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Betraying a Friendship to Get a Viral Story · Question Everything

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, so I'm here with our contributing editor, Jen Kinney.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: And Jen, this week you have an episode of another
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: show that you really enjoyed. You recommended it to me.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: And now you want to share it with our listeners
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: because you thought our audience specifically would really be into this.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: You want to tell us a bit about it? Yeah.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: I thought this was such a great episode of Death, Sex,
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: and Money, which is a show hosted by Anna Sale.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: And it's a conversation between a journalist, which I'm putting
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: in air quotes because he himself questions that in the episode,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: and a source of his that he burned years ago,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: someone that he really betrayed by publishing a story that
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: she did not want published. And yet years later, they
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: reconnect and they make up and they have this really
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: honest conversation about the cost of him pursuing the story
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: the way that they did and how that affected her life.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: The episode is, I think, pretty remarkable. I'm always looking
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: for radio and podcasts like this because the two of
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: them actually are on it together and you get to
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: hear them talk through this experience of betrayal, of hurt,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: of forgiveness, of things that still bother them. And it's
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: really on theme for the show. It touches on a
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff that we've dug into here on Question Everything.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's rare to hear a conversation between journalist
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: and source that's so candid to begin with and then
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: to hear it in this way where there was such
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: a deep betrayal and then a reconciliation, especially unique.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, yeah, thanks for saying it to me.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: I really enjoyed it.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And I hope you all do too. Check it out.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Here's an episode of Death, Sex, and Money.
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: Has there been a person who changed the course of
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: your life, but not in a good way? Someone that
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: left you with enough scar tissue that never encountering each
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: other again would.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Be just fine?
• 1:43
  Speaker 5: That was the case for A.J. Delario and Jen Sturger.
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: Jen and A.J. ran in the same circles for a
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: time in the late aughts. Both worked in sports media.
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: And Jen told A.J. about Brett Favre, the very famous,
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: very powerful quarterback, sending her repeated messages and photos and
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: voicemails propositioning her. But she asked A.J. not to do
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: a story, and at the very least, not one that
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: named her.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: A.J.
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: Did the story anyway, and he paid a source to
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: get access to the messages Jen said were from Favre.
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: He posted those too, along with Jen's name and picture.
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: That changed Jen's life forever, making her and her motives
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: and her looks the target of sports fans' commentary. It's
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: been 15 years since that story broke, but she can
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: tell you, a viral internet story has this way of
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: freezing you in a difficult moment in your life, and
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: then it does it over and over again with each
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: new search. And then, Years later, a stray puppy needed
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: a home. And in a wild twist, that puppy brought
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: AJ and Jen back in contact in a way neither
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: of them would have done on their own. AJ Delario
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: was featured on the show last fall when we shared
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: an episode of PJ Vote's wonderful podcast search engine called
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: When Do You Know It's Time to Stop Drinking? AJ
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: talked about his heavy drug use and drinking during the
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: time that he was running some of the internet's most
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: attention-grabbing news sites, the sports site Deadspin and Gawker, the
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: tabloidy news site that relished a takedown of a celebrity
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: or captain of industry. AJ eventually had his own takedown
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: after Gawker published a stolen video of Hulk Hogan having sex.
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: Hogan sued Gawker and AJ and won at a jury trial.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: Gawker declared bankruptcy and settled. That was years ago. AJ
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: has since gotten sober, and he talks openly now about
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: the competitive incentives and lack of ethical scruples that led
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: him to do things he wishes now he hadn't. But
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: that wasn't something he had expressed directly to sources he'd burned,
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: like Jen. And then this dog made them cross paths again.
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: And now this week, They both talked to me together
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: on this episode.
• 4:13
  Speaker 6: There's just this violation that comes from having pieces of
• 4:19
  Speaker 6: your life that were so private and so damaging to
• 4:22
  Speaker 6: you put out there by someone other than yourself. If
• 4:29
  Speaker 6: I've learned anything, it's that once your story gets told
• 4:34
  Speaker 6: by someone else, it's no longer your story.
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: This is Death, Sex, and Money. The show from Slate
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: about the things we think about a lot and need
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: to talk about more. I'm Anna Saleh. Netflix just released
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: a new documentary about NFL legendary quarterback Brett Favre, who
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: was once celebrated, and still sort of is, even after
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: a series of high-profile scandals. The documentary is called Untold,
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: The Fall of Favre. And early on, it introduces us
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: to Jen Sturger. In 2005, she was a college student
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: at Florida State. and was discovered by chance when a
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: TV camera panned across her and a group of friends
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: at a football game. She was wearing a bikini top
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: and a cowboy hat. As she was on screen, announcer
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: Brent Musburger took note on the national broadcast.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: 1,500 red-blooded Americans just decided to acquire the Florida State.
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: The internet sports site Deadspin also noticed Jen and made
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: her an instant internet celebrity.
• 5:57
  Speaker 6: When my pictures came out, from the football game. I
• 6:02
  Speaker 6: remember Deadspin got a hold of them through the message
• 6:05
  Speaker 6: boards and stuff like that. And so I ended up, like,
• 6:07
  Speaker 6: I think in some kind of article or article's a
• 6:11
  Speaker 6: loose term for it. I ended up on their website,
• 6:14
  Speaker 6: you know.
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: This is you in the cowgirl hat watching a football game.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 6:18
  Speaker 6: And so from there, I think Deadspin was actually what
• 6:23
  Speaker 6: got me noticed by Maxim and Playboy.
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: So Deadspin had kind of helped you establish a profile
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: on the internet.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: Exactly. Deadspin helped kind of launch me in a way.
