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I don’t know Trey Chapman. I’ve met him and have seen him at events, and I know he has a significant following and lots of friends in the Fort Worth restaurant world. I didn’t initially see it when the noted food blogger/vlogger/brand ambassador behind Trey’s Chow Down made a body-shaming Facebook post about women wearing yoga pants in public. (He claimed his comment wasn’t directed at women and that it applied to men who also wear yoga pants.) He later said he was sorry for his post, though in his apology he didn’t really acknowledge any wrongdoing. Therefore, it rang pretty hollow to lots of people.

Being a tone-deaf misogynist isn’t a crime, and Chapman is allowed to say whatever he wants on his social media channels or anywhere else. But what he has characterized as a harmless joke created a social media brushfire. After his comment metastasized throughout various closed Facebook groups, multiple women accused Chapman of harassment and gave personal accounts to me of what they believe are inappropriate behaviors. The Weekly doesn’t want that associated with our brand, so we cut ties with Chapman, who was to be a co-host of our Third Annual Celebrity Chili Cook-Off on Sun, Mar 4, in front of the Tin Panther (937 Woodward St, 817-720-6868).

It’s never been OK to body shame or demean women, but until the recent #metoo movement and the feminist awakening in our country, that kind of behavior had been quietly tolerated –– especially in the service industry.

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As someone who worked in the restaurant business for more than 20 years, I’ve seen women endure everything from groping and unwanted aggressive advances to name-calling and physical bullying by kitchen workers and waitstaff. I’ve witnessed countless customers who have objectified and abused servers – folks whose livelihoods depend on tips – and egomaniac owners and managers who humiliate women by toying with schedules and pay. Sure, that sort of thing happens to men, too. But the comparison isn’t even close. And if you’re the sort of person who thinks that women open themselves up to harassment by dressing nicely or a little provocatively, well, let’s be honest. You’re probably not a big reader and haven’t made it this far – but, please, feel free to leave a vicious but half-baked comment on our Facebook page

Restaurants wear their rough-and-tumble subculture as a badge of honor. All kinds of bad behaviors are written off as a byproduct of creative people working under tremendous stress. But maybe that’s not good enough anymore. The #metoo movement is working. There’s little doubt that had this happened a year ago, Chapman would still be associated with our event.

I hope to see you at the Chili Cook-Off. Bring the friends, bring the family, come as you are. Wear whatever you want. Including yoga pants

27 COMMENTS

  1. Wow. I’m pretty sure that this article is the problem with our great country . I read Treys artical about Yogo pants and it seemed to me that he was trying to be funny. I myself find yoga pants to be very sexy and revealing, to that point some people should and shouldn’t wear this type of attire. Let facts be facts. Nobody wants to see an extremely over weight person attempt to squeeze into a pair of yoga pants. He is only being honest. Maybe before you make snap judgements and call him names like sexist you should sit down and speak with Trey. I’m so sick of these types articles and you would think the readers of this once great magazine would be in the same boat.

    • I guess you didn’t finish the article or forgot about the part where I talked to numerous women about other things he’s done – things I left out of the story. As I said in the story, yoga pants are just what started a chain reaction that led to women coming out of the woodwork. We were far less concerned with his dumb comment than the accusations that followed.

    • There’s nothing factual about your personal opinion regarding who does or doesn’t look attractive in yoga pants. It is your prerogative to like or not like something, but there is no reason whatsoever that anyone should pick their wardrobe based on what you, Chapman, or anyone else thinks. Also, this may surprise you, but yoga pants come in all sorts of sizes, so you can stop being haunted by the image of people attempting to squeeze into them and now that it’s pretty much the same process for everyone- one foot at a time.

    • Oh look it’s Political Cowboy Chad. Of course you’re going to stick up for your best bud. Turds usually hang out in piles. Go back to your hate-filled, wannabe Blue Collar, conservative “comedy” blog where you and the rest of your silver-spoon, trust fund buds can circle jerk each other about how persecuted you are in this “new PC world.” Bunch of hee-haw morons.

  2. Lemme get this straight. Is this a personal thing towards Trey? So he posted something about yoga pants(as a joke) on his personal Facebook? So this “wannabe” journalist thought it would be a good ideal to bash his name in Fort Worth Weekly? So I am friends and follow a lot of “great” women that are into fitness/bodybuilding. At any given time I can look at Facebook and see a post about their thoughts on men and how they look in skinny jeans. Some say they look stupid, idiotic, and some even make fun of their chicken legs. I watch funny comedians all the time talk about fat, women, men, skinny, white, black, Mexican, and Asian people on a regular basis. Where is your articles shaming them? Are men suppose to be comfortable and accept that women are allowed to hate on us? With that being said, I don’t know who this Chow Baby who wrote that hypocritical shit is but I’m willing to guess she/he is self conscious, or unhealthy and took it personally. That is in no way Trey’s fault for her/his insecurities. I may not know him that great but from when I was around him last year at the cook-off he was an awesome guy. You shouldn’t smear a mans name in the ground for your own personal vendetta. Especially after he apologized when he didn’t have to. That’s what’s wrong with journalism today, horrible journalist. If you were mad at that Facebook status, maybe you should evaluate your life and change it for the better. There’s a lot other things in this world to get mad over. Next time a woman post something bad about a man I hope to see y’all jump on that bandwagon as well. SMH

    • I’ll tell you what’s wrong with journalism – an audience that either doesn’t read or understand the story. Try rereading it (the whole thing, please) and then try again. I say very clearly that the Facebook post alone wasn’t the reason we cut ties.

    • I don’t equate “chicken legs” with saying that someone looks “disgusting” or claiming that looking at their body causes retina damage. I have a hunch that most other people don’t either.

  3. Someone who thinks they have the right to put their hands on women without their permission and to sexually harass numerous women isnt someone i would want to represent me. Kudos on the article.

  4. You obviously didn’t read the article in its entirety. It was after he made his juvenile, poorly spelled post that women came out of the woodwork about what a scumbag he has been towards women for YEARS. It wasn’t until recently that women felt they could speak up and NOT be fired or retaliated against… I promise you, if you knew even a quarter of the things that this man has said to women within Fort Worth, whether he thought it was funny or not… you would not be backing him up. I encourage every single supporter of his to truly think about the affects of sexual harassment. What if he said these things to your daughter? Your mother? Your sister? Your wife? YOU? It was not just a yoga post, man. #TIMESUP

  5. This is the Exact reason I stopped advertising with FT. Weekly you make judgements like this but condone all the illegal and sexist ads that prop you’re trash up.

    • That’s a total straw man argument. There’s a huge difference between calling someone out for unwanted, unsolicited sexual harassment versus running ads for consensual chat lines.

      The women victimized by harassment had no choice in the matter, whereas you have to willingly dial those phone numbers and be a consenting adult to engage with the “singles” chat lines.

  6. I think I would have written, “After further investigation, I have learned, there are women who feel they have been victimized by Trey. Therefore we are cutting ties with him.”

  7. After this article, I’ve had enough! The only opinion in which I was interested in reading under Chow, Baby was restaurants and food service related. This article should be under a different section. If crud like this is what I have to look forward to when I pick up a copy, I will simply refrain.
    Btw, if you’re too embarrassed and/or afraid to sign your name to an article that you author, you shouldn’t be a journalist.

  8. So women came out of the woodwork as in more than a few, but all waited till something was said about obese people in yoga pants, sounds more like some bs excuse or set up to me… for a few females to get over on some one or make a quick dollar..

  9. Sup guys. Looks like we have a bit of a stone throwing session underway. I am friends with individuals that have shared both perspectives. True that on reading the point of the entire article but If assuming (makes an ass out of you and me) is super bent out of shape about this whole thing you better look to the sky first. Right now by my home our great brothers and sisters have got active Marine Corps, Navy and U.S. Army running drills on Carswell NAS/JRB. Take a second to collect your emotional and mental maturity and focus on the real shit storm (Z) brewing. I give a fuck about a yoga 🧘‍♀️ pant or about a big dumb ego or a when I want to be a “victim” at the right time. We are all fucking aldults. In our history within the last 15 years Africa’s “civil” has committed a mass murder ugainst it’s own people. The narco trafficantes in Mexico 🇲🇽 continue to terrorize and murder it’s own people in the name of $ built upon human trafficking, child 👶 prostitution, cocain and marijuana sales. I have seen 2 of my good friends die like dogs unable to shake opioids addiction. I have seen good men and woman cast out from our local society because our general public from all sides don’t understand addiction and or mental illness. Tough pants?! Being superficial and tasteless! Not getting out of a situation or standing up righ here right now because you can and you should? We have got a very large amount of growing up to do. I tell you what. Just do the right thing. If I feel violated raise your hand 🤚 and find a grown up. If I feel the need to violate go seek help. Both go help someone you can relate to.

  10. I think if you’re going to assassinate someone’s character, to the point of going after their livlihood online, you’d better have evidence good enough to take into a courtroom before you do it. I’m in one of those closed food groups, I don’t know Trey, but I knew his dad and brother when I was a lot younger. I can’t accuse or defend him because a I still haven’t seen any actual evidence of harrassment. I saw the yoga pants post, it didn’t reference any person, or group of people at all, only yoga pants. After which everyone assumed he was shaming women. Only one woman in the group said she had direct knowledge of his harrassment, but she provided no details to confirm this. Another woman spoke to me privately, said thet she was “working with a number of women, about his behavior and that everything would be made public very soon.” Well, here we are a month down the road, and there are no lawsuits filed, no police reports that have been made public. Therefore, now that you’ve done your corporate duty and cut ties with Chapman, how about a follow up article with some facts? Some testimony from a public record source, or a person who comes forward and accuses the man directly? If you can’t provide these things, you’re just suborning defamation, and that hurts everyone, Chapman, his partners, and especially the women of #metoo who are dealing with real cases of victimization. If Chapman’s case is real, let’s have more than hearsay and innuendo, that’s the hallmark of a good journalist, things like not publishing until you have two verifiable sources.

    • We’re comfortable with our reporting process. We spoke to multiple sources who we believe to be credible. Nothing Chapman has done, to my knowledge, rises to the level of criminal charges. So no one has sued him. Few harassment cases ever make it to court, unless they involve an employee/employer relationship. That was not the case here. That does not excuse his behavior or make this any less of a news story. We are not a court of law or law enforcement. We report news, and we felt like a prominent local personality going around town harassing multiple women in the service industry was a story – not a crime.

      We didn’t identify his accusers because we felt they could face retaliation. And, frankly, Chapman should be thanking us for not going farther down this rabbit hole.

      We haven’t done anything to change his livelihood. He did. I’m not sure why you’re so quick to support a serial harasser of women and discredit our reporting. But we stand behind everything we printed.

  11. The people you’re citing from closed food groups all got together and threatened his sponsors with boycotts if they didn’t drop him. That’s threatens his livlihood, as does arbitrarily dropping him from your chili cook off.

    And now, without providing any additional evidence more substantial than hearsay, you’ve elevated his status to “serial harasser?” And you’re also accusing me of supporting harassment? Let’s see exactly how you connect those dots.

    I’m not asking you to publish victim’s names, I’m asking you for a valid source, the kind an actual journalist uses. Like public records or someone who’s already come forward. In other words, and let’s be clear about this, my comments aren’t about Chapman, they’re about you. An anonymous food blogger named “Chow Baby,” who’s attacking the character of an actual person from behind a computer screen. What evidence do you have to believe his accusers? Are you simply taking them at their word, or are you piling onto the #metoo movement because it’s popular? Or do you have something concrete? More and more today we see journalists moving away from or outright ignoring established ethical requirements for sound journalism in favor of “just getting the story out there, as quickly as possible.” I didn’t see anything that contradicts that in the your original story or your reply.

    • I’m not sure you read or understood either my column or my reply to your first comment. So I’ll dumb it down for you.

      I conducted interviews with multiple (more than 10) women, all of whom told the same or similar stories. I didn’t pull anything from a closed Facebook group, I did my own reporting – like the established ethical requirements of a journalist. That is not hearsay, it is how news has been reported since news began. I’m not sure how much more valid a source you need. My interviews are about as concrete as it gets. Me, my two editors, and the publisher of this paper were all comfortable with the way I conducted my reportage.

      In my column, I stated that I spoke to multiple victims. That makes him a serial harasser.

      Many of the woman have complained to their supervisors, but none, to my knowledge, have filed police reports. Sexual harassment cases generally only rise to the level of a crime when it involves an employ/employer relationship. So there is no public record of any complaints against Chapman, as I mentioned in my last reply to you. There is also a well-established culture of silence in cases of sexual harassment that the #metoo movement has worked to uproot. So it’s no coincidence these women felt free to come forward now.

      And, since you don’t seem to take seriously the claims of multiple of women, then that (sorry to be the one to break it to you) makes you complicit in our country’s victim-shaming bro-culture. You’d rather believe the multiple of women, this paper, and I conspired to take down Chapman and ruin his reputation rather than the way more obvious (to most people) conclusion that one man has been a bad actor in this town for many years, and women are just now feeling safe about speaking out about it.

      If you choose to be willfully ignorant, question the motives of me and Chapman’s victims, cite lack of evidence when I clearly state in the story that I’ve spoken to multiple women (all of whom are valid sources), and never once, at least in our interactions, mentioned any shred of compassion for his victims, then you are indeed supporting harassment. Sleep tight.

  12. It’s not possible for me to be willfully ignorant of information I don’t possess. Information that you’re asking me to take solely at your word. Here’s the gist from your original article, clearly you’ve forgotten what you’ve written: “Being a tone-deaf misogynist isn’t a crime, and Chapman is allowed to say whatever he wants on his social media channels or anywhere else. But what he has characterized as a harmless joke created a social media brushfire. After his comment metastasized throughout various closed Facebook groups, multiple women accused Chapman of harassment and gave personal accounts to me of what they believe are inappropriate behaviors. The Weekly doesn’t want that associated with our brand, so we cut ties with Chapman, who was to be a co-host of our chili cook off.”

    You make (0) references to interviewing 10 women, multiple could mean anywhere from 2-1,000’s. And as no one has come forward to accuse him directly, your entire accusation is hearsay. Regardless of how you and your editors choose to phrase it. The bottom line is this, if you can’t prove what you’ve written here, it’s defamatory, whether it’s true or not. You’re a food blogger assasinating someone’s character based on gossip. That’s it, that’s all that you’ve accomplished here. And until you can publish something to corroborate what you’ve written, you’re the one who’s damaging the #metoo movement. If the women you’re “quoting,” want to remain anonymous then you aren’t doing them any favors by reporting this, in this way. And again, pointing out your failings and lack of ethical journalism makes me in no way “complicit” in Chapman’s alleged harassment. “Alleged,” that’s the word professional journalists use when they don’t have proof of what they’re reporting. But then you’d have to admit that you’re not able to back up your claims if you did that, wouldn’t you?

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