“Vitaly Ruined My Life!” Akash Breaks Silence On Being Falsely Accused & Doxxed On Livestream

0:00We're the Hartford, with decades of experience insuring millions of unique small businesses. When it comes to your small business insurance, Thank you. one size absolutely does not fit all. Get a quote or find an agent today at thehartford.com slash smallbusiness. I want to apologize for a mistake we made in one of our last streams. I was falsely accused by Vitaly Live in front of millions of people. I swear to God, she never told me. Wait, really? I swear. Oh, shit. My bad, bro. The racism, the bullying, the threatening of physical harm, all the time while I'm completely and fully innocent. Don't look at me in my mind, bitch.

0:38I'll f*** you up, bro. They didn't care about the truth. I'm the one who called the cops. I'm the one who gave them my phone. And within a few hours, the police proved that I was completely innocent. We were completely, completely wrong and we made a terrible mistake. By then, it was too late. How did that ruin your life? One of the reasons why I wasn't leaving the house was because... Sorry to your family, friends, your co-workers, and I feel really terrible. Are you suing Vitaly?

1:10Akash, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me, guys. It's such an honor to be here. I'm filled with so much gratitude that we were able to have this conversation. a lot of people have reached out to me and podcasts, reporters, mainstream media, institutional media. And I specifically chose to talk to you guys because I've been fans for over six plus years now. I love your content. I really relate to it. And through watching you guys for so long, you've earned my intellectual and ethical trust. And I feel very comfortable sharing my story with you. Wow. Well, thank you so much for coming to the podcast.

1:54Honestly, it's such an honor because I imagine how crazy your life has been over the past 72 hours, over the past week. I imagine everything's moving a mile a minute, but for you to take the time to come on the show, that means a lot. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, life has been a nightmare recently. Things have been so crazy and so hectic and the support has been amazing from the online community and support from my family and friends. And how do you even explain this, guys? I mean, we'll start with the beginning. Vitaly accused you of being a predator in front of millions of people. How did that ruin your life?

2:34You can't even pick one thing to focus on because not only was there the false accusation, not only was there the harassment, the bullying, calling out my business before, during, and after meeting me, the fans reaching out to my family during the live stream, calling them saying, your son is in trouble. He's going to go to jail, going to go to prison. And this was all during the live stream when my family couldn't contact me at all. How many people were watching the live stream? Do you know? To my knowledge, it was around 35 ,000 people live. Holy. yeah yeah and then immediately it was getting clipped um by everyone getting clipped by people in india uh spread across india within the same night um so this was like instantaneous like as soon as you're on camera people are already like clipping and sharing yeah yeah exactly um like all like my friends found out my family found out cousins in india found out business uh business partners were being reached out to immediately and underneath their like social media pages there were comments saying like falsely accusing me and people repeating the same messaging that Vitaly was like falsely promoting online and just harassing me like DMs all within the same night.

4:01Did you know who Vitaly was? Any kid who grew up my age Vitaly was one of the most popular YouTubers at that time so like of course I knew him and I've watched his content um and I knew who he was and in the beginning obviously like the first 30 seconds I was just really confused and I was like looking like this um pointing because I was just what is going on I was like shocked confused curious um and there were so many things happening at the same time not only were they like being really racist

4:43not only were they like falsely accusing me of some of the most horrible things you could ever like accuse someone of they were also like threatening me with physical violence harassing me completely um and then right after that i was like okay I need to call the cops. How did all of this start? Like, how did you even come in contact with this person to begin with? Yeah. Great. Great question. So like millions of people, every single day, I was talking to a woman online on a dating app, um, legally and consensually, of course. And we talked for a couple of hours and we made plans to meet and I had no reason whatsoever to assume anything was...

