Catherine Paiz Emotionally Breaks Silence on Ex-Husband Austin McBroom's Cheating Scandal

The 34-year-old social media star, best known for documenting her life with then-husband Austin McBroom on their massively popular YouTube channel, The ACE Family, opened up on the Call Her Daddy podcast about the alleged infidelity that led to their split.

In the episode released Wednesday Paiz sat down with host Alex Cooper and spoke candidly about the emotional toll of McBroom's alleged cheating throughout their marriage.

"When it first started, my heart sank. I'm like, 'Oh my gosh,'" Paiz recalled, reacting to the first rumors of infidelity that surfaced while the couple were still together and actively sharing their life online with their more than 18 million followers.

The pair privately wed in 2017, later announcing the news in January 2020 while expecting their third child. They share three children: Elle, 8, Alaïa, 6, and Steel, 4.

Despite being "married, co-parenting and business partners," Paiz said she struggled to know what to believe as more and more rumors came to the surface.

"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 rumors began, she confronted McBroom, who downplayed the speculation.

"'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,'" Paiz remembered him saying.

While she said she "really trusted him" early on, and didn't initially believe he was cheating, as time went on, moments started to stack up, and it became too much to ignore.

When asked by Cooper when she first knew, Paiz responded, "There were quite a few moments," but did confirm, "I knew for sure three" women were involved. She added she'd seen headlines claiming McBroom admitted to "20 women," though she said, "I don't know if that's true."

One especially painful memory came after giving birth to their second daughter, Alaïa. Paiz recalled McBroom saying he had to go to Miami for a business trip.

"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 said.

"Now I look back, I’m thinking I should change some things up a little bit," she added. "I was tired. I was filming every day. I had another baby [to take care of], changing diapers and breastfeeding... super exhausted, super tired, you know?"

She said she let him go because he edited all their family vlogs and "deserved" the break. But during the trip, she noticed red flags.

"I remember that business trip like it was yesterday," Paiz said, recalling phone calls where she heard "women in the back."

She brushed it off until a then YouTuber -- "this blonde male makeup artist" uploaded a video detailing McBroom's alleged wild Miami trip. Though Paiz said she still hasn't watched it, her friends did, and broke it down for her.

"I was bawling," she said. "I didn't believe the horrors. 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."

Later, when she was about three months pregnant with their son, Steel, Paiz again recalled feeling something was off. While filming their daughter's first haircut, she saw a text pop up on McBroom's phone that read, "If you really love your wife, you wouldn’t be…"

She continued, "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."

After trying to get the truth out of McBroom she went on a long drive alone and ultimately made the decision to let it go, and went home pretending like nothing happened. She didn't speak to McBroom for a few days, the longest they'd ever gone since starting their relationship. And when they finally did talk, she said he showed her the woman he had been messaging.

Still, Paiz claimed McBroom didn't actually say the words "I cheated" until just a week before the podcast episode aired, after she released a snippet of her upcoming memoir, Dolores -- My Journey Home.

McBroom publicly commented on the podcast episode via Snapchat and his Twitch stream, saying in order for the back-and-forth between his ex-wife to stop, the best thing for him to do was "not respond."

He previously addressed the cheating allegations in a 31-minute video posted to his Snapchat Stories, admitting: "When it comes to me stepping out of my marriage I did. I 100% stepped out of my marriage."

"It was completely wrong for me to do it. I take full accountability," he said. "If I can go back and change it, I would, and I'm sorry for that. I truly am."

However, he also claimed Paiz wasn't blindsided his infidelities as she claimed to be, telling his followers: "Catherine knew what I was dealing with for a very long time."

In the video, McBroom claimed he felt "no affection" in their relationship and said he brought it up multiple times with Paiz.

"Her exact words, verbatim -- on my kids -- she said, 'Just don’t make me look dumb. Don't embarrass me,'" he alleged. "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 that statement on Call Her Daddy, telling Cooper, "One thing he said that really just was a punch to the gut was, 'Yes, I cheated and she was OK with it as long as I said you don’t embarrass me.'"

"That is not true. I never ever said that. I would never say that," she added through tears, noting that she does not condone cheating and never would.

Although Paiz said McBroom's infidelity was the biggest reason for the demise of heir relationship, she admitted that she didn't handle challenges in their marriage well, either.

"I'm a huge part of this problem," Paiz said. "I take full accountability for being in a relationship with someone and also not pursuing intimacy. Although I was disgusted and I didn't want to be intimate, I didn't have these very serious conversations like, 'Hey, maybe we should go see a therapist, maybe we should do couples therapy.'"

"This wasn't normal, going another year without being physically intimate," the influencer continued. "It is such an important part of a marriage and a relationship."

Elsewhere in the podcast, Paiz addressed McBroom's comments about her ayahuasca use, which she confirmed to practice after going on a retreat to Brazil. It's there she also met her now boyfriend, Igor Ten, who she said makes her feel the "safest" she's ever felt.

The pair were together for nearly a decade and married for seven years before announcing their divorce with separate Instagram statements in January 2024.

McBroom has also moved on with influencer, Alexa Mal, who has been seen in his social media posts.