On the most recent episode of 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days, Ash Naeck invited girlfriend Avery Warner to one of his relationship seminars. While the seminar didn’t go well onscreen, offscreen evidence shows that Ash copied his entire speech from another motivational speaker.
Seattle-based Avery first met Melbourne-based Ash when he reached out to her over Instagram. The couple was in a somewhat volatile relationship for a few months when Avery decided to make the journey to Australia to meet her boyfriend in person. One big obstacle in their relationship has been Ash’s job as a relationship coach. In his work, he primarily coaches single women on how they can find the man they’re meant to be with. His constant contact with single women makes Avery uncomfortable and has caused a few breakups in the past. To ease her fears, Ash invited her to a relationship seminar he was putting on where she could see his work in action. Avery attended the seminar in the most recent episode, but the women attending didn’t respond positively to Ash’s old-fashioned view of male/female relationships.
Interestingly, the views Ash tried so hard to communicate to the women weren’t even his own. Instead, Ash copied his seminar almost word-for-word from well-known marriage and relationship speaker Mark Gungor. Gungor uses comedy to illustrate the differences between men and women and lead his seminar attendees down the path towards better relationships. Mark’s seminars start with what he calls “A Tale of Two Brains,” which “explores the differences between men and women.” On his website, Mark explains his approach: “In this session, Mark shows couples how their problems may result from how men and women THINK about life in a different way.” While Mark uses this speech often, Ash decided to commandeer “A Tale of Two Brains” for his own purposes. In the Instagram video posted below, you can see just how similar Ash’s speech is to Mark Gungor’s:
Although Gungor has found massive success from his relationship seminar, Ash’s participants didn’t react positively to his speech. In fact, many of them questioned his methods and pointed out that his ideas were rooted in sexism. Since Ash didn’t write the speech, he was unable to effectively defend his ideas. After knowing that he stole the speech from another motivational speaker, his flustered attitude and difficulty explaining himself during his seminar makes perfect sense. Also, Ash tried to copy Gungor’s comedic timing, but his lighthearted approach didn’t translate to Ash’s speech. Ash not only stole from another motivational speaker, but he didn’t even do it well.
Ash’s job as a relationship coach has long been called into question. The legitimacy of his interactions with women and how he actually makes his money is a huge topic of conversation, both for fans and for his girlfriend. The fact that he stole a speech from a popular motivational speaker doesn’t lend any credence to his work. In fact, it makes it even more likely that Ash is simply a con artist posing as a social media relationship coach.
90 Day Fiancé’: Before the 90 Days air Sundays at 8pm EST on TLC.
