Catherine Paiz Breaks Silence on Ex-Husband Austin McBroom’s Cheating Scandal in Emotional Interview

Catherine Paiz is sharing her side of the story.

The social media influencer, who skyrocketed to online fame with the ACE Family vlogs on YouTube, opened up about her ex-husband Austin McBroom’s cheating scandal that led to their divorce during an episode of Call Her Daddy released on Wednesday, May 28.

Paiz, 34, who spoke in depth to host Alex Cooper about her ex-husband’s alleged infidelity, wed McBroom, 33, privately in 2017 and shared the news in January 2020, shortly after they announced their third pregnancy. Together, they share Elle, 8, Alaïa, 6, and Steel, 4.

In the episode, Cooper mentioned that there have been many different allegations of McBroom cheating on Paiz over the years since they’ve been in the public eye as a result of their popular YouTube channel documenting their family’s life

“When it first started, my heart sank. I’m like ‘Oh my gosh,’ ” the content creator mom told the Call Her Daddy host of her reaction when she heard the initial infidelity rumors.

However, Paiz explained why she was hesitant to believe the claims at the time since she was with her then-husband all the time, emphasizing that they were married, co-parenting and business partners.

“There’s moments I didn’t know what to believe. There’s some things that are true, there’s some things that are distorted, there’s some things that are not true — so it was really hard to tell,” she admitted.

When the allegations started, Paiz confronted McBroom about them.

But she recalled him saying, ” ‘Oh you know that comes with a territory and let’s not respond because we’re just going to add fuel to the fire and it’s not true.’ And I’m like ‘Okay’.”

Paiz admitted that she “really trusted him” and didn’t believe that he was unfaithful to her in the beginning.

Then, in the interview, Cooper attempted to find out the “first big moment” Paiz realized McBroom’s alleged betrayal. However, she said there were “quite a few moments” that made it tough to pinpoint when she knew exactly.

While Paiz didn’t know the exact number of women, she claimed she knew “for sure three.” However, she claims she’s seen headlines that allege McBroom said 20 women, but she doesn’t know if it’s true.

Paiz did recall, though, “a couple of moments” when she was “heartbroken.” She went on to detail a story, which took place when she had just had her second daughter, Alaïa, who was around 6 months old at the time.

The now mother of three remembers McBroom telling her he had to go to Miami for a meeting.

“I’m the type of partner where I love for my partner to feel free, like ‘I trust you, go. You want to go on a trip, you want to go on a boys’ trip, whatever you want to do, go.’ Like that’s just my personality,” she told Cooper.

“Now I look back, I’m thinking I should change some things up a little bit,” she continued. “I was tired. I was filming every day. I had another baby [to take care of], changing diapers and breastfeeding. I breastfeed all my kids [for] five years straight, so super exhausted, super tired, you know?”

Paiz explained how she was cool with him going because he edited all of their family vlogs and “deserves” to go on the business trip.

“I remember that business trip like it was yesterday,” she said before recalling the phone calls she’d have with him while he was away and heard “women in the back” of their conversations, which she brushed off at the time.

“A couple months go by and this blonde male makeup artist makes this video on YouTube talking about my husband and how he was in Miami and there was this group of people and there was all these girls and there was this boat,” she added, noting that she still hasn’t watched the video herself.

In the moment, Paiz — who said she was pregnant again, but this time with her son — recalled “bawling” when she found out from her friends who watched the clip and fed her the information, thinking if the rumors could be true.

“I didn’t believe the horrors,” she continued. “But it was like, ‘Am I just being stupid right now? Like, am I just really not sitting with this, or do I vindicate him, do I vindicate our family?’ And that’s what I did, and I think back at my old self, I think, ‘Poor girl.’ Like I wish I could hug her today.”

Fast forward to when Paiz was around three months pregnant with Steel, she remembered “deep inside something didn’t feel right.” She told a story from when she and McBroom went to film their daughter’s first haircut, and a sketchy text popped up on his phone that she read.

“‘If you really love your wife, you wouldn’t be…'” she alleged the text read in part. “My brain scanned it, but I wasn’t able to read it fully. But in that moment, my heart drops. I’m pregnant. There’s people watching us. The camera’s on. It felt like it just felt surreal.”

Paiz said she went home “like nothing happened,” but then didn’t talk to McBroom for a couple of days. Then, they discussed what happened a few days later and he showed her the girl he had been talking to.

However, Paiz claimed that she only heard McBroom say “I cheated” until about a week ago when the first chapter of her book, Dolores – My Journey Home, came out on May 11.

McBroom hasn’t addressed Paiz’s claims since the Call Her Daddy episode with Paiz was released. PEOPLE has reached out to him for further comment.

McBroom confirmed in a 31-minute video posted to Snapchat Stories on that he “stepped out” of his marriage to Paiz.

“Now let’s get into the cheating. When it comes to me stepping out of my marriage I did. I 100% stepped out of my marriage,” McBroom admitted in the series of posts. “It was completely wrong for me to do it. I take full accountability. If I can go back and change it, I would, and I’m sorry for that. I truly am, but when it comes to her acting like she had no idea what was going on, that is a complete lie. Catherine knew what I was dealing with for a very long time.”

In the videos, McBroom alleges he’d felt like he was getting “no affection” from Catherine and had tried to speak with her about it multiple times.

“Her exact words, verbatim — on my kids — she said ‘Just don’t make me look dumb. Don’t embarrass me,’ ” he continued in the video. “I don’t know what that means to you guys, but to me it sounds like ‘Go do whatever you need to do because I’m not capable of giving you what you need.’ “

Paiz emotionally denied these claims when speaking to Cooper.