“I Have Been Straddling Two Careers” — Why Max Joseph Left Catfish, Explained
For the first seven seasons of Catfish: The TV Show, Nev Schulman and Max Joseph served as hosts, but why did Max leave Catfish? The reality TV show focused on the infamous idea of catfishing, which is when someone pretends to be someone else online and tricks another person into a romance or suckers them out of money. The series itself was based on the 2010 film Catfish, which tells Nev Schulman’s experience of being catfished by a woman he met on Facebook.
In the TV series, Nev Schulman helps other people who have been catfished (or believe they are being catfished) meet the real people behind the catfishing and either bringing them together or allowing the victim to face their abuser. Max Joseph worked with Schulman as the co-host and cameraman for the first seven seasons of the show before he finally got a chance to make his first feature fictional film, We Are Your Friends with Zac Efron. However, Joseph left Catfish in 2018, following the seventh season.
Max Joseph Left Catfish To Pursue His Filmmaking Career
Max Made His First Movie During Catfish Season 4
Max Joseph joined up with Nev Schulman to co-host Catfish from the time the show premiered on MTV in 2012. The two men got emails from people around the country who believed they were being catfished and picked out certain people to highlight and investigate to learn the truth behind their concerns. While Max was on the show all the way until the end of the seventh season, he was missing in action for part of the fourth season. That is because in 2015, he released his directorial debut, We Are Your Friends.
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That is also the reason that Max Joseph left Catfish after the seventh season in 2018. When he left, things were not going well for the MTV series as the network suspended production on the show for sexual misconduct allegations against Schulman, although the network finally decided the accusations were baseless (via Deadline). While it seemed that Joseph wanted to leave the series before the allegations hit, there was another reason he chose to leave the show:
“Hey guys, the time has come, sadly, for me to move on from Catfish… For a while now I have been straddling two careers as TV host and filmmaker and, while this level of busy-ness is a dream come true, my life can no longer sustain it… Although I have a heavy heart, I am also excited for everything that’s to come—for myself, for Nev, for our crew and for the show. Thank you for watching.”
Joseph’s last episode as a host was season 7, episode 18, “Nick & Jasmine.” However, he made appearances in the season eight episodes “Ivy and Dante” and “Making Waves: Ten Years of Catfish.” The real reason Max left Catfish was because he believed it was time to kickstart his directorial career. However, he has mostly focused on documentaries since the release of his first movie, We Are Your Friends.
What Max Has Been Up To Since His Catfish Exit?
Max’s Filmmaking Career Has Been Slow Going
Since leaving Catfish in 2016, Max Joseph has directed two short films, a movie called A15 Minutes of Shame, and four episodes of a miniseries called Happiness. The movie 15 Minutes of Shame is an HBO Max original documentary that focuses on Internet shaming, specifically when the shaming is directed toward women. Monica Lewinsky executive produced the documentary. As for Happiness, it was a documentary miniseries about the science of happiness that Max released in four parts on his YouTube channel.
Max, for his part, wasn’t finished with Catfish yet. While he left the show after the seventh season, he said that he was always going to be around when Nev Schulman needed him. He returned in season nine to host an episode (S9E4, “Zahhra & T”), and Max Joseph announced it himself on Instagram: “The news is out. I’m coming back to host an episode of Catfish this season.” While it was just one episode, Catfish fans got at least one more chance to see Max Joseph dealing with catfishers.
