Jonathan Cheban is Actually a Terrible Person

Jonathan Cheban is Actually a Terrible Person.

Have you been blocked or otherwise personally victimized by Kim Kardashians self proclaimed BFF, Jonathan Cheban? Or do you just like gossip, and love to see almost-famous pseudo celebs being messy?

If you said yes to either of those Qs then stick with me because this is a fun one!!

hi friends.

I wanted to write a post about this dude because somehow, even after all the NEARLY countless examples and times he’s proven himself to be an absolutely awful human being, somehow he still was able to secure a TV show? Like a real one, starring him, on the Discovery channel. Which is truly baffling to me because an occasional guest star of a reality show with a wonky eye and a dead stare and… ok my bad y’all sorry that was mean. But you’ll forgive me soon enough, once you see how gross this guy is on the inside. OH. And i said NEARLY countless examples up there, because I counted them. every instance. and documented it all. Here. For you.

Anyway. Where was I going here? Tv show.. right. I dont understand how he landed that and is still doing …seemingly great, even with all the cited and documented evidence of him being disgusting to fans and peers alike over the course of the last decade or so.

So. I figured it was probably because even though it’s been documented many times over the years, it’s never been compiled in ONE definitive article before.

Enter me.

Here to hopefully help..in some small way… to spread awareness on this guy’s very consistent past of unapologetically disrespectful, as well as often overly misogynist behavior.

OH. If this wasnt obvious by now. Sidenote here, if this is your first time joining me…i’m not a journalist lol. Dont expect perfect grammar and capitalization here. Me and you are just besties gossiping and sharing tea, ok? This is just something I do for fun. Lets dive in.

IF, by some beautiful miracle, you follow the Kardashians and somehow have not seen or heard of this man before, first of all… congrats. you’ve gone far too long without being aware of his existence. He would be pissed if he knew. He is (self-proclaimed) Kim’s BEST friend. Like. Ever. Ok? And he makes sure every media outlet he’s ever done an interview with describes him as such.

There he is.

Looks familiar right? Come on. Say you recognize him. He needs you to say it. Please. He might DM you and tell you you’re poor and that he can “fucking buy you”.,……his words, not mine!! OH wait let me not get ahead of myself here. That part comes in like, 2016 or something. We are starting a bit before then. I’ll get to it.

Anyway… thats a pic of him supporting Kim Kardashian in October 2021 for her recent SNL appearance.

Ok so..how bad can he be, really? Arent all famous people kind of shitty? To which I say, yeah girl, you right but just wait and let me fucking tell you about this guy because I promise you he will top every shitty celeb moment you’re currently thinking of. Lets start with a quick debriefing on who he was before Kim, just to cover all bases:

First thing to know about Jonathan, he fucking loves name dropping. Loves it. And he ran a celeb gossip blog for ages. We’ll get to that.

But listen I mean… not even a ton of digging was done to find this, but I found this article from fucking 2004 that really displays how celeb-obsessed he was..even back then. But be warned, this is suuuuper mild shit compared to what happens post-Kim K friendship.

Some highlights to note from the article:

• He was born in early 1974 and worked at various PR firms in the late 90s/early-mid 2000s
• He shares a birthday with Paris Hilton and *~*~HIS NAME~*~*(Jonathan’s emphasis, not mine) was listed first on Paris Hilton’s 20th birthday party invite. Per the article: “Mr. Cheban proudly described how he and Paris share a birthday, and when the pair turned 28 and 20, respectively, their party at Eugene was sponsored by Playboy. “I still remember how, on the invite, my name was first and Paris was second. It was ‘WITH Paris Hilton,’” Jonathan said, poking the air with his chopsticks for emphasis.” 
  Author’s Note: I couldn’t find any other sources that cited anyone other than Paris being celebrated with her on her 20th birthday… I mean i’m sure it happened but I woulda liked pics or something. y’all know me. but anyway
• From an unnamed coworker: “I think Jonathan has an eye for people who can do something for him..”
• From a celebrity nightlife regular: “He’s the king of name-dropping. It’s always ‘Jessica [Simpson] told me’ and ‘When Paris and I were down in Miami…’”
• “Mr. Cheban leaned down to check his Sidekick, which was constantly flickering on and off. “It’s the best thing ever made,” he gushed. “I was the first person in the country to get it, even before Lindsay [Lohan] and Nicky [Hilton] and Nicole [Ritchie].””
• “Jonathan used to wear a Rolex that he’d had custom-painted chocolate brown with diamond numerals, he now wears an Audemar. “The Rolex got a little boring,” Cheban said, shrugging. “Suddenly every random J.A.P. uptown was walking around wearing one and it was like, ‘Uh, uh!’ When everyone at [high-end restaurant] is wearing a Rolex, you know you gotta step it up, and the Audemar is definitely the next step up.””
• Stops at a random diner to say hi to Mary Kate Olson, walked back out and goes, “That’s going to be written up tomorrow,” he sighed. “That was Ali she was eating with, the guy she supposedly dumped David Katzenberg for.” (Indeed, the sighting popped up the next day on Gawker.com).”
• He seems to like bragging about being rude to paparazzi: “I’ll block photographers’ shots and I’ll piss the paparazzi off,” he said. “I was in Mr. Chow’s with Mischa Barton having dinner, and a photographer came by the restaurant and started taking pictures of us eating. And I literally went up to him and threw him out of the restaurant.” 
  Author’s Note……..LMAO 😭 i’m sure you picked a grown ass man up and tossed him out, just like that, in front of the whole restaurant. And then everyone clapped and cheered. and then y’all had a photoshoot together. And then had a make-out sesh on the table. Ok ok Sorry I’m done nowhahahaha
• He had a ton of success in his early 20s(like, literally 25) by just paying attention to the gossip and the more ‘famous for being famous’ scene before the other PR firms were paying attention. And, I’m totally sure that uhhhhhh….beingawhitemaninamostlyfemaledominatedindustryplayedaparttoo*cough*ANYWAYYYYYYYYY

