【Green Bones (2024)】

Is Jake Paul a scam?Green Bones (2024)

In the fourth episode of his docu-series investigating the infamous vlogger, Shane Dawson lands an interview with Team 10's former COO Nick Crompton.

"House" doesn't even begin to describe Crompton's massive residence — he lives in some sort of influencer collective in a modern mansion with a full gym, a theater, an elevator in the house, and floor-to-ceiling windows with sweeping views of Los Angeles. Crompton, who started a marketing agency in the United Kingdom, helped Paul build Team 10, his social media talent incubator, from the ground up.

Comparing his time at Team 10 to a "college experience," Crompton tells Dawson that the squad's dynamic blended business with family; the members were "having fun, but we were making money at the same time."

The vloggers became a tight-knit group of friends who not only lived together, but also collaborated together. The alleged 20 percent that Jake skimmed off their YouTube revenue didn't go to him, but to paying for video production. Like a CEO, Jake is the face of the company: The profits made off Team 10 employees went back to Team 10.

He also pointed out that Jake isn't as much of an asshole as he seems to be in vlogs; Dawson plays paparazzi footage that catches Jake, well, acting. In the final version, Paul comes off as a wild personality, but the paparazzi shots show a teenager asking for suggestions.

"He has [done] a lot of dumb stuff, and I'm not saying there's an excuse for that," Crompton tells Dawson. "I'm just saying there's a lot of things that people don't know."

But the team started crumbing when Greg Paul got involved. Nobody could quite understand why Jake and Logan's father started meddling in the business, and Team 10 began losing core members. When Alissa Violet, Nick Crompton, and the Martinez twins left the house, they were cut out from that social circle entirely.

“It wasn’t just fully a business," Crompton tells Dawson. "It was like we were a family that lived together and we all loved each other, and if you didn’t want to be in that, then you mustn’t like us.”

He says that when people leave the group, "you're not supposed to talk to them." Dawson compares it to a cult: "You're either with us or against us."

This episode also touches on a recurring theme throughout the series: Jake and Logan's competition. The brothers, who have been neck and neck through their whole childhood, are constantly trying to one-up each other on YouTube. Their rivalry peaked when Logan slept with Jake's ex-girlfriend, Alissa.

"I always assumed that it was a joke," Dawson gasps, horrified. "Like what brother would fuck their brother's ex?"

"I was worried they were gonna destroy each other," Crompton admits.

In the fifth episode of The Mind of Jake Paul, which drops Friday, Dawson interviews Alissa Violet for her side of the story. Hold on for maximum drama.