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: From there, Jen appeared in Playboy and Maxim. She wrote
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: a column for Sports Illustrated called Confessions of a Cowgirl
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: and contributed to ABC's college basketball coverage. Meanwhile, Deadspin was
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: also launching the career of A.J. Delario, who started as
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: a writer and became Deadspin's editor by 2008. A.J. had
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: sharp elbows and a knack for beating out competition for
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: eyeballs on the internet. Did you think of yourself as
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: a journalist? Is that the word you used for what
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: you did?
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: No, no, not at all. Yeah, I never liked that.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: There was a lot. I know I did journalism at
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: some point, right? But I was kind of like cartwheeling
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: through it is like how I like to describe it.
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: Because I knew that there were some restrictions that I
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: wanted to not adhere to, right? I didn't want three sources.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: I wanted to pay for stories. I wanted to do
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: things that were kind of a little more editorialized and subjective.
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: I wanted to kind of, you know, incorporate a lot
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: more voice and personality into the stories that I did, right?
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: So I didn't really think of myself as a journalist, no.
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: What's a word that you might have fit better?
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Provocateur?
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: Right. I mean, I was going to say that, but
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: I was like, man, do I sound like an asshole
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: if I say provocateur? And I kind of do. But
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: I think that I loved spectacle, right? I really loved
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: having either good or bad attention. It didn't matter to me.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: As long as people were talking about something that I
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: had done, I considered that a win.
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: By 2008... Jen Sturger was hired as a sideline reporter
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: for the New York Jets. She only worked for the
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: team for one year, the same year Brett Favre came
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: to play for the Jets. Jen also contributed to Deadspin,
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: and she and AJ would occasionally email and talk on
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: the phone.
• 8:40
  Speaker 6: We just kind of had a running dialogue, and then
• 8:42
  Speaker 6: I think it was Super Bowl 2010. He and I
• 8:47
  Speaker 6: connected to talk about Super Bowl parties and And then
• 8:51
  Speaker 6: there was like some back and forth about whether or
• 8:54
  Speaker 6: not AJ's guys could get into the Super Bowl parties.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: And he's like, but you can, Jen.
• 8:59
  Speaker 6: He's like, can you tell me what's happening inside these
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: Super Bowl parties?
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: And I was like, yeah, sure, I guess.
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: So wait, I want to understand. The Super Bowl party
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: thing was like he's kind of cultivating you as a source.
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: Like you were able to watch what's going on.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: She was one of my moles in ISN.
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: So the Super Bowl was supposed to be a big–
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: ad push for people at Gawker. So what I would
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: do is put out like a bounty, right, on stuff
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: that I wanted from Super Bowl week. And one of
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: the bounties that I had was, I believe it was just,
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: I was using dong shots as like part of a
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: bounty and, you know, not expecting anyone to respond to it.
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: Dong shots, meaning photos of penises.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: That would be it.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: Yes. Okay. All right.
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: OK, so you're you're going to be his eyes and
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: ears as Super Bowl party. You have this like messaging correspondence.
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: And then like how did it happen that you were
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: sending him emails and you told him? him, you alluded
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: to what had happened between you and Brett Favre?
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: I think it was actually over a phone conversation.
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: I think we just got to talking about how dong
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: shots had gotten so prevalent, I think is how the
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: conversation started. It was just like, can you believe these
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: guys that just Like that they think that that's the move.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? And A.J. was kind of
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: annoyed by it.
• 10:25
  Speaker 6: He was just like, I can't believe I have to
• 10:27
  Speaker 6: cover like I have to like deal with this, cover this.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? And I was like, man,
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: this is nothing compared to what happened to me at
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: the Jets.
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: As she recounts in the new Netflix documentary, Jen attracted
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: the attention of Brett Favre. who was by then already
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: an NFL legend from his time at the Green Bay
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: Packers in the late 90s, when he won the Super
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: Bowl and was the NFL's most valuable player for three
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: years in a row.
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: He was a god. You know, he was very protective.
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: And I was a 25-year-old independent contractor.
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: And Jen says she started getting messages from him, asking
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: if she'd like to get together, even though Brett Favre
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: was married. and she never gave him her number. There
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: were voicemails, and she says in the Netflix doc, a
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: photo sent of his penis.
• 11:20
  Speaker 6: I was watching playoff baseball, and I remember my phone
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: going off.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Then I opened up the picture.
• 11:29
  Speaker 6: The picture came through, and the T-mail address that it
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: came with was B-Farf.
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: Jen told some people at the time, At the end
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: of that season at the Jets, her contract wasn't renewed.
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: A few years later, Jen and A.J. Delaria were talking,
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: and she told him what had happened, even played him
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: a voicemail of what sounded a lot like Favre's voice
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: asking Jen to come to his hotel room. She thought
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: of it as two sports media people trading stories at first.
• 12:01
  Speaker 6: I remember getting off that call and being like, Jen,
• 12:05
  Speaker 6: I think you just overshared. And I was like, no,
• 12:10
  Speaker 6: it's fine. Like it's an off the record conversation, you know,
• 12:13
  Speaker 6: it was kind of how I viewed it. But I
• 12:17
  Speaker 6: do remember getting off that call being like, oh no,
• 12:19
  Speaker 6: but that happened to me so often.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: It still does.
• 12:24
  Speaker 6: And I try to monitor it a little bit more
• 12:28
  Speaker 6: now that I know it's like a tendency of mine.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: I just, it's a way of connection for me is storytelling.
• 12:35
  Speaker 6: And that's something that I've really come to understand about myself.
• 12:39
  Speaker 6: in the last decade through going through all the therapy
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: I have.
