Adin Ross said no. The second-biggest streamer on Kick publicly refused on a May 17 livestream to post $1.25 million bail for Dalton "Chud the Builder" Eatherly, the racist Tennessee streamer charged with attempted first-degree murder after shooting a Black man outside a courthouse. The refusal went viral within hours, per Dexerto.
⚡ Key Takeaways
- Adin Ross publicly refused to post $1.25M bail for Chud the Builder on a May 17 Kick livestream. His on-air answer: 'Fuck no. Absolutely fucking not.'
- Dalton Eatherly, 28, is charged with attempted first-degree murder after shooting a Black man outside a Tennessee courthouse on May 13.
- Ross paid IShowSpeed's $20K bail in 2022, setting a streamer-bailout precedent. The 2026 ask is 62x bigger, tied to a Kick-banned racist.
- Detectives recovered a bulletproof vest and a May 22 Istanbul plane ticket from Eatherly's residence after the shooting.
- Chud's gifts, donations, and $CHUD memecoin are functionally frozen because none of it is custodied anywhere a lawyer can reach without him.
- Ross's refusal resets the ceiling on what reputational risk top creators will absorb for someone in their orbit.
What actually happened?
On May 13, Eatherly, 28, shot Joshua Fox in the torso and arm outside the Montgomery County Courthouse in Clarksville. He was charged with attempted first-degree murder, employing a firearm during a dangerous felony, aggravated assault, and reckless endangerment, according to CNN. Judge Reid Poland III set bond at $1.25M at the May 15 arraignment, citing the public location of the shooting, ABC News reported. Detectives later recovered a bulletproof vest and a May 22 Istanbul plane ticket from Eatherly's residence, per ClarksvilleNow.
From jail, Eatherly recorded a phone-message plea to Ross that surfaced online around May 16. He offered to fight for free on Ross's "Brand Risk" Kick boxing event in exchange for the bond, saying he could not reach his own gifts, donations, or crypto wallets while incarcerated. On May 17, a chatter teased Ross with the line "imagine the clips," and Ross detonated the request live. He repeated the refusal on subsequent streams and on X.
Chud's pre-arrest run already had Kick wanting distance. He was indefinitely banned and demonetized on April 28, three weeks before the shooting, after a string of IRL streams in which he aimed racial slurs at Black bystanders. He kept roughly 229,000 followers on X, migrated his livestreams to Pump.fun, and launched a memecoin called $CHUD, per Rolling Stone. The arrest froze nearly all of it.
Why does this matter for creators?
The ask was not random. Ross built the precedent for it in August 2022, when he wired roughly $20,000 to bail out IShowSpeed after Speed was arrested during a livestreamed swatting. Speed credited Ross publicly at the time. Four years later, that single wire had turned into an unspoken contract: when a top streamer's friend lands in jail on stream, someone bigger is supposed to write the check.
The 2026 ask is sixty-two times bigger, attached to a streamer Kick itself had already deplatformed for racist content, and tied to an attempted-murder charge against a Black victim. Ross's "fuck no" is the first highly public refusal of that contract from a top-five Kick name. It resets the ceiling on what reputational risk top creators will absorb for someone in their orbit. The line he drew on May 17 is the kind of line every major creator is now being asked to draw in public.
"Fuck no. Absolutely fucking not."
Adin Ross, on his Kick livestream, May 17 2026
Where does this go from here?
Eatherly's revenue stack is functionally frozen. His Kick gifts, his donations, and the $CHUD memecoin he launched on Pump.fun are tied to wallets and accounts only he can sign into, which is exactly the problem he flagged in the jail phone message. On May 21, a Tennessee judge ordered him to stop posting about the case online. Bond was slightly lowered to $1M as the matter heads to a grand jury.
The fallout is bleeding outside the streamer bubble. Eatherly's defense firm has received "hateful calls and emails" for taking the case, attorney Jake Fendley told Dexerto. Creator Twitter has spent the week of May 18 arguing whether Ross's refusal is principled distance or selective loyalty, with critics flagging his past platforming of Nick Fuentes. The argument is not about Chud anymore; it is about which lines the top streamers actually hold.
What does Fanvault think?
Adin Ross drew the right line, late but publicly, and the streamer economy needed to see it. Peer-bailouts have been a four-year loyalty test, and the bill finally came back attached to an attempted-murder charge against a Black victim. At Fanvault we think brand-safety stops being a corporate problem and starts being a peer problem the moment your top names are the ones writing the check. A creator platform built on 8% fees and verified onboarding only works if its biggest accounts are willing to say "no" out loud, on stream, with the camera on.
The Chud-Adin episode is a stress test of a contract every top creator now has to renegotiate in public. The next time a creator-economy "friend" lands in jail with a felony attached, the first question on stream will not be how much; it will be whether anyone says yes at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Chud the Builder and what is he charged with?
Dalton Levi Eatherly, 28, is a Tennessee streamer who built an audience by filming racist confrontations with Black strangers. He was indefinitely banned from Kick on April 28, 2026 for that content. On May 13, 2026, he shot Joshua Fox in the torso and arm outside the Montgomery County Courthouse in Clarksville. He's now charged with attempted first-degree murder, employing a firearm during a dangerous felony, aggravated assault, and reckless endangerment.
Why did Adin Ross refuse to post bail?
Ross explained the refusal across multiple streams on May 17 and 18. He framed it as principled distance from a streamer Kick itself had already deplatformed for racist content, and from a violent crime that does not fit the 'creator in legal trouble' frame Speed's 2022 swatting did. Critics pointed out Ross has previously platformed figures including Nick Fuentes, so the line he is drawing is selective. The argument is now less about Chud and more about which boundaries top streamers will hold publicly.
What happens to Chud's money while he is in jail?
Most of it is functionally frozen. His Kick gifts, donations, and the $CHUD memecoin he launched on Pump.fun after the Kick ban are tied to wallets and accounts only he can sign into. That is exactly the problem he flagged in the recorded phone message asking Ross for help. It is also a broader creator-economy lesson: revenue without proper custody planning evaporates the moment you cannot sign in.
How does this compare to Adin Ross bailing out IShowSpeed in 2022?
In August 2022, Ross wired roughly $20,000 to bail Speed out after Speed was arrested during a livestreamed swatting incident. That was a non-violent misunderstanding on a viral stream, and it cost about 1.5% of what Chud's bond costs. The 2026 ask is sixty-two times bigger and attached to an attempted-murder charge against a Black victim. The two situations are not comparable on either dollars or facts, which is the point Ross has been making.