Other things in here not worth quoting, but worth noting: He gives the waiter a hard time about his order repeatedly, and he randomly degrades an entire group of females by off-handedly saying that “all beautiful models live in miserable model apartments, unless theyre high-end supermodels”. Uhh yeah so, not a great start.

I guess I should give a little background on him now. He was born in New York, an only child with two well-off Russian parents. His dad, Mikhail, was a diamond dealer who passed away in 2011, and Galina, his mom, was real estate agent with Sotheby’s, a super exclusive, high-end art auction house in NYC.

Long story short, dude was born into a crazy wealthy family in NYC and grew up around famous people. “I’ve been friends with Paris and Nicky (Hilton) since they were kids,” he said in the 2004 article. So I dont know 100% when him and Kim met but, it was probably through Paris and co.

Another thing I should probably note now is his age. I’m writing this in January 2022, and he’s turning 48 years old next month.

So other than that 2004 article, I have some weird random shit I found that I have to share with y’all lmao.

Like apparently, in 2009-2010:

Jonathan Cheban and Simon Huck starred in some wanna-be reality TV show on E! that was like.. a knock-off version of The Hills? but.. with grown men at a PR firm.

Which, turns out, no one wanted to watch.

Some commentary I found online:

“The “star”[Jonathan Cheban] of this workplace reality show about a celebrity-oriented public relations firm is a boss with a cringe-inducing management style. He pressures his employees to dress in designer clothes for success and get cosmetic surgeries they don’t need, and insults them regularly.”

“Jonathan, in one instance, tells a young female employee point-blank that she looks… “homely,” and that she needs to get her lips injected. She is seen in episode one, with tears streaming down her face, agreeing to alter her appearance against her will to show her dedication to the job. She shows up with new lips shortly afterwards. And in that moment…we lost all respect for the show.”

…So yeah. It didnt get renewed, if that wasnt apparent. I linked a youtube video of the first episode just above, but lmaoooo yo… I’ve only watched 1 minute and 52 seconds of it and already Jonathan has degraded employees appearances to the point where the co-owner is like “Ugh. Jonathan always does this. he always bullies people’s appearance. he did it to me back in the day.”

Take a look if you want:

The show is pretty hidden in relation to his name unless you search specifically for it. That video was uploaded in 2013, and it only has like 32,000 views. Oh also, Kim Kardashian produced it. You’ll never see that listed on her bios either though. LMAO.

Okay so from 2008–2012 hes kind of all over the place, he starts a t-shirt brand, did some jewelry sales, dabbled in the restaurant biz, and he founded an early online celeb gossip blog (like this one!🤪) which I will go more into detail on soon.

For now let’s pick up in 2013.

So in December of 2013, he applied to be on a show called Millionaire Matchmaker. You have to submit a video to apply and his video is……..well..something.

Here are some quotes for you:

“I obviously travel in very high circles,” the reality star, who lives in Miami, New York and Los Angeles, shared in the clip. Jonathan Cheban values his net worth at $5 million.

“My celebrity crush is Kim Kardashian,” he said of his BFF, with whom he is frequently photographed. “I love her butt, it’s kind of amazing. Because of her, I’ve changed the kind of girls that I like. They definitely need to be a little bit curvy — I used to like models, and now, actually, I can’t even look at models to be honest. I just think they’re so plain and so like, stick figure.” he then rattled off an extensive list of turn-offs: “Pretty much 99 percent of anything,” he confessed, citing “annoying” people, those who take “forever to get ready,” “liars,” “social climbers,” and “ugly girls” as qualities he cannot stand.

I’m sure the girls are lining up around the block to date you sweaty. Wow… What a guy, am i right ladies??😍😍🤪🥴

Side note: 2013 he already was super close to Kim K and Kendall had started her modeling career already at that point right? and he still said all that about models. Yikes

And ummm, from like 2011–2018 (but honestly. he probably still does this to this day) he is REGULARLY, constantly monitoring his direct mentions and searching his own name on twitter and just popping off at strangers who mildly insult him. All the original tweets are now gone because he got rid of his @ JonathanCheban twitter handle in exchange for his foodgod one .. but this article from 2016 still has it all documented.

I can’t screenshot them all because its a fucking ridiculous list, and the article I linked above did a great job explaining it for you. Definitely skim through that before continuing.

I will toss in a few favorites from it though LOL:

OH and this is funny because also in 2013, a few months after that^ he said this to Kim regarding replying to haters:

And 2014:

This one is particularly funny because it was tweeted October 27 2014, and 2 weeks later, he tweeted this at someone else:

So he either fired 20 people in like, two weeks or his 6 other “companies” have a total of 20 employees spread across them. So like, 3 employees per company? Or…he’s just pulling numbers out of his ass. You can see the years of PR expertise here, truly. 💀

Oh and honestly this is a perfect segway into what I wanted to talk about next! (side note: did y’all know segway in this context is actually spelled segue?? autocorrect told me segway was wrong, so i looked it up. its spelled segue. weird.) So the website he was referring to is something he had just launched in August of 2014. It was called TheDishh and YOU GUYSSSSSSSSS.

I did some digging to see how it looked back then and thank god for the WayBackMachine because sksksksgjks i am screaming at the logo he made of himself for this LMFAOOO

I cannot make this shit up 😭😭

Here is a link to the site’s front page on October 2nd, 2014. I’ve never linked a waybackmachine link before so let me know if it doesnt work and i’ll find a workaround!

Another solid article he wrote on September 18 2014 is all about hollywood cliques and he goes ahead and ranks them on a “power ranking” scale of 1–5 for our viewing pleasure. Of course he includes himself in Kim’s clique….orrrr I guess Klique as Jonathan calls it:

and rates his own self proclaimed hollywood ‘it’ group, a 5 out of 5, fucking weirdo lmao. I wanna add a few others he ranked too because hilariously, he gives taylor swift and cara’s cliques 3s out of 5. Lmao:

So that is what Jonathans TheDishh celeb blog thing looks like.

Now…. sometime in 2015, it looks like around May 2015, someone submitted screenshots of a s
napchat conversation to theDirty.com (different website, kind of like perez hiltons gossip blog but the owner Nick covers more than just celebs)

and theyre of a chat with Jonathan where he calls them a “zero,” “literally a worker,” and a “bus boy”. This is the link but it looks like our bestie got it taken down: https://thedirty.com/gossip/hollywood/when-is-jonathan-cheban-coming-out-the-closet

HOWEVER

You guys KNOW I dont like it when famous people try to erase shit from the internet. The internet always remembers.

And so do I. 🤫

I found a girl on twitter who linked the article and was gracious enough to post a screenshot. Here you go.

Soooo.. are you guys seeing a pattern yet? This is like, his thing. He likes degrading people. Anyway, I’m going to move forward a bit here.

In the first week of 2016, he was slated to be on Celebrity Big Brother, a UK reality show about a bunch of almost-famous celebs living together for 4 weeks as they try to win the at-home audience over while performing various tasks and games with the other semi famous housemates.

Now I have never seen this show. You cant even watch it in the U.S., like..you have to go to one of those sketchy 123letmewatchthismovietv-on-demand.tv type of streaming websites that has a thousand ads in your face and like 6 different “Play” buttons that are actually viruses, except the tiny one in the bottom corner that you don’t see until you’ve already clicked all the others and spread malware all through your college laptop and—

Let me stop. What I’m getting at here is that I ACTUALLY WATCHED THIS SEASON. To the extreme dismay of my 2013 MacBook Air (rest in peace honey, u did ur best). I watched this season because I used to have a weird obsession with this U.K. Jersey Shore knock-off called Geordie Shore and one of the stars of it was set to be on this season, anddd the reality LEGEND we all fucking adore, the queen herself, Miss Tiffany Pollard was on as well.