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: So it's this cycle. What I hear you saying is
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: you're sharing to try to connect, and then the other
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: side of that cycle is the regret, maybe shame, oh God,
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: I hope this doesn't turn out badly.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Oh, a thousand percent.
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: Well, you're telling yourself it's going to be okay.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: That was off the record.
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: AJ, when you hear this information from Jen, what do
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: you start thinking about?
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: Well, I remember getting off the phone, because you played
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: me one of the voicemails too, right? And I think
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: that was really the part that I was shocked by,
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: was that I was just like, oh, this wasn't... He
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: was actively pursuing her in a way that made her
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: uncomfortable because of her job, right? This wasn't like a
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: normal sort of, athletes behaving badly sort of situation. She
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: was really in a tough spot here. And that was
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: the thing where it rose to the level of something
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: that was bigger than I think that I was used to,
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: but also understanding full well that this is the most
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: popular and famous football player on the planet and who
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: occupies a lot of space in just like the sports
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: media world And then I went and I told my
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: deputy editor what I just heard from her. And I
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: was just like, this could be huge.
• 14:18
  Speaker 6: And I look back at like, why did you play
• 14:20
  Speaker 6: him the voicemails, Jen? And I think what it came
• 14:24
  Speaker 6: down to was, AJ was not the first person I
• 14:27
  Speaker 6: had told this to. Like professionally that I had told
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: this to. I told people that this was going on
• 14:34
  Speaker 6: when it happened. Yeah. And- I had some people that
• 14:39
  Speaker 6: just did not believe me. And I don't think there's
• 14:45
  Speaker 6: a worse thing for a victim than feeling not believed
• 14:49
  Speaker 6: or like this is bullshit, this isn't real, you know.
• 14:54
  Speaker 6: And I felt like AJ was the first person that
• 14:58
  Speaker 6: heard that and was like, oh, this is a big
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: deal and this was messed up what happened to you.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: I truly do believe he viewed it that way.
• 15:08
  Speaker 6: Uh-huh.
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: It's a big story because it's so messed up what
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: happened to you.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: I didn't view it as a story.
• 15:14
  Speaker 6: I just viewed it as like, this is the first
• 15:15
  Speaker 6: person that's taken my claim seriously.
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: Uh-huh. You know, I was taking it seriously and I
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: was asking other people because I, you know, I had
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: a lot of sources at that point and lots of
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: people I knew that were in the industry and people
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: knew this about Brett Favre, but they were also like, look,
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: I cover, if he's doing something on the field, That's
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: a story. Off the field, like, who cares? Has it
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: risen to the level of kind of, is it illegal?
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: Then maybe there's something there that we can talk about.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: But the risk of alienating the most popular football player
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: on the planet for most of these guys was too great, right?
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: I mean, and I understand that. I mean, if they
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: lose access to Brett Favre or piss off somebody in
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: Brett Favre's camp, then that could cost them their job
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: in some way, right?
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: So you're describing, just to sort of see what I'm hearing, like, Jen,
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: you're saying somebody is taking this seriously and somebody in
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: it and that it matters.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: I just felt seen. Yeah.
• 16:21
  Speaker 6: I felt seen for the first time because before then
• 16:26
  Speaker 6: I had sat with this for all of, you know,
• 16:31
  Speaker 6: like the fall of 2008, all of 2009.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: And had been in therapy, had lost my job with
• 16:38
  Speaker 6: the Jets, obviously, um, had gone back to waitressing.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: Like I had lost everything, you know, um, and had
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: to reinvent myself. Like I went.
• 16:50
  Speaker 6: Through a major transformation in 2009 where like I took
• 16:55
  Speaker 6: out my breast implants. I, I, fully gave myself a
• 17:00
  Speaker 6: makeover and was like, I have to do this because
• 17:04
  Speaker 6: I'm the one that drew this attention to myself, you know?
• 17:07
  Speaker 6: Because so many people just, they didn't care, you know?
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: And like I said, I just, I felt seen for
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: the first time. Someone saying, hey, what happened to you
• 17:17
  Speaker 6: was wrong.
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: AJ did not post the information immediately. But then, a
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: few months later, in the summer of 2010, Brett Favre
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: was back dominating sports headlines.
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: If you go back, Brett Favre was kind of holding
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: sports media hostage every summer when he would decide whether
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: or not he was going to retire. And that summer
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: was the same thing. It became the major news story was,
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: will he retire? Who will he play for? And I
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: was in a bad mood that day when I saw
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: that this was actually the news story that everyone was
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: talking about Brett Favre. And I was basically like, fuck this.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: I'm going to put everyone on blast. Thinking mostly that
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: I was putting, honestly, like sports journalists on blast. Like basically,
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: you know, you guys know about this. I believe this person.
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: And I think to add credibility, I used the email
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: from her telling me not to use it, right? Thinking
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: that that actually gave it a little more credibility and
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: weight to it. And thinking that someone would come forward
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: and say just like, yeah, this is a hundred percent true.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: And then the story would naturally evolve from there. And
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: one of the first calls I got was someone from
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: a major sports network, we'll say, who was just like, yeah,
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: everybody knows about this, but we can't do this. Like
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: it's Brett Favre basically is the biggest story around. We're
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: not burning Brett Favre. The end. And, um, I think
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: that just made me more determined that if I did
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: get any sort of response of someone who had proof
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: that I was going to go with it. And I
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: told her that too. And, you know, at that point
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: she had stopped talking to me and understood.
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: Is that right, Jen?
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:13
  Speaker 6: I mean, I was actually at a photo shoot for
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: the promo shots and commercials for my new sports show
• 19:20
  Speaker 6: I had coming up when AJ called me. and was like, hey,
• 19:23
  Speaker 6: why don't you come into the office, and we can
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: talk about this. And I just remember being like, oh,
• 19:32
  Speaker 6: this is bad. And I ran it past my management
• 19:37
  Speaker 6: team at the time, and they were like, absolutely not.
