If you didn't know about Elijah Schaffer before March 3, 2024, no one would blame you. While the podcaster wasn't a small creator by any means, his content wasn't widespread enough to reach most mainstream audiences. Rather, he catered to his niche audience of listeners and viewers. Schaffer would have remained off the radar of the internet at large if he hadn't decided to take a swing at Black Twitter's princess, Halle Bailey. Now everyone wants to know who he is, what he does, and why he came for Halle in the first place. Here’s everything you need to know about Elijah Schaffer.
Who Is Elijah Schaffer?
Elijah Schaffer is a podcaster, journalist, online personality, and commentator. There isn't a lot of information online about his early life or career paths before he started creating content online however. Nonetheless, he is best known for his podcast, Slightly Offensive With Elijah Schaffer, where he addresses controversial topics with his unfiltered takes. He rose to prominence during the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd. Schaffer, alongside a handful of other right-wing journalists and videographers, referred to themselves as the “Riot Squad.” They would post videos of the alleged damage caused during leftist protests, often referring to any and everyone at these protests as members of Antifa.
Schaffer was also part of the rioters who raided the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Furthermore, he posted pictures of emails from a computer in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office. Outside of his online activity, he worked at right-wing media outlet, The Blaze for a while, until he was let go in 2022. He was fired due to charges of sexual assault by one of his co-workers, which the company did not take lightly. He had allegedly groped a female colleague, and this led to an intensive internal investigation. Unsurprisingly, the investigation revealed the testimony of another coworker, who accused him of something similar. Schaffer announced the news of his departure from The Blaze, saying that he would be going independent. He still works as a journalist and has been writing for the news website The Gateway Pundit since 2023.
What Happened With Halle Bailey?
On March 2, Schaffer sent out a damning tweet, posting a picture of Halle Bailey with the caption, "When exactly did Hollywood become flooded with ugly people?" He followed this up the next day with a picture of the alien E.T. from the 1982 movie of the same name, captioning that post, “The new Lil Mermaid actress.” Things escalated when DDG, Halle Bailey's boyfriend and father of her son, caught wind of Schaffer’s tweets.
DDG launched a series of clapbacks at Schaffer, specifically targeting his mother who died of cancer in 2020. DDG tweeted, "I'm smoking on your dead ass mama. That dumb bitch should have got a better doctor." He followed this with a picture of himself smoking a blunt with a picture of Schaffer's mother photoshopped at the end of the blunt and a caption reading, "Ngl, this shit gas.” Other users on X (formerly Twitter) were also quick to rise to Halle Bailey’s defense and take shots at Schaffer. Considering that his tweets are now deleted, it’s safe to say that he realized he messed with the wrong crowd.