didn’t know how to properly navigate a healthy relationship. “The only thing I can do is learn to be better, and I feel like I tried to do that,” he says. “I mean, I’ve been in therapy four to five times a week for the last two years this has happened, and it costs a pretty penny.”