6:03to trade brilliantly. Learn more at schwab.com slash trading. Like, wrong. So nothing stood out. There were no red flags. Absolutely not yet. It just seemed like a normal conversation. And this happened in a few hours? Yes. So you woke up that morning, started talking to someone, met up, and it was pretty quick. Yes, yes. So it was the same day. Wow. Yes, yes. And after I agreed to meet up with her,

6:34within 30 seconds of me exiting my car there's just like nine people with like five cameras shoved in my face saying the craziest stuff I had no idea what was going on I mean in my head I was just like is this a fucking prank like what is going on in my head um and I think I even said this in the video like is this a prank because I knew I was completely innocent and I knew that like I had done nothing wrong and so in my head I was like maybe they're just doing this like for views or whatever um because I knew I did nothing wrong and then I tried to talk to them I tried to tell them look like this wasn't me I didn't do anything wrong I wanted to show them all the text and everything I wanted to get to the bottom of this and the woman started talking about a second Snapchat.

7:26And I was like, I only have one Snapchat. I don't have two Snapchats. And that's not me. You're talking to someone else. That's a completely different person. I didn't know if it was a completely different person. I don't know if she made up the Snapchat, if like this was something done by them on purpose. I had no idea. And I asked to look at the Snapchat and like, this is all on the video that's released online. Even the six minute video, So I asked to look at the Snapchat and they wouldn't show me. And then right after that, I'm pretty sure, is when I was like, okay, I need to call the cops immediately because I want all the evidence to be documented.

8:03Like I don't feel safe right now. And most importantly, all the evidence to exonerate me and clear my name fully because I'm fully innocent needs to be documented immediately, immediately. immediately um and the only solution towards documenting that evidence properly in my opinion was the cops and so i was like okay i'm gonna call the cops immediately then they came and i was like take my phone look through everything go through everything i waved my like any normal person um if you've watched any type of lawyer tv show or anything they all say don't say anything exactly don't say anything without the presence of counsel um like you should know your rights protect your rights um anything you can say canon will be used against you like so they read you the miranda rights was like hey man anything you say canon will be used against you it's like you want to speak they went through that entire thing with you yeah so um in the beginning i was i was trying to get them to go through all the evidence in the very beginning um the moment that i met up with them but they said you need to wait until we read you your miranda rights and so i had to wait before you know, I could talk to them about anything.

9:12And then I like waved my rights and I told them, look through my phone, look through everything. I have nothing to hide. I will like, I want to figure this out with you at this point in time. Everything was like a puzzle in my head where the pieces didn't fit. I like, it was like a mystery that needed to be solved. Um, and so it was like, I was actually like, um, me and four of the officers worked together, primarily three different officers. We worked together in conjunction to comb through all the evidence from both sides. And I wasn't able to comb through some of the evidence from the other side, but they did it.

9:50And they found me fully innocent and completely clear of doing all wrongdoing to the point where these officers inside the interrogation room were profusely apologizing. So they checked Vitaly's phone and all of their stuff, right? Because what's to prevent Vitaly from saying, no, I'm not giving anything. You got to get a lawyer. Yeah. So it was the woman who gave all the evidence to the cops from her side. And after combing through all of her evidence, on call, the female cop, who you can see in the video, she called the woman and she told her, this guy's innocent. You have the wrong guy. We're letting him go.

10:32he's completely innocent um you need to take down the videos otherwise um wow so she complied but she must have genuinely thought she was like correct by complying or do you think that she was confused too well so um in the video itself you'll hear a girl saying maybe we made a mistake she was saying that i blocked her um when i was on video what like i was showing my phone to everyone. When did I have time to do something like that? Why would I want to get rid of any evidence to support my name? I have nothing to hide. Basically what happened was inside the interrogation room, after I'd given all my evidence of the cops, I told the cops, please ask her for her evidence if you don't have it yet.

11:18And then they called her and they were on call with her for an hour. And she gave them all the evidence and they were like this guy's completely innocent to the point where like they were like they were telling her he's completely innocent he did nothing wrong you guys got the wrong guy you guys got the wrong guy we're letting him go yeah they were all just profusely apologizing um saying we've never seen anything like this um like we're so sorry that this happened to you this is like a one in a million chance for this to happen um if there were any other cops who were there, who knows if they would have taken the time to properly go through your case and listen to you and that I'm very filled with gratitude to all the cops that worked with me and took their time to fully investigate what happened and clear me within the same night.

