Ariel Helwani did not hold back on Steven Bartlett over his recent interview with Dana White, calling out what he saw as a seriously tasteless moment involving a book written by the UFC CEO’s late mother.

During the Diary of a CEO interview, Bartlett pulled out June White’s controversial 2011 unauthorized biography of her son, Dana White: King of MMA, and handed it to the head honcho. And well, Helwani clearly wasn’t impressed by the move.

“He’s on today, Stephen Bartlett, Diary of a CEO. ‘See Dana White, like you’ve never seen him before. All the same stories that we’ve heard,’” Helwani said on The Ariel Helwani Show. “And to be honest, can I just say this? While people say that, I’m not fair; I thought it was a pretty s—ty move to give him a copy of the book his mom wrote about him some 15 years ago.

“Dana’s well aware of the book. I felt like that was a classless move. Here’s the book. What do you have to say?”

Ariel Helwani’s issue wasn’t just with the book itself. It was the fact that Bartlett put something so personal and messy right in front of the UFC CEO, especially given his complicated relationship with his late mother.

June White’s book painted her son as a “vindictive tyrant” and dug into some seriously personal territory, including his marriage, alleged infidelity, and how fame, money, and power had changed him. And the wild part? Dana White said he had never even seen the book before Bartlett pulled it out during the interview.

“It’s unfortunate. I’ve actually never seen the book. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the book,” White said.

The head honcho explained that he knew what was inside because his lawyers had gone through it, but he had never personally sat down and read it. He also claimed the book included private photographs that his mother had no right to publish.

For Dana White, though, the worst part apparently wasn’t even what his mother said about him. It was that, according to the 57-year-old, she allegedly dragged other people into the mess—people he said “didn’t do anything to her.” And that’s precisely why Ariel Helwani felt Steven Bartlett crossed a line.

“That’s it. End of the day, that’s his mom. That’s his mom,” Helwani said. “And I don’t know. I did not like that. I did not like that for him to sit there and look through it and say, Man, it’s the first time I touched the book or see it.

“Was that necessary? Just ask him the damn question if you wanted to ask him. Did not love that.”

But the awkward book moment ended up opening a much bigger can of worms: Dana White finally got into what actually went wrong between him and his mother in the first place.

Dana White reveals the family fallout behind his mother’s book

According to Dana White, things started falling apart while he was away in London for about two weeks. He wasn’t checking his emails much during the trip, and when he finally got back, he said his inbox was stacked with increasingly hostile messages from his mother.

The UFC CEO recalled that she was demanding a large amount of money, giving him the option of paying it all at once or in installments because, as he remembered it, she wanted to buy a bar.

“I was on a trip one time. I didn’t have emails and all that s— on the road,” White said. “We were in London for like two weeks, and when I got back, I checked my emails, and I had like a bunch of emails from her threatening me.

“‘You have two options: you can give me this all upfront, or you can pay me in payments over the next f——, whatever. I’m looking to buy a bar or whatever it was.’ And then she wasn’t getting responses because I was in London, and then the emails started getting nastier and nastier and nastier by the end, and I f—— just blew up.”

Dana White said that blowup was essentially the beginning of the end for his relationship with his mother, and things never really recovered from there.

“That was the beginning of the end with me and her. Listen, sometimes family is the worst,” White said.

He then got much more reflective, admitting that everyone falls short in some part of life, but he believes failing as a parent is the biggest failure of all.

“We all fail at certain things in life. In my opinion, if you fail as a parent, it’s the ultimate failure,” White said.

The situation ultimately became so fractured that Dana White revealed his mother died without either him or his sister speaking to her.

“My mom passed away without me or my sister talking to her,” he added.

Despite everything that happened, the head honcho said he eventually forgave his mother for the past. But forgiveness didn’t mean their relationship was repaired. The two remained estranged and were still not speaking when she died in 2023.

When Steven Bartlett asked if he had forgiven her, Dana White also made it clear that he isn’t interested in going on shows and trashing his mother. Whatever happened between them, he still sees her as part of the reason he became the person he is today.

“I don’t go on shows to speak negatively about my mother,” White said. “I was telling you earlier, I wouldn’t change anything. People say, ‘Do you think you are who you are today because of your parents?’ Absolutely 100 percent. You know, good, bad, whatever, however you want to look at it.

“But that’s one of the grossest, most disgusting things that you couldn’t even imagine possible until it happens to you.”

Dana White said the whole thing bothered him even more because, in his view, the damage didn’t stop with him.

“It happened. You know, it is what it is. The thing that’s bad about that, and what she did, is a lot of other people, I think, she hurt in that book,” he continued. “She didn’t hurt me, but other people. A lot of things that aren’t true, and a lot of people that didn’t do anything to her in that book.”

The 57-year-old reiterated that he had never personally read the book, saying he only knew about its contents through his lawyers. He also brought up the private photographs that were published, claiming his mother had no right to put them in the book.

“And then the, you know, the personal private pictures that she just threw out there that she really didn’t have the right to do,” White added. “It’s one of those things that when you become successful, this type of s— happens to you.”

But that brings things right back to Ariel Helwani’s original gripe with Steven Bartlett. For Helwani, the problem wasn’t really whether the book contained shocking revelations. It was why Bartlett needed to physically put that book in the UFC CEO’s hands in the first place.

If he wanted to ask Dana White about his relationship with his mother, he could have simply asked. Instead, Helwani felt Bartlett made the 57-year-old sit there and handle a deeply personal book written by the woman he was no longer speaking to before her death.