Matt Armato and Beau Ciolino broke up after dating for 12 years and creating content in the @ProbablyThis join account for 10 years.

Matt Armato and Beau Ciolino, the creative duo behind the influential LGBTQ+ lifestyle brand @ProbablyThis, have announced their breakup after 12 years of partnership and a decade of collaborative content creation.

In a world where #CoupleGoals and #RelationshipInspo reign supreme, the TikTok breakup video from Matt Armato and Beau Ciolino—the beloved New Orleans couple

A pair of gay influencers named Beau Ciolino and Matt Armato broke up after 12 years together — 10 of which also involved creating content under the joint social media page known as @ProbablyThis. Together, Ciolino and Armato accumulated 657,000 followers and 14.4 million likes on TikTok, not to mention an impressive 258,000 followers on Instagram. Given how public their relationship was for a full decade, Ciolino and Armato revealed their breakup in a video posted on social media. More often than not, fans do respond with judgment on a relationship they were never in — but feel parasocially attached to — no matter how well the announcement is delivered, or what medium is chosen for the news to be broken. Ciolino and Armato announced their breakup on August 15, in a video that was meant for their dedicated followers. Over the weekend, however, the video absolutely burst the bubble of their own reach, leading to thousands of posts, likes, and re-posts calling the video as "awkward," alleging that one or the other had made a mistake, and highlighting the now-infamous fist bump at the end of the since-deleted video. In 2014, Gwyneth Paltrow wrote a post for the Goop blog announcing her divorce from Coldplay singer Chris Martin and framing it as a "conscious uncoupling." So what happens when, 10 years later, one of the earliest out gay couples to gain notoriety — and sustain it — on the internet break up with a video ending in a fist bump? Well… Probably This. Below, _Out_ chats with Ciolino and Armato about the timeline of events in their relationship, how they've been navigating the public response to the breakup, and what plans each of them has for the future. ### **_Out: It's been five days — almost a week — since you guys shared the breakup video. How's it going?_** Matt Armato: Oh my gosh. Has it been that long? It's been wild. The reaction was really surprising to both of us. It's been really, just mentally, exhausting. Also, I'm very thankful for a lot of people who've reached out supportively… But even that has been exhausting. Just the number of messages. I know Beau has been getting a lot too. Beau Ciolino: Yeah, it was pretty rough. I mean, it was really overwhelming, more than anything, and a little confusing. But I feel like I'm in good spirits today. It's the best I've been in, at least, since it happened. **_Some people read into the situation pointing out that you were 'laughing,' or that you offered a fist bump — assuming that you were fine with it and even ready to move on. Can you walk us through what was going on in your mind?_** BC: I was definitely super nervous going into it, and I didn't realize how smiley I looked. But it was certainly my attempt to push through, I think, more than anything. Matt and I have both acknowledged publicly how cringe the video was going to be, regardless. I thought, if anything, injecting a little levity might make it less painful to watch and less painful for me to do. But then side by side with Matt's genuine, authentic reaction, I think I looked… It didn't look how I thought it did. ### **_How did the discussion between you two go in terms of announcing the breakup in a video? Was there any back-and-forth between you, and how long did that play out between breaking up and posting the video?_** MA: We've been separated since the middle of March. But, in that time, we've been working through it. We ultimately reached our final decision to go forward with the split at the end of July, so it had been a couple weeks. So we've worked through all of this, and I feel like I've done my grieving over it. We didn't put that video out there as a way to work through it, or anything. It wasn't any kind of rash decision. BC: And in March, when we made that decision to split… Matt and I process things very differently. I remember, in March and April, I was down the fuck out. I was kaput. And Matt really helped me through that. Over the summer, we both kind of came around to it. By the time we did the video, I feel like I was at as much peace as I could be, five or so months into that. **_There's a never-ending discourse about attention spans shortening, but I find it interesting that an already short video — it's like, what, a minute? — still got so many reactions from people who seemingly only watched the first 15 seconds, and the last 10 seconds, of the video. There's so much, in between, where you both acknowledge that this is awkward but feels like the right choice. So many people seem to be responding to Matt saying, 'We broke up,' and Beau laughing in response. And it's as if the video then immediately cuts to the fist bump. Is that anywhere close to how you guys felt?