12:12So how much time passed between you stepping out of the car, immediately getting bombarded with Vitaly and his entire crew, and then being exonerated by the cops. Our guest on this episode was probably seen hundreds of millions of times this week, which is just absolutely insane because his story broke on X and within hours, clips were everywhere. And that's just the world that we're in now. The right clip at the right moment spreads faster than anything. Clipping is without a doubt the most popular way that information is being received right now. It's really how stories spread, how people get discovered and how businesses get exposure they could have never gotten otherwise.

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13:15check out Opus Clip at opus.pro slash ICH. That is opus.pro slash ICH. Thanks again so much to Opus Clip for supporting the show and back to the episode. So how much time passed between you stepping out of the car, immediately getting bombarded with Vitaly and his entire crew, and then being exonerated by the cops? To my memory, around three and a half hours. So walk me through those three and a half, four hours then. I'm curious, like, where was your mind going? Was your family calling you? What did you experience in those four hours? So the moment I first met the cops, they had my phone. They took my phone and in the car, I was just, I'd never felt less control over anything in my life.

14:03Up until this point, I just felt the least in control. And I ended up turning to spirituality and my faith. And I was just like, God, please help me. I did nothing wrong. Please make sure all the evidence stays. And please help me. Please help me. I did nothing wrong. And I was just, I was like the whole world is going to think something about me that's completely false and like a lie. And just my intimate life. no one would want their intimate conversations that they have in the bedroom with their partner to be put out to the entire world. It was like, this is something, I'm a very private person, you know?

14:53And now all of a sudden, the whole world has their eyes on me, like tens of thousands of DMs, even though I haven't even shown my face in any of my posts or anything purposely. I was really scared. um i was scared for whether or not like in the moment right after it happened i was like what could have happened if i wasn't found fully innocent and cleared within the same night like if it was any other different cops or anything yeah in the beginning i didn't know if you know the cops are going to fully investigate everything or if they were going to look through all the evidence i had no this was my first time ever like you know stepping foot inside of a police station you know much less in the back of a police car the most that i've ever gotten um i'm a very risk averse person in everything in my life i'm just very risk averse like i would never like go skydiving um for example uh i don't speed on when i'm driving because like i don't want to use up my luck on the road um and so the max i've ever gotten was like a a speeding ticket like five years ago and now you know i'm fighting for my life in the moment like even though there was so much like racism like crazy racism like it was like yeah what was what was that like like have you have you had comments ever like directed at you like that before oh my god like there's always some experiences like as like you know like a minority you'll like just you'll you'll have some type of experienced it might not be like really big or anything like that but like nothing at all compared to like what was going on then I mean the moment he pulls up he's just being so so so racist um which was like astonishing and absurd to me I was like like what are you doing you know um And in the moment, honestly, even though all of these injustices were happening, like crazy things were happening, my main thought was like my main like priority and my main focus in my mind was like, what is going on?

17:13What is going on? I was so confused. I was just trying to understand the situation and then get all the evidence and then prove that I just didn't do anything wrong at all. I was like, okay, the first thing that I need to do is just focus on proving my innocence. So when they proved you innocent, did anybody in your life still believe that, hey, maybe he's not innocent? Or did everyone come around? When I first released the statement before I released the audio, everyone was still in doubt. Even though Vitaly had a video and written statement saying that, you know, I didn't do anything wrong. And even though I put out a statement saying that, you know, like even the cops fully cleared me and proved me innocent.

18:02people were still thinking that maybe we paid them off or like there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute me or whatever but in reality the truth is they found evidence that it was a full 100 mistake on vitaly's team guys like this was a complete blunder and mistake by his team i did nothing wrong um like there's evidence that this was a mistake on vitaly's team and vitaly's side what was the mistake great question from your perspective this is the clear cut mistake that they made the decoy who her job is to talk to as many guys as possible on dating apps and then move them over to snapchat tell them her fake age and like get them to meet up that never happened she never told me anything like um if you check the video i added her on snapchat and i sent um three messages and never got a response back and so then we kept texting on the dating app and she was texting a bunch of guys at the same time because like that's what she was being incentivized to do and she mixed up apparently she like thought that she was talking to me when she was talking to like one of the other who knows how many guys she was currently talking to at the same time.

