A YouTuber allegedly held a cat named Betsy hostage during business negotiations

Cat.
(Image credit: OLIVIER MORIN/AFP via Getty Images)

#FreeBetsy?

The latest drama out of the YouTube world involves a creator named Tim Pool, a popular "liberal reporter who became a Trump voter after feeling alienated from the modern left," according to The Daily Beast. Back in 2019, Emily Molli, cat mom to a feline named Betsy, helped Pool co-found a "news site/YouTube channel/news footage service" called Subverse (the name was later changed to SCNR).

Because Molli was traveling frequently for work, she left her cat, Betsy, in the care of one of the co-hosts of Pool's podcast, who ended up living with Pool in his mansion. But when business tensions flared last fall, Molli claims Pool used her cat as "leverage" in their negotiations:

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

When Molli tried to get her cat back by sending Pool an email offering to send people to pick him up at the house anyway and to pay for a veterinarian visit so the cat could be cleared to fly on an airplane, Pool referred her to his lawyer."Any correspondence must go through our attorney," Pool wrote on Feb. 22. "Please contact them I will not reply to further emails."But Wylie Stecklow, a lawyer who had been asked to untangle the fight over SCNR's future, told Molli he wasn't handling the increasingly elaborate cat exchange."To the extent your question involves a cat or pet, I can affirmatively set forth that I am not representing anyone regarding a cat or pet," Stecklow wrote in a Feb. 22 email to Molli… [The Daily Beast]

Pool, meanwhile, denies he ever had custody of the cat. Thankfully, Betsy was eventually reunited with Molli, but you'll want to read the full, strange story at The Daily Beast, here.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.