_** [_They both laugh._] BC: Your point about the middle of the video seemingly being missed is so good, because we had talked to several friends and one of the biggest things that were said was, "Oh, it starts out kind of sad, but in the middle, Matt's making a joke, like, 'I'm single now,' and 'You're going to pay me.' Our friends were like, 'That brings the balance here.' I was like, 'Yeah, I feel like it feels kind of balanced.'" But you don't get to control how people perceive anything. MA: I think that people picked up on those sorts of highlights, like you were saying. But then I also think that it's interesting that the reactions and the interpretations are all over the place. I feel like everybody's saying everything from like, "Oh, I'm so tired of hearing about this" to "I need to know all the details," to "These queens need a PR team," versus "These queens have great PR." [_laughs_] I don't know how everybody's getting all of these reactions. But like you said, it's a minute-and-a-half video and it was what we wanted to share. We watched it a few times. Like Beau said, we sent it to our friends. Everybody seemed to agree that it did what it needed to do. And it was never intended for anybody but people who were already following us — just as an update, because they were talking already. ### > See on Instagram **_Something that's kind of meta and funny for the times we're living in: A couple breaking up, and splitting their assets, and those assets now include who stays with the Instagram and who stays with the TikTok. What was that conversation like?_** BC: I know! And I guess I knew it was weird, but we've done this for a decade, and we have these communities, and this audience, and we both enjoy it. The conversation came down to, "What do we both want to do next?" I've done our photography and videography. I like things looking cinematic, I like things being "too perfect," which is ironic considering how badly I fucked this up. [_laughs_] And Matt has an incredible personality and is very camera-ready, and he enjoys that kind of content more. So TikTok made more sense for him; Instagram made more sense for me. And I really didn't think much of it after we decided on it. **_To be clear, these are assets! You have huge followings on these accounts. Just like a house, or a car, or anything else, these pages are of value. It was just interesting to see it being acknowledged. I hadn't seen a splitting of joint accounts on social media between a couple that's dissolving their relationship. But these social media pages are assets, indeed._** MA: Absolutely, yes, they are assets. And I wonder how we could've phrased it better, because we really just wanted to get across that, "This is where you can find us. I'm not going to be showing up on this Instagram anymore." We posted it to both platforms, so it really was more for the audience that’s been following us, not all of the people who are commenting. I've never heard of these people before. But the audience that this was intended for, we just wanted to let them know where we'd be. BC: And for our audience that does know us, and follow us already, we'd kind of already done that. Matt hadn't really been on the Instagram; I hadn't been on TikTok. We'd been living separately while we figured this out. So it was more like, "Here's the explanation of what we're already doing." We had been getting messages like, "Are y'all okay? Why is one of you at this house and the other's there?" So it felt as much a declaration as an explanation for what we already were doing. ### > @probablythis > > How did I do? Be honest **_What's it been like navigating these criticisms directed at one person, or the other, even if you've already broken up?_** MA: It was pretty awful to see. I had seen some major criticisms of me. Most of what we saw was painting Beau as this absolute villain. People telling him to drive his car into a tree. I didn't get any of that. I saw some people saying that I was a professional victim, which… "Are you saying I'm a good actor? Thank you!" [_laughs_]. I mean, it was tough. It really broke my heart to see some of the things that people were saying about Beau. And that's why I got in the muck. I got in those comments, and I was like, "What you're saying about him is not true!" I couldn't stand to see that. People are just making up these stories and then attacking him off of fiction, which just isn't fair. BC: I really appreciated Matt doing that. I think people didn't believe me in the video, so I'll just say it again: We are legitimately best friends. We talk every day. We have been through this, calling each other every day. We give each other updates, really, throughout our day. We have so much love for each other still. This was all really hard. Neither one of us wanted to see the other have any kind of a "takedown." And that's also what pissed me off: I was kind of shocked and a little scared for how people were perceiving me, but I was _pissed_ at what people were saying about Matt. I was like, "You don't fucking get who he is." It was very frustrating. And, ultimately, I think it was just a lot of projection. We did something weird, arguably, and then the internet did something weirder. **_At this point, are there any reactions that you're able to now laugh at? Are we not there yet?_** BC: Oh, I've started to find it funny. Today, or yesterday, I kind of started being like, "This is just hysterical, and I don't know what to do with that, but la-di-da." [_laughs_] MA: Yeah, I'm definitely laughing along with everything. At a certain point, it's the only thing you can do. And I do think it's funny — I think it's hilarious that it became this huge thing. And it's wild that we've been doing social media as a career for 10 years, and the biggest thing that we've ever done is stop doing it together. [_Everyone laughs out loud._] ### > See on Instagram **_Let's talk about the fist bump. As someone who works for_ Out _, we had the 'holding space' finger-holding last year. I wonder if your fist bump will become 2025's version of that. Beau, you initiated the fist bump. Are you someone who usually does fist bumps? Are you a fist bump guy?_** BC: [_laughs_] I would certainly say I'm more of a fist bumper than I've seen Matt being. But the way I've talked about it is… Matt and I have done our renovation content as the majority of our work. At the end of all of those videos, we'll often do a high five or a fist bump. It doesn't always make it to the final cut, but I was in that mindset of "We're done. We finished the project." And the project happened to be announcing our breakup. I know the fist bump just looked nuts, but I also think it's very funny. MA: Now that I've watched the clip like 100,000 times, what made it really awkward is just sort of where Beau put his fist. It was in an awkward physical space for me to bump. So if you really look into it, I make my other hand into a fist too. It's like I'm confused, physically, about how to approach this, which just goes to show I am really not a fist bump guy. **_What's next for you guys? Are you moving somewhere? What's next in your careers?_** MA: I will be moving back to New Orleans. We had moved from New Orleans about three years ago to Tennessee, where I am now, but I'll be moving back to New Orleans. I've always had a passion for more creative things, so I'll be moving out of the "influencer" space and hoping to focus on my writing and acting career. And that's what I'm going to be up to. BC: My plan is to renovate the house we have in Tennessee. And I think I'm going to just do that as my next project — and do it online, as I've been doing for many years. I might make it a guest experience like we've done in the past, but it's something I'm really excited about, and I think I'd love to keep creating for my audience online. That's the work I do, and it could be really fun. **You can follow Beau Ciolino on the no-longer-joint page@ProbablyThis, or his individual profile @beauciolino, on Instagram — and/or via TikTok at @beaufelixciolino. You can follow Matt Armato on the joint TikTok page @ProbablyThis, or his personal Instagram profile @mattarmato.**

### Social media influencers Matt Armato and Beau Ciolino, best known as the gay couple behind @ProbablyThis, have broken up after dating for 12 years and creating content together for 10 years. Upon announcing their breakup with their fans, Armato and Ciolino became targets of a very intense and wild discourse. Armato and Ciolino, who have accumulated 656,000 followers on TikTok and 258,000 followers on Instagram in their joint @ProbablyThis accounts, felt the responsibility of disclosing the breakup with their fans. As a result, they shared a video toward the end of last week explaining the situation. "Hmm, we broke up," Armato started. Ciolino laughed at Armato's very blunt way to start the video, adding: "It's been a privilege doing 12 years together as partners, and for 10 years sharing that online with everyone. And I think that, you know, there's so much love between us. [When you] really love someone [you know] when to change the format of the relationship, and we decided to just be best friends." ### Ciolino explained that it felt both "silly" and "kind of necessary" to share this video updating their fans about this breakup. Armato, however, was a little less enthusiastic about it. "This is like the dumbest video I think I could imagine. This belongs in my journal, not out there," Armato explained. He then joked, "But I want you to know I'm single." ### Ciolino added that they're ending things "on great terms," and still "respect each other so much," and "still have so much love" between them. Ciolino went on to note that they've even "gone on vacation together" during this breakup process and would probably still call Armato for help if he ever needed it. "You're gonna pay me," Armato quipped, making Ciolino laugh again. Ultimately, the couple revealed that Armato will continue using their joint TikTok page, whereas Ciolino will keep running their joint Instagram account. They also shared the other person's new standalone social media pages for fans to keep following them as individuals. ### > @probablythis > > Life update 💔 @Beau Felix Ciolino Armato acknowledged this odd situation and said that he'll "take a second to lick my wounds and be like, 'What the fuck just happened?' I'm really grateful to I've had you in my life." "I'm proud of what we've done," Armato concluded, "and I'm proud of what we're doing right now." Ciolino gestured to do a fist bump with Armato, who took a second before joining in, but eventually did. "Beautifully said," Ciolino declared. Since this video was shared on Instagram and TikTok, absolute gay chaos ensued with people reacting to the breakup news. **Editor's note: As seen below, Matt Armato has shared an Instagram story responding to the social media posts reacting to their breakup. To see what the online response was, scroll past Armato's new statement.** Armato shared a statement via Instagram story reacting to the online discourse. He wrote: > "Thank you to everyone who's reached out with care after our breakup announcement. I know the video has sparked a lot of reactions. This is a deeply painful transition, and while I understand why people are speculating about our dynamic, I don't want this to become a pile-on against Beau. He is not a villain, he is a human, and a really beautiful one at that. One large point of criticism has been the gap between our apparent demeanors. > > Neither of us was confident addressing this publicly but given that we've built our career together as a couple it felt necessary. So what you might see as someone being carelessly giddy I see as nervous posturing-and, sure, a bit of relief. I can't fault him for that. I too am relieved to be moving on. As we said in the video we are still very close and I feel deeply for him. Please know that there are no teams here. I see your compassion and I appreciate it, but if your support for me looks like tearing him down I don't want it." ### ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@) ### > — (@)