• 19:40
  Speaker 6: You will not be going into the Gawker office. Are
• 19:43
  Speaker 6: you insane? Just ignore it. And so I don't think
• 19:49
  Speaker 6: I respond to to AJ much, but I do think
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: at one point I sent an email that was like,
• 19:53
  Speaker 6: Hey man, I can't be involved in this. And, um,
• 19:57
  Speaker 6: like if there was any way that like you guys
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: could out him for being the person he is without
• 20:01
  Speaker 6: me being involved, that would be one thing. But I can't, like, I, I,
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: I can't be attached to this, you know, just because
• 20:10
  Speaker 6: I finally got my life back on track. I have
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: my own show coming up. I was back on the air.
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: And this just wasn't going to end well for me.
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: Jen asked AJ not to run the story. She said
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: she wouldn't cooperate as a source. But AJ started looking
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: for other ways to get access to the voicemails and
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: explicit photos. AJ found someone who had them and would
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: sell them to Deadspin.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: They were in Florida. I said they'd fly out for
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: 10 grand and I would pay for their flight and
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: they'd give me all that stuff for 10 grand. And
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: I went to my bosses at the time at Gawker.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: And like I said, I mean, we were encouraged to
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: pay for stories if they did have them and how
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: it would work. It was almost like a book advance, right?
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: If I got paid $ 10, 000 and then whatever sort of
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: conversion rate for page views, like you would have to
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: earn out or else you would not get your page
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: view bonus for however long until afterwards. So as long
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: as you earned out and were successful with it, obviously
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: it could be transformative for a site. And we only
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: had like three people that were full-time at Deadspin at
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: that time.
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: So you thought this is at least a $ 10, 000 story
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: for me. I was willing to....
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Bet that it was if it had worked out the
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: way that i thought it would yeah um.
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: So it it is a ten thousand dollar story and
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: then some when it's published it's everywhere your face is
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: everywhere talking about the story including on television interviews and
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: you're being asked about how you got the story um
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: and people you admit openly that you paid for the
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: story yeah um and at one point um You say
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: to a television, this is in the documentary, you say
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: to a television interviewer, if there are two scumbags at
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: the end of this, it's myself and Brett Favre.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: Well, look, I mean, I said to a couple of
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: people at the end of this, if there are two
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: scumbags out of this situation, it's myself and Brett Favre.
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: You remember saying that?
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, I do.
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: And there is an interesting part about that. When I
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: did ask to have the $ 10, 000 to pay this, part
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: of the stipulation was, you know, okay, well you're going
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: to promote this and you're going to go on all
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: the television shows and all the interview shows. And I
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: did it all.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: Uh huh.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: Um, but yeah, it wasn't, I didn't like it.
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: Um, when you were putting the piece together that was
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: going to go up on the internet. Yeah. Among the
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: photos that are included is a picture.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: Of Jen. Yeah.
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: On the top of the article, right? Sure. Um, her body,
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: what she looks like, her name. Did that give you pause?
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: No, it didn't. You know, because, I mean, I think
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: the one we used was basically the New York Jets
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: press photo that was circulating around with it, I think. And,
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: but it was, you know, Obviously, I mean, when you
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: run a picture of Jen on the site, I mean,
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: it does give a whole different shape to this story, right?
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I mean, how do I say
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: this respectfully?
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: Well, it's a sexy photo. She's in like a Jets shirt,
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: but it's like a sexy photo. So it's a photo
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: of Brett Favre's bad behavior. With a sexy woman's picture
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: attached to it.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: But it's also because she had been such a personality
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: in her presence. It's not like she wasn't well-known too, right?
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: People knew who she was. So I didn't think it
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: was anything that I thought about too heavily. I was
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: just like, oh, well, this is how she presents herself.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: This is what the Jets are putting out there. So
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: why isn't this the photo that we would use? It
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: didn't matter if it was like a sexy photo as
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: long as she was wearing Jet stuff, right? I mean,
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: for me.
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: Uh-huh. Do you want to say anything to that, Jen?
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: Which part?
• 24:27
  Speaker 6: You know, it's interesting because I look back on so
• 24:38
  Speaker 6: much of this and I got emotional when AJ was
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: talking and it has nothing to do with what AJ
• 24:48
  Speaker 6: is saying.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: And it more has to do.
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: With being able to put myself back in that time
• 24:52
  Speaker 6: period so easily.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: And just how violating of an experience it is.
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: And I know that sounds crazy as a woman who
• 25:05
  Speaker 6: made her living or who got discovered because of how
• 25:10
  Speaker 6: she looked, you know? Like I wasn't on television and
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: people weren't like, look how big her brains are.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: Like it wasn't, that's not why I got discovered. But
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: you have to remember at the time, this was in
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: the mid-2000s, a certain aesthetic was rewarded by society.
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that was your currency.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: And I played the game. I played the game.
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: I was the girl that like looked like a pinup
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: but could talk about football. I think today kids call
• 25:44
  Speaker 6: that a pick me.
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: Really?
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. But truly, knowing what I know now about myself,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: that was all a mask. And I think that was
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: the hardest part for me is knowing that it was
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: a mask.
• 26:00
  Speaker 6: And I always just, when I would talk about it
• 26:03
  Speaker 6: to people back in the day, I would describe the
• 26:06
  Speaker 6: way I presented in public as kind of like my
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: wrestling gimmick, for lack of a better word.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: I was like, this is a character. This is a
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: caricature of myself.