19:37And then like apparently she thought it was me and it wasn't. She was talking to someone completely different, a real guy. She was talking to them and that's who she had the conversation with on Snapchat. And it was never me. Her and I never ever talked off the dating app because she never responded. And the police saw that. What was the hardest part for you mentally? Was it like fear, anger? How do you keep your composure? I keep my circle close and very tight. The biggest emotion that I had was just my family.

20:13I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know if they were going to, like,

20:23I didn't know what they were going to think. I didn't know whether they would believe me.

20:34Like in the beginning, I was just really, they're my strength, they're my rock, my foundation. I didn't know what they were going to think and that was probably the most scariest thing of all. And like surprisingly enough, Like the second biggest feeling that I had was like gratitude for my parents. The first time that I called them and got to talk to them because I wasn't allowed to, you know, talk to anyone because I didn't have my phone until after I got fully proven innocent because they were using my phone as a source of like evidence to look at and comb through my entire phone. right after the cop talked to on the audio you can see I'm gonna give the the cop says I'm gonna give the phone to your son so you can speak to him now and so I was call it like I was talking to my parents and they were just like we love you we support you we know you didn't do anything wrong like we're here for you and like that like the first time I cried was when I heard the cop say I was innocent for the first time he determined that he was not the right suspect we were looking for.

21:50So your son was perfectly compliant. He was cool with us and he, um, he just happened to be wrong place, wrong time. And then the second time, like I choked up and started crying was when like, I heard that from my parents and I was just like choking up saying like, thank you guys so much. Um, like, I don't know how many like parents would really stick up for their kids in a situation like that when private details are getting exposed um like they just all they cared about was supporting me they said um like we just we love you we're here for you no matter what that like you're our son um like we're so proud of you good job for calling the cops we're really really proud of you for calling the cops that could have gone so differently had you just said nothing yeah or just left yeah or left or i'm gonna retain an attorney because i'm gonna tell you man had you done that it would have taken months yeah and if you left like they could have just said you deleted evidence yeah yeah and i mean i i knew that i didn't do anything wrong and so in the beginning i tried to explain that to them like i was i was trying to explain it to them and i was i was trying to like work out what happened like where was like was this a prank is this uh like miscommunication what's going on and they didn't care about that in any way shape or form we had no choice like I had no choice but I had no choice like at first I tried to you know talk to them sort of calmly um and explain what was going on and then like when they started physically threatening me at least I'd already called the cops at this point I'm curious the viewers of this live stream how do they find out like your name and like try to find your family like how do they do that yeah so um even in the beginning before I had met her in person they were calling out my business and then during the live stream when i was calling the cops uh and i was giving them my information uh they didn't mute it mute the mic oh so they were filming you basically saying here's like my info yes yes and then they muted it with the cross streets yeah like the the moment when they muted it was when i was giving out the address but um before that they like the whole thing yeah yeah they never stopped recording yeah i mean they knew i was gonna give my information because they heard the cop asking me what's all my information they didn't mute the mic or anything like that and then even then like i i said i was saying my name and they said oh like you made a mistake now everyone's gonna know who you are um or whatever and then i mean but even then after that um they called out my linkedin my business they they told people to go cancel me and my business.

24:35And so before, during, and after this entire thing, they told people to go after my business. And what about your family during that four hour window before the public statement was made that you were not guilty of what they were accusing you of and your own phone? I imagine like, what were the messages, the outreach? What did all of that look like during those four hours? I was getting a lot of phone calls and like my father was like calling my phone, but I didn't know because I didn't have access to my phone. And then they were like, my parents believe that I did nothing wrong because I called the cops immediately.

25:19And like, they were very proud of that. They were like, okay, like when you call the cops, that's when we knew for sure, without a doubt in our mind, he didn't do anything. like you didn't do anything Akash. What about friends, acquaintances, people you used to know your parents phones were other people calling your parents like I don't know childhood friends parents or something like that. Yeah um so like after um like even even up until today uh everyone is like talking to my business partners and family friends and like my close friends and extended friends and just people who know me through other people etc like people who know oh, like this guy's a cautious friend, reaching out to all of us saying, oh, like what happened?

26:05Everyone wants to know more details.

