I’ve avoided speaking about this for nearly two years. Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because this relationship genuinely broke me in ways I’m still trying to understand. I did not want my career, something I spent over ten years building, to be defined by one person or one relationship. I stayed quiet because I wanted to move forward without letting this consume my life or my work.

But it hasn’t stayed in the past.

My breakup with Ellum gets brought back up constantly on Reddit, Twitter, TikTok, and in my mentions almost monthly. Speculation never stopped, and it has made it incredibly difficult to heal or move forward. I’ve also seen people say that if something truly bad happened that I should speak up about it so they know who they are supporting, or so people around Josh are not unaware. While it is not my responsibility to share something this traumatic publicly, staying silent has not helped me move forward either. At this point, it feels like this is the only way to finally put this to rest so I can move into the new year and focus on my career and my life again.

I want to be clear from the start. I have never asked anyone to stop being friends with Josh. Ever. The idea that UK creators stopped speaking to him because of me is not true. Many of them were friends with him long before we dated and have their own reasons for distancing themselves. Obviously they weren’t happy witnessing how he treated me but that isn’t their sole reason for cutting him off. I have spoken privately with a few LA creators who reached out when speculation resurfaced, and I hold absolutely no malice toward them or the friendships they continue to have. I have only ever had good interactions with most of them but many of them are aware of what he’s done.

I am sharing this now because what happened has been reduced online to “just cheating.” It was not. It was emotional manipulation, financial and career exploitation, and behavior that was intentional and later admitted to.

Very early on, about two weeks into dating, Josh asked to move in together, saying his lease was ending soon even though he could have gone month to month. Around that time, Simon and Talia had just moved into a new apartment in London, and he made it clear he wanted to live near them. The apartment was far beyond what I had planned to spend. I was already financially supporting my entire household and family in New York, but I agreed as long as he paid a fair portion of the rent as I wanted to make him happy. At that time he made significantly less money than me, so I never expected half, but he ended up paying nothing for the entirety of that lease.

When he came to New York to meet my family for the first time, instead of spending time with us, he stayed in my room almost the entire trip doing a subathon. During that visit, I wanted to surprise him by telling him I had secured the apartment and went to show my mom a YouTube video of the layout. Instead, I discovered in my YouTube watch history on my laptop that he had been rewatching videos of him and his ex on holiday, along with videos titled things like “what does it mean when your ex says it’s too soon.” Looking back, I should have ended the relationship right there. Instead, I believed his apologies and his explanation that he was trying to delete old content involving his ex. However I later found out he was trying to meet up with her for dinner hence the youtube video search.

Around that same time, he made our relationship public online despite me asking him not to. My own mother found out we were dating from a YouTube Short. I then explicitly asked him not to make us moving in together public either, and he did it anyway. Every tiktok , YT Short and video now became focused on his girlfriend being CaptainPuffy. He’d use me for YT videos without even asking me. I’d be mid-streaming myself and then suddenly, his camera man would knock on the door saying that I’m filming a video for Josh, so I’d have to end my own stream. His entire YT channel almost became a couple’s channel, and I received nothing for it. It became clear very early on that my boundaries mattered less than views which slowly ate away at me. All of these videos are still on his channel now at the current time of writing this.

When I officially moved to the UK right before Christmas, after he met my family and told my mom he would look after me, our apartment was not ready yet. He refused to let me stay at his place for the week, saying it was meant to be his and his ex’s apartment, even though they never lived together, and that there were too many memories and he did not want to mix me with his memories there. As a result, I spent thousands of dollars alone in a hotel in central London during the holidays right after leaving my family and moving abroad. He never visited me once. Rarely called. He stayed up all night playing games with his creator friend. I was incredibly lonely and homesick, and he knew that.

When the apartment was ready, I moved in before him because he said he needed more time. He moved at the last minute and did not come over to help me build anything but the sofa, he did not help set anything up, and did not help make it feel like a home.

From that point on, I paid for almost everything. We lived in a very expensive apartment that I covered almost entirely. I did all of the shopping, cooking, cleaning, and took care of the house, our dog, and every responsibility that came with running a home. The only bill he consistently paid was the water bill. Nearly every dinner or outing, he would slide the check across the table to me or joke about using my debit card so it looked like he paid. Even my birthday dinners came with complaints where he had to pay for me and our friends.