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: And to that point, there felt like there was a
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: level of insulation between who Jen was as a person
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: and who I presented to the public. So when people
• 26:27
  Speaker 6: made fun of me, I would just be like, or
• 26:29
  Speaker 6: they would talk badly about me. I was like, they
• 26:30
  Speaker 6: don't know me. And suddenly with the story, those lines
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: became very blurred, even for myself. Because it's one thing
• 26:41
  Speaker 6: to be in your mid-20s and figuring out who you are.
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: It's another to have the internet screaming at you what
• 26:47
  Speaker 6: they think you are.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: And I think the internet told me who I was.
• 26:51
  Speaker 6: Before I had a chance to figure that out for myself.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: And they got it wrong. They got it wrong. They
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: didn't know who I was. You know, it was just
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: like they looked at pictures and that's all I was.
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: And to be fair to AJ, like, he didn't know
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: me as a human being. He knew me as a
• 27:06
  Speaker 6: picture and as a girl on the internet. And that's
• 27:08
  Speaker 6: what everybody knew me as.
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: Coming up, after eight years of no contact, Jen and
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: AJ run into each other again when AJ and his
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: wife are moved by an ad for a stray puppy
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: at a crowded shelter.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: I heard the gasp, right? And she shows me the
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: name of the rescue person is Jen Sturger. And we
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: both do some Googling, basically just like, is this the
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: person that I had burned years ago? And it turned
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: out that it was Jen. And I said, well, I
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: guess this dog will die because there's no way that
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: this person is going to give me this dog.
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: This is Death, Sex, and Money from Slate. I'm Anna Sale. A.J.
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: Delario's career took off after the Favre story on Deadspin.
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: He was profiled by GQ and promoted to editor-in-chief of
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: Gawker in 2011. He was just the man for the job,
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: someone making new rules, or really breaking old ones, for
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: a new era of viral internet journalism. AJ was going
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: to get your attention, and it worked. A lot of
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: us paid a lot of attention. And then another story
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: about a famous sports figure landed AJ in court and
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: bankrupted his company. AJ Delario, the man behind Gawker's posting
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: of that now infamous Hulk Hogan sex tape, taking the
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: stand and taking some hits.
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: Those are your words? Yes.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Are you laughing there?
• 28:56
  Speaker 6: Yep.
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: Hulk Hogan sued Gawker and AJ Delario personally after the
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: site published a video of Hogan having sex. After years
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: of litigation, a jury found them liable. It led to
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: a settlement of more than $ 30 million and the end
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: of that era of Gawker Media. The Hogan trial ended
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: a lot of other things for A.J. Delario, including the
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: flagrant drinking and drug use that characterized his time as
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: Gawker editor.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: I'd gotten sober in 2016. And part of getting sober
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: through the Alcoholics Anonymous program where I was doing the
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: 12 steps. And in one of the steps... It's the
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: eighth one. where you make a list of all people
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: you had harmed, right. And a willingness to make amends
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: to them all. And, you know, I had a sponsor
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: at the time when I made this list of people
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: and there were people that, you know, I had hurt
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: at deadspin, um, who were semi-famous people and whatever. And
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: Jen was on that list and they had really explained
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: to me that it's like, you know, well, if you
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: go reach out to these people, do you think that'll
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: do more harm to them as opposed to good? And
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: are you doing it for like selfish reasons to make
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: yourself feel better? Like, is it kind of a vacant apology, right?
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: And yeah, and she was obviously on that list. And
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: I was just like, yeah.
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: How long was that list of people from work?
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: I have it somewhere. It was like a dozen, you know, easily. But,
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: you know, I knew that she was in L.A. And
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: I had just moved to L.A. to be with my
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: now wife. And, you know, of course I thought about
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: the situation of just like maybe– maybe there is something
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: that I should kind of return to not right away,
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: but eventually down the road. But 2018, you know, I
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: had already had my first child and we were celebrating
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: my wife's birthday and we were talking about having a
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: dog at some point, but she was also like, you know,
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: it's like seven months pregnant with our second child. And
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: it was like bringing a puppy into that sort of
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: situation was not, something that I think either one of
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: us were really equipped to handle at that point.
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: You have a one-year-old and a seven-month, like your wife
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: is seven months pregnant?
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: There's a lot happening. She was on Instagram and had gotten,
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: I think it was Kat Dennings, the actress, who had
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: pushed out a rescue shelter photo for that because it
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: was 4th of July and the kill shelters are overrun
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: at that point, that these three dogs needed help. And
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: Julianne shows me the picture, and it looks exactly like
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: the dog I had when I grew up, right?
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: What's it look like?
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: We had like a white lab mix, right? And his
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: name was Polar. My dad had a little trouble with
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: his Philly accent, so instead of Polar, it was Polar. So, but,
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: you know, when I saw the picture, I was just like, oh,
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: my God, it's polar. Well, we have to get this dog, right?
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: This is fate, right? That this dog comes into my
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: life at this time.
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: AJ's wife, Julianne, emailed the rescue group and got a
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: response that a volunteer named Jen Sturger was assigned to
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: bring the puppy by to get to know the family.
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: That Jen Sturger. She was serving on the board of
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: a nonprofit that places shelter dogs in new homes. When
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: he heard her name, AJ thought after years of leaving
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: her alone, he ought to reach out.
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: I emailed Jen and I was like, hey, you know,
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: I know my name's showing up in your inbox and
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: this is probably startling to you. And I just tried
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: to kind of explain my situation. Like, you know, I
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: have a wife now. I have a kid on the way.
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: We just want a dog. It's like, and I'm so sorry.
