The circumstances surrounding the dissolution of a formerly brolic brand were contested on Friday.
As previously reported, The Kid Mero opened up on his 7PM in Brooklyn podcast about the moment he knew that his and Desus Nice's partnership, which undoubtedly brought joy to untold numbers of fans, was "corroding." According to Mero, the realization came during a disagreement over a DraftKings deal.
"I'm like, 'Fuck outta here!'" Mero told co-host Carmelo Anthony and guest Joe Budden. "To me that's like, the beginning of like, 'Alright, this shit is corroding.' We're on different wavelengths."
Desus was quick to respond by making a GIF-assisted call of cap on Mero's comments on Twitter, like so:
Hours later, Mero quote-tweeted Anthony's former coach George Karl disputing one of Melo's stories from the same episode. Seemingly connecting Karl and Desus' calls of cap, Mero wrote, "Git a couple bozos in they bag today huh 🤣🤣🤣."
The ensuing hours saw Mero responding to a number of assessments of his remarks. At one point, he told (in his signature all-caps) someone who called Desus "the true talent" over him, "I hope you succeed in life."
A more insightful response came after a fan suggested that Mero having children and two mortgages was a key factor in how things ultimately went down, an argument with which Mero didn't entirely disagree.
"That was a motivator but the bigger motivator was becoming self-sufficient," Mero said on Twitter, a site I still refuse to refer to as X. "Making $ to finance your own projects or partnering when it made sense to bring a variety of projects out to market was the strategy."
Per Mero, Desus was "refusing" to talk "ever about anything having to do with an actual plan."
Elsewhere, Mero took issue with someone who tried to posit the 7PM in Brooklyn clip as him "[admitting] Desus was the more sought-after talent." A more accurate take from Mero's perspective, judging by his tweets, is that he "didn't wanna be just a talent."
See more of his replies below.
Over on the Bodega Boys Reddit, which is still 29,000 members worth of brand strength, Mero responded to a user saying fans should "stop the Desus 'tap dancing for the white man' talk" considering that "turning down a Judd Apatow movie is the blackest thing you can do."
"We were writing it [Apatow] was just 'producing' AKA stamping it for the Yakubian execs," Mero wrote (again, of course, in all caps). "Since then has Desus done a Spike Lee/Barry Jenkins collab movie I dont know about???????"
On his latest pod, Mero said, "[Apatow] is like a kingmaker in terms of in the film industry. If you get in there, you make a banger with him, you solidified." He views the experience as one of the duo's missed opportunities to "get up to the next level."
Elsewhere, after breaking down his revelation that he and Desus were earning more off their Bodega Boys podcast than Viceland show, Mero wrote of his former co-host, "But strategically making money digitally and maintaining visibility on TV was the plan....idk what son was thinkin it was essentially passive income and bro went completely radio silent on me, Victor, Hasan, everybody."
Regardless of where the he said/he said goes from here—and however painful it may be for the Bodega Hive to see it unfold—one person was relieved Mero finally got into detail about the split: his co-host Carmelo Anthony.
"You needed this though, champ," Melo said at the 1:02:20 mark up top. "You needed this. And I'm glad, honestly. … You been keeping that, you been holding on to that, and really not finding the right outlet to get it out, right? … For a long time people wanted to hear your story, right—don't nobody know why. And the question was always, why this split?"
The Desus and Mero split was formally announced by Showtime in 2022.
“Desus Nice and The Kid Mero will be pursuing separate creative endeavors moving forward,” a statement from the network read. “Showtime's late-night talk show Desus & Mero will not be returning for a fifth season. Its final episode aired Thursday, June 23.”