But before we talk about him on the show I just wanna say that first of all, he signed a contract promising him £300,000 for the 4-week stint. And apparently he made some absolutely insane demands to the shows producers. For example,

• He asked for Mandarin and Japanese food to be flown in by private jet nightly
• Requested a black Rolls Royce drive him to the CBB house
• Said he would only sleep in a king size bed, and he required Egyptian cotton linens that MUST be sourced from the £18,000-a-night Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hyde Park, London
• From a production assistant: “All of [these requests] came after he was flown over by show producers in a private jet from the States! They’re the biggest demands Celebrity Big Brother has ever encountered.”

And I know y’all are probably ready for me to talk about what went on during the show so let’s do it.

January 6 2016: Jonathan enters the CBB house.

And I’m sorry to disappoint but SKSKSKJK — January 11 2016: Jonathan quit Celebrity Big Brother, saying he felt claustrophobic and that “There is a point where my mental stability is more important than entertaining,”” HE WAS THERE 4 DAYS LMAOOO.

Also. One of the housemates was Angie Bowie, David Bowie’s first wife. And during the time the show was filming, David Bowie passed away. And Jonathan decided to use THAT as his reason for leaving, saying it seemed like people were taking it as a ‘joke’ in the house.

““It affected me mentally. The house went from being fun to turning into a negative energy, and the whole David Bowie thing was too intense for me,“ he told reporters. ”I knew that would be such a big public situation and I think it turned into a little bit of a joke.”

“I have another life outside of the house and I didn’t want to be part of the joke to such a legend like David Bowie — so I thought it was a right time to leave and disappear.” said Cheban.

I know David Bowie in heaven listening to this like

THe fact he said the David Bowie thing was turning into a joke in the house and thats part of why he left…………when David Bowies first wife, Angie Bowie, who was married to him for a solid decade was ALSO. IN. THE. HOUSE. Pretty sure if it was being seen as a joke in the house his ex wife, who was sobbing on the show regularly about it, if it was a joke there, I think she would have left before you dude. The level of narcissism is wild. Also he got 300k in euros for like.. maybe 5 days, max? Unreal

SIDE NOTE: When Angie tells Tiffany that david is dead, tiffany thinks they’re referring to a housemate that was living with them who’s also named david, and she thought Angie killed him at first and then she thinks the housemate named david died of cancer and … i mean LMFAO her reaction is All Time:

Anyway like I said earlier there really are countless instances of him being a dick. I know I promised y’all I counted them all but even you would be bored if I listed out every single mean tweet he’s done. If you want to see the majority of them though, please check this twitter search for hours upon hours of entertainment: https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q=cheban%20blocked&src=typd

some of my personal favorites:

Also, and Izzy girl I’m sorry because I accidentally found your tiktok too, and you spoke a bit more about it there, you said your dad has a hate account for him now which i love. LMAO.

Her tik tok video about it is linked here.

Moving on….

Alright so ….that covers a lot of that. Anyway. Ray J went on Celebrity Big Brother in 2017 and Jonathan was set to join the house for a special 2-day guest appearance, something to do with having Kims back in case Ray J brought up any Kim K stuff, IDK.

But of course he is back on his BS with his outrageous demands. Lets list them.

• he demanded £100,000 a day,(which is what some of the celebs in the house were getting paid for the entire 4 week stint)
• requested to be served only Michelin-star meals
• required his own bedroom(there is a giant room with a bunch of beds, no one gets their own room. ever.)
• A source from the production team said: “As well as the £100,000/day, Jonathan wanted gourmet prepared Michelin star meals, his own bedroom, a masseuse and access to a minder(is this British slang?? whats this mean? like a physic?LMAO) at all times. It all got too out of hand and in the end, the CBB bosses simply retracted his provisional contract.”

EDIT: have gotten a lot of feedback on the word ‘minder’, and based on all the replies it seems to be something in between a body guard/security detail and a bit of a personal assistant as well.

December 2016-February 2017: Jonathan joins a U.K. show called Celebs Go Dating. And yes, of course, hes back again with the ridiculous demands, lmfao. Notable mentions from the articles linked:

• Required the show to work on New York’s time zone. This is because he “always stays on a New York time zone — so he wants the filming schedule to be worked around his own sleeping patterns.” Even though the entire production crew, and all the other celebs for the most part are in the U.K. and the show is being filmed IN THE UK!!!
• A suite for the duration at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel which costs up to £18,000-a-night — for the duration of the 2 months he will stay in the UK
• His own personal driver at his beck and call (“Bosses are also set to secure Jonathan his own personal driver for the entirety of the 2 months of filming”)
• An unlimited beauty budget(?? what the fuck does this even mean lmao)
• Regular IV drips in his hotel suite at his request
• Oh and mid-filming apparently he “insisted on having a private jet take him back to New York City for a three-day break because he’s ‘homesick’ and misses best friend Kim Kardashian”. 🙄

So he goes on this show about celebs finding love and uhhh…okay look at this clip i found from it:

I mean the whole time he’s being an asshole but like halfway through he just gets weird and condescending and says she looks like Kim and it would be like dating his sister(but in 2013 you said Kim was your crush?? sir???)