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: And I understand if you're not going to be able
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: to give it to us.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: I do. But at some point, I would really love
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: to talk to you. And I'm paraphrasing here. And then
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: I think she emailed back and kind of very solemn.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: She's just like, yeah, I went on Instagram and Julianne's
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: page and I put the two together after a while.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: And that was kind of it. Still not knowing full
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: well if she was going to be the one dropping
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: off the dog.
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: Okay, Jen, so you just get notified when there's a
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: family interested in meeting this dog.
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you become a lead on an animal, you know,
• 33:47
  Speaker 6: and so you have like case files. And this was
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: one of my case files were these three puppies that
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: were found out in the desert with their feral mom.
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: And I had gone out to the desert to pick
• 33:58
  Speaker 6: up these dogs and the mom was too scared to
• 34:02
  Speaker 6: be adopted, but the puppies were still young enough that
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: they could be molded, you know, as long as we
• 34:08
  Speaker 6: got them into good homes that were understanding, you know,
• 34:11
  Speaker 6: like that's the thing with rescue dogs is you don't
• 34:14
  Speaker 6: really know what they've been through. And I take that
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: rescue work very seriously. And it's always been a big
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: part of my life working with animals. I think I
• 34:23
  Speaker 6: like animals more than people for good reason.
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: So as you're doing this work, that's like you're, It's
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: insulated from all this other stuff. It's your safe space.
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: It's where you can be of service. It's where you
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: experience really pure love. When you figured out that it
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: was his family, what was your first set of reactions?
• 34:45
  Speaker 6: Look, I could have passed the dog off to one
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: of my rescue partners. But I do think there was
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: a part of me that was like, I had not
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: had any contact with AJ at this point for over.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: eight years, you know? And I.
• 35:06
  Speaker 6: Had done a lot of work on myself. Me too
• 35:10
  Speaker 6: had happened. The landscape had changed. And I don't know
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: exactly why I was like, no, I can go and
• 35:21
  Speaker 6: I can do this for myself. I honestly, I think
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: it's because I wanted him to just see that I
• 35:24
  Speaker 6: was a real person, you know? And I think that
• 35:27
  Speaker 6: that's something that I, for better or for worse, I
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: often think that if I can be in a room
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: with somebody, I can change the way they see me.
• 35:44
  Speaker 6: I say I give good room, but the truth is
• 35:46
  Speaker 6: I think that meeting me in person is so different
• 35:49
  Speaker 6: from the experience you have of me online.
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: You had never met in person during all of your correspondence.
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: We had never met in person, which is crazy because
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: the other part of the story is I.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: Had never met Brett Favre.
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: You know, all of the men that were the cause
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: of my downfall, I've never actually met in person up
• 36:11
  Speaker 6: until this point.
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: So then what was it like to see him in person?
• 36:20
  Speaker 6: I don't think we said much to each other the
• 36:23
  Speaker 6: day I actually dropped off the dog. It was very
• 36:25
  Speaker 6: much like business because I wanted to make sure that
• 36:29
  Speaker 6: the dog was going to adjust well in the household,
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: that they understood the dog had different needs than a
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: lot of other animals would. Um, but the dog bonded
• 36:41
  Speaker 6: instantly with his son. Like it was so clear that
• 36:45
  Speaker 6: this is where that dog was supposed to be because
• 36:47
  Speaker 6: this dog was terrified of everyone and just instantly lit
• 36:53
  Speaker 6: up with his son. And I was like, well, I
• 36:55
  Speaker 6: can't take this dog out of here. You with all
• 36:59
  Speaker 6: of the advice I was giving them in terms of
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: what the dog would need, and they didn't seem deterred
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: by it, and they were willing to put in the work,
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: you know? And like I said, I don't think AJ
• 37:10
  Speaker 6: and I really interacted a ton.
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: The dog became a part of AJ's family. They named
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: him Nesta.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: I think it was maybe a day or two later,
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: I thanked her for Nesta, and I was just like, look,
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: I'd still like to talk to you.
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: Jen agreed to meet and catch up, They sat together
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: at a place called House of Pies in L.A., and
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: it was emotional.
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: I still wonder to this day what people thought was happening,
• 37:35
  Speaker 6: because I'm pretty sure I teared up a couple of times.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: I was like, people think he's breaking up with me
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: or something. People probably had.
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: No idea what this conversation actually was.
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: Get this lady some pie over here. She's having a
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: tough day.
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: Part of it was that being with AJ brought everything
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: back up for Jen.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: But H.A.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: Also wanted to tell her he got this in a
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: way he hadn't before, now that he'd also been at
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: the center of a humiliating media story that felt like
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: it crowded out everything else about him.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: I was less than eager to make an amends to her,
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: but I really wanted to talk to her and tell her, look,
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: I can see you now in a way that I
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: don't think most people can. We have this shared language
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: and this shared experience that... you know, and I, I
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: had someone who kind of like, you know, helped me through,
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: through my shit. And if I could be that to
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: her in this way, then I was going to do it.
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: Um, and the person who helped me was, was James
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: Fry from, you know, a million little pieces was the
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: guy who essentially, you know, has taught me about, you know, you're,
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: you're able to kind of live a life that's bigger
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: than this version of you that you think has been
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: taken from you. And, you know, you, you can just
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: like take back your story if you take back your life.
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: And I was so eager to share that with her.
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: I was so eager to kind of just like sit
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: down and let her know that I understood, like, like
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: I really, really got it. And, and I hope that
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: she trusted me with that. Right. Cause it was important.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: And that was like the most important part to me
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: was just like, look, I, I know how this feels now,
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: you know? And like, You can say anything you absolutely
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: want to me and I will get it. And I
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: will get it probably more than most people would.