He also intentionally took advantage of my generosity. He told me his ex never gave him gifts, which made me feel bad knowing my love language is gift giving and acts of service. He would purposely mention expensive things he wanted in front of me, knowing I would feel compelled to get them for him.

Whenever I confronted him about money,talking to girls or his just overall poor behavior it would always take numerous heated discussions just to see even a small amount of change, only for him to immediately go back to exactly the same behavior.

When we moved to a new apartment he wouldn’t help me do any apartment viewings despite me being not familiar with the UK. When I asked if he could help even by just looking online and telling me what he liked he said I could hire his brother to come look with me instead. When I got the new apartment he then complained and said he didn’t like it and that it was too small for him.

When we broke up and he moved out of our final apartment, he left behind paperwork that showed his bank balance from over a year prior. It showed a very significant amount of money saved, more than enough to have contributed the entire time if he wanted to. When I confronted him, his explanation was that he became obsessed with watching his bank balance grow, even while knowing I was hemorrhaging through my savings paying for both my family back in NY and our life in London.

After the breakup, every conversation we had about money he tried to negotiate what he owed me in rent. He made several deductions and paid the bare minimum over the course of over a year. He did not pay utilities, did not pay his own council tax, and tried to deduct time he chose to spend in LA and Japan, as if being on vacation meant rent did not apply.

When Simon and Talia moved to the countryside, Josh wanted to follow them. This is why I leased a Tesla. He said he would not have time to drive me around for errands, etc and I was meant to learn to drive. After I got the car, he sold his own, kept the money, and paid nothing toward the Tesla or its insurance. The Tesla effectively became his, as I never drove it once. After the breakup, I was left stuck with the lease and had to pay thousands to break the lease.

After I had already done multiple house viewings, paperwork, and paid deposits for a countryside rental, he suddenly changed his mind saying he’d probably be in London several days a week and needed a studio because creators wouldn’t want to travel out of the countryside to film with him. I told him I wasn’t paying for both a countryside home and a London studio, so we stayed in London and now were stuck with the Tesla.

His behavior with other women slowly wore me down. He secretly messaged his ex and regularly DM’d women he effectively did not know, almost always streamers significantly smaller than him. He would follow them on social media, reply to Instagram stories, and then message them daily with flirty and playful conversations and never in front of me. When I brought it up, he claimed they were just friends or that my behavior was “controlling” reminding him of his ex. I have never been uncomfortable with partners having female friends, especially given how many Josh publicly had, but random women he had never interacted with, messaging daily despite me saying it made me uncomfortable and crossed a line. He continued anyway stating that “I’d never break up with him”. At one point, he even said that if he cheated on me, at least he would get clout from it.

One of the most telling moments to how little he cared was when I was anxious and emotional and he told me to take a pregnancy test. He made me go buy it alone and then went live on stream. It was not even an important stream, just casual mod games that could have waited. He never came out of his office to check on me. My friend Gee was the first person to know the test was negative. He later texted saying he assumed it was negative. I later found out that day he had been texting his ex.

When he started streaming with the LA creators, our entire life flipped upside down to fit around theirs. He told me it was temporary and that he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity while it was there, meaning the clout and connections that came with it. I genuinely like the LA creators and hold no resentment toward them, but after over six months of being his last priority and watching him care more about their approval than my wellbeing, the relationship was already over.

If any of his creator friends were even mildly upset with him, it would ruin his entire day. But if I was truly upset with any of his actions, he effectively did not care. He would stonewall me or go to bed while I cried next to him and never changed his behavior.

During the end of our relationship, he travelled to LA numerous times for various events or sometimes no events at all and just consistently extended staying longer and longer each time.

 The breaking point was when he said he was travelling to LA for one of QT's events which I don't think he ever ended up taking part in and then left me home alone for the entirety of the Christmas season knowing that our relationship was already in a vulnerable place.

Throughout his stay in LA I had multiple conversations about how upset and depressed I was and how his consistent bad behaviour was only making it worse. Despite all of these conversations he just kept extending his trip anyway.

He then came home on the last possible flight on Christmas Eve and walked in the door and didn’t even give me a hug and we just sat in silence eating dinner. I obviously was heartbroken and really upset as he just continued to ignore me the rest of the night but when we went to bed, he then tried to sleep with me to which I rejected.

On Christmas Day he once again barely spoke to me, however we spent the day at his family’s house to which he was dead silent since he said he was tired from jet lag. We came home and went to bed, and he then tried to sleep with me again after ignoring me the entire car ride home again which I rejected.