26:10Like the video and me being innocent, it's not enough. Everyone's reaching out and saying, oh, like we want to know more. What happened? What do you think they want to know? I don't know. I mean, I guess they just want to know like more, like how I guess how I felt. I don't even know. and like they're all a lot of them are offering their condolences etc um like the support has been really amazing in terms of like the outreach from family and friends and everything after i was proven completely fully innocent how are you doing taking it day by day step by step um like trying to focus on um gratitude for the cops my family the support of the online community being able to come on a podcast like this where I've been watching your content for years and been a fan of you guys, an honest, true fan, where I've learned so much as well.

27:03And everything, it's still happening, right? It's not like this whole ordeal isn't over yet, clearly. People are still finding out. Do you think it went more viral when Vitaly apologized? because what's funny is that's how I found out about it was when he said delete the video and then me being the idiot that I am I'm like what's the video and then I look it up but just him saying delete the video is enough for a lot of people to be like let me find the video and then everyone started reposting the video when he wants it taken down it's like the Streisand effect, it makes it worse I haven't really taken a look at the numbers But I mean, what I like, I do think that like the apology did like have an effect on the virality of it.

28:00But I also think that no matter what he would have had, like whether it's now or later, he would have had to apologize. But yeah, it's just like it's everywhere. I think like 200, 250 million different people have seen this entire thing. Have you got recognized in public yet? No, but I haven't gone out in public, really. Yeah, I remember you even saying, like, you're worried about going to the airport. Yeah, yeah. Just because we don't know what people are thinking and we don't know what's going on.

28:32Who knows, right? And so this is, like, we're all very private. This is, you know, my first time in the spotlight and it's something that I did not ask for. And nor did I ever want. you and I were talking like offline and I told you that like like I always wanted to be like a wealthy man but be able to walk anywhere in the world and have nobody know like mine and my family's name like I thought that was like peace like that that's what I wanted that's what I envisioned I never had any desire for fame at all I know how that really takes away your right to private life at some, to some extent, because everyone's always looking at you.

29:17Like I never wanted any of that, but here we are. Has Vitaly reached out to you privately? Aside from right after the apology, asking what we were going to do legally. No, he has not reached out. Even after having your innocence proven, have you received a lot of hate? I have. Um, what do they say? Unlike other AI, Slackbot lives in Slack. It understands you, your team, and your work, so you can ask it for help with anything. Can I ask it to summarize client feedback? Yes. Can I ask it to find time for a meeting? Absolutely. Can I ask it to turn our meeting notes into a launch plan? Sure. Can I ask it to call me the boss?

29:57Actually, you can. The boss. See how Slackbot can turn you into the boss at slack.com slash meet slackbot. That they don't believe me, even though all parties involved have fully cleared me and said that this is a mistake on the Tally side. That like I'm a messed up person, that this is all staged. Can you believe that? Can you believe that? That's crazy people would think that. That would be one of the worst things ever to stage. What nonsense. And like in my head, like, honestly, like all I could think of is what nonsense. Yeah, it was just, it was crazy. Like the hate, the racism, like there was a lot of racism after the fact too.

30:49There was a lot of, there's some physical violence. People were threatening, like they're going to like, you know, come to my house or, you know, yada, yada, yada. that's got to be terrifying. Yeah, yeah. Do you take any security precautions on that? Like if they say they're going to, okay. We hired security, even though it's super expensive. We were just scared, really scared. Like what's going to happen? Is anyone going to, you know, they have my name, they have everything, my business. Are they going to find out where I live? Are they going to come? Like one of the reasons why I wasn't leaving the house was because what if someone's waiting for me outside?

31:26I've never been in this position. You know, I've never had the whole world spotlight on me.

31:34And like, who knows what people are going to, you know, think and do, right? People could be crazy. And all it takes is like out of millions, there's one. One person. Just one bad actor. A little cuckoo. But everyone else, you know, one. Yeah. It's not worth taking the risk on the one. Exactly. Exactly. And so we did have to take precaution in the aspect of be really safe, maybe consider getting an Airbnb or something like that for the time being. Luckily, there's been no incidents, physical incidents or anything like that. But there has been a lot of threats made and just hate and racism and DMs, comments, whatever you name it.

32:21Are you suing Vitaly? I'm keeping all my options open. Right now, my number one concern is the mental health of myself, my family, and the people around me. He has to be held accountable. Dejustice on so many levels.