Jonah Hill’s ‘ex files’ is a gross betrayal of trust

Jonah Hill’s ‘ex files’ is a gross betrayal of trust

Someone take Sarah Brady’s phone, please.

Over the weekend, Brady — a surfer, law student and ex-girlfriend of Jonah Hill — accused the actor of “emotional abuse,” releasing private text messages they exchanged while dating from August 2021 to early 2022.

In them, Hill, 39 asks her to take down photos of her “ass in a thong” and urged her to stop modeling and to cut out relationships with men and unstable women.

He comes across as manipulative and insecure, trying to clip her wings to make himself more comfortable.

While I felt her pain and frustration on a visceral level — who among us hasn’t had our self-worth dinged by an ex? — the decision to give their relationship the WikiLeaks treatment was off-putting.

His texts, her instagram posts … it all felt icky.

But then it got worse. Brady either didn’t get the reaction she wanted or the headlines hit her like heroin, sending her on a bender.


Sarah Brady and Jonah Hill
Sarah Brady has gained attention for posting intimate conversations between her and her ex-boyfriend Jonah Hill that portray him in a bad light.
sarahhbrady/Instagra

Jonah Hill and Sarah Brady in matching suits
Hill and Brady dated from August 2021 to early 2022.
Getty Images for Netflix

Yesterday, she released another installment of the Hill files, insisting they were sexting just before he started dating his now girlfriend Olivia Millar, who gave birth to the couple’s first child last month.

And Brady continued to unload on Instagram, including posting alleged screenshots of Hill’s saying her releasing “intimate texts … [is] a huge triggering violation for me and a breach of trust as a friend.”

In doing so, Brady not only made it clear that she was hurt because he had moved onto someone else. She also made me feel sympathy for Hill, the king of self-seriousness.


Text messages from Jonah Hill to Sarah Brady
Brady posted several text messages between them, including one in which Hill tells her his “boundaries.”
Instagram/@sarahhbrady

Text message from Jonah Hill to Sarah Brady
Hill’s messages call Brady’s friends losers.
Instagram/@sarahhbrady

I still giggle thinking of the fit the actor threw during a 2013 Rolling Stone interview when he was asked, “What kind of farter are you?”

At the time, he was with James Franco and Seth Rogan promoting “This is the End” — not a remake of “Hamlet.” The others rolled with the punches. Hill said this:

“I’m not answering that dumb question! I’m not that kind of person! Being in a funny movie doesn’t make me have to answer dumb questions. It has nothing to do with who I am,” he sniffed.


Jonah Hill and Phil Stutz in "Stutz"
Hill recently made a documentary, “Stutz,” about his psychiatrist Phil Stutz (right).
©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection

No wonder he’s gained a reputation for being pretentious and humorless (a cardinal sin in my book).

But this Brady stuff feels like a strange hangover from #MeToo, in which crappy, caddish or controlling behavior has been conflated with the criminal kind.

Brady calls it a catharsis, saying, “Keeping it to myself was causing more damage to my mental health than sharing it could ever do.”


Sarah Brady Instagram message
Brady made it clear that posting the messages was catharsis for her.
Instagram/@sarahhbrady

Saah Brady selfie
Brady (above) is not alone in deciding to expose messages with an ex.
@sarahhbrady

(It has also prompted former Nickelodeon star Alexa Nikolas to accuse Hill of kissing her without consent when she was 16 and he was 24. If that’s true, it’s gross. Hill’s attorney told Page Six the story was a “complete fabrication.”)

Brady is not alone in this behavior. Most recently, influencer Sophia Culpo, in a now deleted TikTok, posted messages between her and her Jets reciever ex, Braxton Barrios, whom she accused of cheating on her.

The difference? Influencers like Culpo commodify their relationships, making romance a cornerstone of their online presence.


Jonah Hill
Hill called Brady posting his messages a “huge triggering violation.”
NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Hill just seems like a guy who happens to be famous and is trying to date.

But this isn’t a rom-com where the girlfriend gets revenge on a sh–ty boyfriend by weaponizing his own words, flipping the power dynamics and coming out on top. This is the real world. And what Brady has done is a breach of trust.

As this type of post-breakup behavior becomes normalized, it should make all of us shudder. I hope Brady gives her good sense time to catch up with her trigger fingers.

Leave a Reply