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: So it was, that's distinct from amends. This is saying
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: I've had my life blown up and felt public humiliation.
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: Reordered was the verb that was used to me that
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: I always hung on to.
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: Which was just like, you know, I had my identity
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: wrapped up in this one thing that I thought was
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: this very important part of my life, which was basically just,
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: you know, being a provocateur. No, I mean, working at
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: Gawker was really important part of my life. And, you know,
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: obviously it had blown up spectacularly. I was also going
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: to be kind of, you know, connected to this iconic
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: sports figure forever and ever in a way that I
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: didn't necessarily like. I totally felt like my that I
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: was dehumanized and no longer, I was just a plot
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: point and a character and no longer a human. Like
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: I knew all of this stuff intimately at that point,
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: I was working through that, like, you know, at the
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: same time. And, you know, I, I think I explained
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: it to her. I was just like, look, we kind
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: of have the same limp now. Right. And I, I, I,
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: I think we can, we can, connect on this. And
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: I think that this could be a good thing. Uh-huh.
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: So just to frame that time of your life, I
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: was reading back an Esquire piece from 2017. And there's
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: a paragraph, not all that long ago as the editor-in-chief
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: of Gawker.com, Delario was among the most influential and feared
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: figures in media. Now the 42-year-old is unemployed. His bank
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: has frozen his life savings of $ 1, 500. And a $ 1, 200
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: per month, one bedroom is all he can afford. Is
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: that a piece that you look at? No.
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: No, I mean, it's like, I always kind of talk
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: about my recovery in kind of two ways. And like,
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: you know, the drug and alcohol part, it was always
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: a part of my life for a long period of time,
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: but I don't think I ever officially had like a
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: rock bottom per se. And I don't think the trial
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: process necessarily was that for me either. That Esquire story was.
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: That Esquire story was the moment where I was like
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: frozen in a way that I couldn't understand. I couldn't
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: understand because, I mean, I was living in Los Angeles
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: when that profile was done. I had met Julianne. She
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: was pregnant. I had a job. And none of that
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: appeared in the story. Oh. And I remember asking the
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: writer about it and he was just like, well, that's
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: not the story we're running. I mean, Jen's nodding her head.
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's just like, that's it. I mean, it's
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: just like, I've lost control of who I am in
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: the rest of the world. And the rest of the
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: world is like, you are this person and this is
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: how you're going to be treated henceforth, right? You know?
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 42:41
  Speaker 6: And that's the very thing I've been working through since,
• 42:46
  Speaker 6: doing this Netflix documentary because and AJ probably has a
• 42:51
  Speaker 6: similar experience when something like this happens to you and
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: you're just kind of frozen in this moment in time
• 43:00
  Speaker 6: where that is all people will remember you for it
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: feels so difficult to move forward from that because.
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: Even when you move forward everyone else drags you back
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: into it.
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's it.
• 43:13
  Speaker 6: Anytime they use that as the headline or this is
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: how they introduce you with like your byline.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: Like as far as.
• 43:18
  Speaker 6: Anybody on the internet knows that just knows me in passing,
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: I will always be the Brett Favre girl. And that's
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: what I think has been the hardest part for me
• 43:28
  Speaker 6: is feeling like no one can understand that experience. And
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: I feel like AJ and I are speaking the same
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: language in this regard where it's like, I think there's
• 43:39
  Speaker 6: so many more people out there than we realize that
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: feel like they are defined by this one mistake or
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: this one thing, this one bad thing that happened to them.
• 43:51
  Speaker 6: And they can't move forward from that. And people ask me, like,
• 43:57
  Speaker 6: why did you forgive AJ? And I think what it
• 44:00
  Speaker 6: comes down to is AJ is the only person in
• 44:06
  Speaker 6: this entire story that has ever come to me and
• 44:09
  Speaker 6: looked me in the eye and told me he was sorry.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: And I think.
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: That kind of apology and that kind of admittance to like, hey,
• 44:21
  Speaker 6: I know what I did to you. Like that was
• 44:24
  Speaker 6: one of the first times in my life someone had
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: done that for me. And I mean, like we're talking
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: like tapping into some childhood shit. Like that is one
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: of the first times someone looked at me and was like,
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: I am truly.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: Sorry for what I did to you.
• 44:40
  Speaker 6: And that's why it feels right that only like I
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: extend that grace to him, you know? Because no one
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: had ever done that to me. No one had ever
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: given me that closure. Like I still to this day,
• 44:58
  Speaker 6: like it's something that I struggle with in relationships is
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: when people hurt me and they don't apologize and there's
• 45:03
  Speaker 6: no mending.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: It's so hard to move on. And it's like we
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: have to give each other that.
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: You know, we have to give each other the capability
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: of healing and like admitting when we've done something wrong.
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: It's been several years now since AJ and Jen reconnected,
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: and they've kept in regular touch. So AJ, when you
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: reached out to Jen to do that follow-up meetup to
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: say like, There's things I get now that I didn't then.
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: How would you describe, what kind of friendship did that start?
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: What's your relationship now? How are you in touch? And
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: when do you find yourselves reaching out to one another?
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: I mean, I have a nice little circle of people
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: now that have gone through some sort of public disgrace.
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: And then when any time, like any time Brett Favre's
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: in the news, I will reach out to her. If
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: Hulk Hogan's in the news, she will reach out to me.
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: And we can have this conversation, right? And just check
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: in on each other, right? And knowing that it comes
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: from like a good place, which is basically just like,
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: for me, sometimes it's enough just to, if she says
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: something to me, it'll take me out of spinning, right?
