Who is the ACE Family? Austin and Catherine McBroom are controversial YouTubers

Austin and Catherine McBroom, alongside their three children, Steel, Elle and Alaïa, make up the ACE Family — YouTube’s funny family of pranksters.

The couple launched their humorous YouTube channel in 2016 where they vlogged, pranked each other and did challenges. After welcoming their three children, the ACE Family shifted to parenting content but that only helped to further catapult them into internet fame. Now, the ACE Family is one of the most profitable YouTube channels of all time. 

The ACE Family channel has 19 million YouTube subscribers and reached 4 billion views on Sep. 7, 2020. 

As controversies mount, fans are wondering if the Austin and Catherine are as authentic as they once seemed. 

What does ‘ACE family’ stand for?

Austin and Catherine changed their channel name from “Catherine and Austin Vlogs” to ACE after Elle was born. ACE is an acronym of their three names: Austin, Catherine and Elle. 

How did the ACE family become famous?

Austin was an NCAA basketball guard for Eastern Washington University and Catherine was a model who had worked with Victoria’s Secret before starting their channel. 

Austin and Catherine mostly make videos about their life, so subscribers tend to find them relatable — or at least used to before the millions started rolling in.

According to Nailbuzz, the ACE Family has an estimated net worth of $18 million. 

Since becoming a family unit, the ACE family has launched merch, had numerous brand partnerships and seemingly endless scandals. 

They’ve faced a number of controversies throughout the years.

In June 2018, the ACE Family committed to donating $100,000 from money raised through a basketball charity. Fans were upset when they only donated $75,000, despite the soldout event, without any explanation. 

In July and August 2018, Twitter uncovered tweets from Austin that many believed were racist and sexist. 

In August 2018, the ACE Family’s home was robbed while they were at Disneyland. Many fans thought the family staged the break-in, but police documents later showed it was real. 

In mid-2018, the ACE Family launched an app called ACE Club with exclusive content. Many fans said that their in-app purchases were never fulfilled or delayed by months. In 2019, Austin and Catherine took a break from the channel to focus on the app. The app eventually shut down.

Austin said that the ACE Club developers scammed them and in turn scammed the app users. 

“Unfortunately, the people we partnered up with for ACE Club ended up scamming us,” he explained. “It hurt us because, in reality, you guys got scammed. The website wasn’t built to the degree that we needed it to be, so you guys didn’t get the value you should’ve got, so unfortunately we had to stop funding the ACE Club.”

In January 2019, Austin came under fire after posting a video where he took a little girl, who was not one of his daughters, to a sex shop and bought her a phallic-shaped lollipop. 

Austin McBroom has been accused of cheating and sexual assault.

In 2019, YouTuber Cole Carrigan accused Austin of sexually assaulting his friend in a Miami Hotel

“Bullying, extortion, slander, and defamation of character is something I will not stand for and I can promise that justice will be served,” Austin wrote in a Twitter statement.

Austin posted screenshots where the alleged victim, Leslie Hannah Belle revealed on Instagram she wasn’t assaulted and alleged texts that showed Carrigan planned to extort money from Austin. 

Despite Austin and Carrigan saying they would get the law involved, there haven’t been any updates on the situation. 

They were accused of scamming their followers with their ‘How I Became A Millionaire’ program.

Austin launched How I Became A Millionaire (HIBAM), a $50-per-month subscription service where he teaches people how to get rich in February 2021. 

But when fans signed up for the program, many said they found their credit cards being declined and issues with the website. McBroom said it was due to “high traffic” but fans are unsure if they can trust any Austin projects after ACE Club. 

In The Know is now available on Apple News — follow us here!  

If you found this story interesting, read more about YouTuber Cole Carrigan.

More from In The Know:

Here’s what we know about controversial makeup YouTuber Nikita Dragun

7 beauty products this beauty editor absolutely loved in October

9 cozy loungewear pieces under $25 that look way too luxe to be from Marshalls

Shop our favorite beauty products from In The Know Beauty on TikTok

Listen to the latest episode of our pop culture podcast, We Should Talk: