You guys have been asking me for this, so we are going LIVE to break down the breakdancing dad situation! Context: A popular TikTok creator’s viral video about her estranged father @benhartpodcasts, a breakdancer evolved into a war of words between them. It all started last week when creator Madi Hart posed a simple question to her followers: “What’s a piece of trauma that you have that’s funny? It has to actually be funny.” From there, Madi detailed the story about the time her father, Ben, “abandoned” her family when she was five years old and pursued breakdancing, becoming the oldest actively competing breakdancer in the world. “[My dad] got really good, he like blew up. He became like a D-list celebrity status, viral breakdancer,” said Madi, adding that her father, a.k.a. B-Boy Benihana, gained tons of media attention and even danced with Paula Abdul. “There was no split custody or anything. He just left four kids to do that. He may not have paid for some of my medical bills growing up, but he did give me this breakdancing merchandise,” Madi said. She also pointed to a text message she received from her father, wishing her a happy birthday but being unsure of the date, followed by a link to one of his breakdancing videos. The TikTok went viral and has been seen over 5.7 million times on Madi’s account. Ben, who describes himself as a “Bitcoin explainer” and “freedom maximalist” on X (formerly known as Twitter), issued a 10-minute response to his daughter and online critics who referred to him as a deadbeat dad after he "[woke] up at 6 a.m. to find that my daughter has posted a TikTok video trashing me." “In many ways, I love this video, and of course I love my daughter, Madi. We get along great, at least I think we do. But a few corrections are in order, or at least a few things that need to be put in context,” said Ben in the video. The Florida-based man says he understands how his daughter, then a 5-year-old, could feel like she was abandoned when he divorced her mother in 2005, but claims he still lived down the street from them in La Grange, Illinois. He denied the claims that he did not financially support Madi, citing $5 million in overall payments to cover child support, alimony, health insurance, out of pocket medical costs, and college funds. “I saw the kids all the time. No abandonment, just a divorce,” he continued. “I did not abandon my family for breakdancing. I have a career, I’m in the advertisement business. I built an ad agency, that’s how I was able to afford to pay Madi’s mom $5 million.” Ben, now 66, explained that he took up breakdancing “entirely by accident” in 2012 as a way to get in shape when he was 54.Once Ben’s response began to circulate online, a number of online sleuths attempted to uncover more details about the estranged father. Their findings tell a different story that Madi never touched on.