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: It'll be just like, oh, Right. There's there's actually there's
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: there's someone who is is is hearing behind this echo
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: who's basically just like trying to make the echo stop
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: for me in that moment. Right. Yeah.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: It's interesting. AJ equated it one day.
• 46:52
  Speaker 6: He was like, have you ever had that experience where
• 46:55
  Speaker 6: like someone just says one word?
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: And it makes you want to throw a table through
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: a window.
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: And I was like, oh yeah. I was like, I
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: feel like Bucky Winter Soldier sometimes. And it's like a
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: random word that like no one else will know what
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: it is. No one else will understand that it's a trigger.
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: And I'll be like, before I know it, I'm off
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: to the races. My brain is off to the races.
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: And it's just so nice to have someone that speaks
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: the same language as you go, hey, put the table down, Jen.
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: I validate your feelings if you want to throw the table.
• 47:32
  Speaker 6: However.
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: Well, when the Mississippi thing happened, I was just like, hey,
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: saw you in the news today. How you doing?
• 47:40
  Speaker 6: You know, AJ's helped me through other scenarios where I've
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: been in relationships with people who had substance abuse issues
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: and didn't know how to deal with it. And honestly,
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: when I look back, saw that a lot of people
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: I had been in relationships with had substance abuse issues.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: And being able to.
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: Talk to somebody from the other side that could explain
• 48:09
  Speaker 6: to me what I could do to take my power back,
• 48:11
  Speaker 6: even in those situations where I felt helpless, was super helpful.
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: I listen to AJ's podcast. I support him.
• 48:21
  Speaker 6: I think the work that he's doing for that community
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: is amazing. And I feel like he deserves to be
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: able to evolve and move on just as much as
• 48:32
  Speaker 6: I do, you know? And I think that it helps
• 48:36
  Speaker 6: sometimes to have somebody to hold that mirror up and
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: be like, hey, you deserve to move forward. You deserve
• 48:42
  Speaker 6: to be something more than the gawker dick pic guy
• 48:47
  Speaker 6: because the work he's doing now is so much more
• 48:50
  Speaker 6: important than that and so much bigger than that. Honestly,
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: probably feels what he's been called to do. I don't
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: want to speak for him, but I just did.
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: I feel like what you were saying, like how he
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: deserves to feel affection, like you're putting words to also
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: what it can feel like when a dog loves you.
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: Without all those words, like a dog doesn't care what
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: history you've brought into the room if you make it.
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: them feel loved and safe. Like what can happen between
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: you and an animal. Like it's, I still, like, when
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: you think about that, this dog, this puppy who was
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: living in the desert. is now a member of AJ's family.
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: And Jen, you brought that puppy into AJ's family and
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: you had this history. Like, when you tell yourself this
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: actually happened in real life, like, what do you make
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: of this story, right? Like, it's, I mean, AJ, like,
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: what do you, do you find yourself, like, ascribing some
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: kind of higher power to it? Do you find yourself
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: just feeling in awe of what can happen that you're
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: not in control of? Like, what do you find, what
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: do you make of it?
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, I think I could tell the story
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: like all the time, like once a week and still,
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: it still is shocking to me. And it's still, I'm
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: waiting for people to really get what's going on. And
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: I'm just like, no, you don't understand like how much
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: this person really despised me and really kind of held
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: me as responsible for some of her most painful moments
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: in her life.
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: The one thing that I do want to just clarify
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: and see if you see it this way, like, AJ
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: wanted to reach out because he felt like he understood
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: what you had gone through having with the Hulk Hogan
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: trial and having his career blow up and it be
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: in the press. Your story is different from his because
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: you didn't do anything. That's fair.
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: That's very fair.
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: Dick pics sent to you and voicemails.
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: But listen, I think that that's what people don't understand
• 51:24
  Speaker 6: is I take plenty ownership of of the oversharing that
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: caused this. I can't control what people did with that information,
• 51:36
  Speaker 6: but I've owned all the parts of this that were me.
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: And I feel like what's really crazy is why is
• 51:43
  Speaker 6: the person that was technically the victim in this situation
• 51:46
  Speaker 6: the only person that's taking accountability for their part? You know,
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: there was never any accountability on the other side or
• 51:55
  Speaker 6: by the industry that perpetuated it. The NFL's never apologized
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: to me. The people that gave me bad advice have
• 52:03
  Speaker 6: never apologized to me. Brett Favre has certainly never apologized
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: to me.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: And I think if for no other reason than.
• 52:12
  Speaker 6: To have peace for yourself, like you have to forgive
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: people for yourself. Because hanging on to it, it just
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: hurts you.
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: That's Jen Sturger and A.J. Delario. They both live in L.A.,
• 52:34
  Speaker 5: where Jen performs stand-up and also trains other stand-ups, particularly women,
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: on how to turn their own challenging experiences into narratives
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: they control. Jen is at the center of the new
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: documentary on Netflix about Brett Favre called Untold, The Fall
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: of Favre.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: A.J.
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: Delario runs the site The Small Bow. It's an online
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: magazine and recovery community and podcast. And it's great. I'm subscribed,
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: and I always open what they send me. You can
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: find it at thesmallbow.com.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: And that was Anna Sale, host of Death, Sex, and Money.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: This episode first ran back in May. It was produced
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: by Andrew Dunn. Thanks to the team and to Slate
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: for letting us share it with you. Be sure to
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: check out more of the show, Death, Sex, and Money,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back with a
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: new episode of Question Everything next Thursday with the story
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: of a woman... who believed a terrible, harmful lie for years,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: and then suddenly realized, wait, that wasn't true at all.
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: What I had been told was so outrageous that it
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: was like, wow, I can't believe I ever even thought
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: that this was real.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: See you next time.