Japan was meant to be our first proper trip away together. Instead, it later became a creator trip. I loved the people going, but our relationship was already in shambles and I could not pretend everything was okay. I stayed home. I had already tried multiple times to leave him. While he was in Japan, he asked me to wait to break up with him and think about it. I couldn’t wait anymore. I sent him a long message explaining why I could not wait for him to come back, how broken he made me feel, and how deeply depressed I was and all of the unforgivable things he’s done. I honestly thought breaking up with him while he was there was kinder. He was surrounded by friends who could comfort him, and it meant he could go to LA afterwards instead of being stuck in the UK, which I knew he did not want to be in anyway.

My friends in the UK were deeply concerned for my mental and physical health. I barely left the house and stopped eating regularly. I showed up alone to Christmas events, visibly sad.

When I first told him I wanted to break up with him he rejected it and overnight he became the “perfect boyfriend”. It showed me he had always known how to be a good partner, he just did not want to be one for me until he felt there were finally genuine consequences. He was suddenly attentive and thoughtful, almost disturbingly so. But if I sat alone too long, he would ask what I was doing or who I was texting. If I did my makeup with the door closed, he would come in, open the door, then leave. It was not comforting. It was upsetting. During this stage, I overheard him on the phone with a creator friend saying he thought the relationship was “GG,” assuming I was asleep which made it feel like our relationship was a joke to him.

After we broke up, we stayed in contact briefly. On Valentine’s Day, he sent me an Amazon package with flowers and a teddy bear which I thought was sweet until I realized the package also included a s*x toy that can be controlled through an app. He told me on the phone to let him know if I had used it. I told him that it made me deeply uncomfortable and I found it creepy and he said it was just a joke.

When he came back from LA after the breakup, I stayed at Talia’s house so he could collect his belongings and leave because I did not want to see him. He said he needed more time and instead streamed the entire time and left packing and moving to the last possible minute. He knew there was a camera in my office and had no reason to be in there as none of his belongings were in there.Throughout the course of my stay at Talia’s I had several notifications saying there was movement in my office.When checking I saw he had repeatedly showered in my office bathroom and walked past the camera completely naked multiple times, even after I texted him reminding him there was a camera there. We had three separate showers in the house, and prior to this he had never used my office bathroom before.

I also need to say this clearly. The way he treated our dog Pudding was heartbreaking. When I flew back to New York to visit my mom, he would not let her out of her crate until around 5pm because that was when he woke up since he stayed up late to play with LA creators. He would not walk her, did not clean up her messes, rarely played with her, and often locked her out of his room while streaming. He did not pay for her food, grooming, or vet bills.When I flew back to London with my mom there was dog poo all over the backyard. Although he's admitted publicly that she is my dog and that I was the one who mainly took care of her, she is still currently an emote in his stream.

I initially dated Josh because many of our mutual creator friends vouched for him and believed he was a good guy who had been treated badly in his last relationship. Over time, the truth slowly revealed itself to all of us. I later discovered that this was a pattern of behavior that had been repeated in his previous relationships.

I take accountability that I let him get away with far too much, gave him far too much, and paid for far too much. My nature and love language is very much gift giving and acts of service, and sadly I allowed him to take full advantage of that until there was nothing left for him to gain from me. In a conversation following the breakup he agreed that he took advantage of my kind nature.

I stayed silent because this relationship did not just hurt, it derailed me. I have not fully come back to content or felt like myself since. Something I loved for the better part of a decade became tied to trauma. I did not want my career to be defined by him, but his actions left a mark anyway.

This was not just cheating. It was emotional torment, manipulation, and intentional financial and career exploitation until there was nothing left for him to benefit.

Despite this being incredibly long, this is only a fraction of what I endured in my relationship with Josh. I am sharing this now because staying quiet has not helped me heal. I want to be able to move forward with my life and career and finally put this all behind me.

I’ve always kept my personal life private from the internet and tried to steer clear of any drama. But, unfortunately after being publicly prompted on multiple occasions I feel a responsibility to share this with you all.

Thank you for being so understanding and still supporting me for the past two years despite my absences and inconsistency. Hopefully it all makes more sense now.  It's difficult to put into words how appreciative I am for all of you. I’m looking forward to the next chapter and whatever 2026 brings.

Love you all,

Cara / CaptainPuffy