So uhhh yeah thats a rabbit hole you can go down if you want.

But as we have seen…. Miss Cheban cant go long without finding someone else to be mad at on social media, I’m sure he was having withdraws while filming because in Late February 2017 he is back with a vengeance. This one is extreme y’all.

Notice how most if not all the pics and links in there are dead now? This guy is fucking obsessed with controlling his image. No wonder him and the Kardashians get along.

EDIT: I’m reading this on my phone right now and the above link doesn’t have any broken pics i don’t think?? my laptops browser wasn’t loading it earlier. weird! worth a read, has some screenshots i missed!

So I found the girl in question’s instagram post, looks like its not deleted, yay!

So yeah. Very nice stuff. Great guy.

While we’re at it let me sprinkle another solid example of his love for harassing strangers online. On May 18 2017, he flipped out on twitter, saying he’ll “fucking buy you, c*nt” to the kid.

Here’s how that played out:

and then this started to go viral, so …the next day Jonathan tweeted:

Sooooo weird how the hacker uses the same phrases and terms like “trash,” “peasants,” mentions of his sooOOoo many companies!!!, the cheban-favorite insult using janitor/cleaning toilet references, and the reference to buying/owning a human. (remember this gem?)

But DEFINITELY was a hacker. Sure sis. Whatever u say. Fucking wild.

And then in 2018 this blogger got into an EMAIL exchange feud with him and documented it all here!!! The message he sent the author was as follows:

“Listen to me you little lowlife. If you think he opens his own gmail account messages from pathetic non existent non relevant in life humans than you must be as dumb..well as you are. We here at the social media team laugh at cowards like you who hide you are our entertainment. Your message would not come a hundred years next to foodgod who is working on multi million dollar deals while u sit home broke jerking off. Have a great ?? life.”

I mean…at this point I’ll let y’all decide if he wrote that or if “the social media team” wrote it, LMFAO
.

OH yeah, and someone did an article in 2018 asking 6 people why Jonathan has them blocked and well… you can take a look if you want:

And thennnn there is a more recent saga that I just adore.

So in 2020, this girl on TikTok named Becca Moore made a joke video where she listed out a bunch of random things she’d do if she was president and one of them was “put jonathan cheban on house arrest”, lol. Pretty tame right..? Apparently not for our Jonathan!!

Becca makes a second video after this and she says the original video was taken down an hour later with a defamation suit from Cheban’s team. This was right after she spoke about it on her podcast as well.

Link to that TikTok video here.

She then saw he blocked her on instagram…

And noticed at this same time, she had a new follower that seemed kind of..weird:

Then she just started fucking with him on purpose, spreading rumors and convincing several media outlets that her and jonathan are dating, LMFAO, also changing his Wikipedia to say he passed away after being burnt by a random tiktokker. 😭 I know Jonathan punching the air when he googles himself and is forced to see her name all over the place.

Andddddddddd I think that might be everything? Or at least, as much as I could gather in the last like.. 3 or 4 days I’ve been writing this. I’m working on a Pete Davidson dating timeline deep dive, and let me tell you… I needed a break. That mans dating life is one of the absolute messiest rollercoasters I’ve ever been on. And I needed to get the fuck off for a bit.

NO ONE ASKED for this Jonathan deep dive but listen guys. I NEEDED THIS. I needed a fun distraction alright?? Anyway I hope you enjoyed this and if you didnt already know how awful of a person he is, you do now!

Also I will update this article if Jonathan comes for me after this is published because looking at his track record i mean….it definitely wouldn’t be a surprise. Hi Miss Jonathan!! I’m your biggest fan, look at how much I know about you honey! 💖😘😘😘 I hope your 7 companies and your empty, self-absorbed, meaningless life are doing amazing!!!

Ok. love u all!!!! Good night. 🤞

also. i made an instagram to take requests and document the research processes. it’s @ celebdeepdives on instagram if you’re interested.☺️

no pressure though!! I never in my life thought I’d be able to do anything that combines my love for writing and my love for gathering research that people would actually enjoy. 😥 Love you guys!