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Brown Bag it, Baby

Dave Portnoy shares proof that woman behind allegations had axe to grind

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Dave Portnoy

Dave Portnoy

Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy has been vehemently defending himself since a Business Insider takedown attempt was published last week. On Thursday, Portnoy addressed the allegations against him via a lengthy live video stream posted on social media.

In the Business Insider piece (which is paywalled and was used as a tool to try and sign up subscribers), Portnoy is accused of humiliating and having rough sex with two young women in separate incidents.

One of the women, a 20-year-old who is referred to as “Madison” in the story, says she connected with Portnoy over social media. Portnoy eventually bought her a plane ticket and invited her to his home in Nantucket, Mass.

The woman told BI she had a “traumatic experience” that ended with her sleeping on Portnoy’s couch for two nights before she flew home.

The woman told BI she “kept trying to get away” from Portnoy while the two were having sex and that he said “stop running away from me” and refused to stop. Portnoy has adamantly denied those allegations. However, Portnoy stated that the woman in question indeed slept on his couch. But Portnoy says the woman slept on his couch due to an argument the two had over their differing views on life, not because of sex issues.

Portnoy expounded on the matter Thursday during his Twitter Live session. The Barstool Sports founder also shared what he believes is proof that the woman had an axe to grind against him due to her political stance.

Portnoy received attention in July 2020 for a highly-publicized interview he conducted with Donald Trump ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Portnoy says the interview occurred three days after his interaction with Madison.

In his Thursday live session, Portnoy stated his belief that Madison became furious to learn that Portnoy was not radically anti-Trump the way she was.

“People think I’m like some crazy Trump guy. I am not,” Portnoy stated on Thursday. “I don’t like either extreme. This girl was extreme, extreme, extreme, extreme (politically). … I wasn’t gonna get into the politics of it. I didn’t want to bring that into it, but that is why we did not agree.”

Portnoy described his conversation that led to the woman sleeping on his couch as “vicious.”

“It was a vicious conversation, and we did not like each other after [our political conversation],” Portnoy contended Thursday.

These aren’t just Portnoy’s personal views on the matter, either. He shared past tweets from the woman that support his claim.

Portnoy says his interview with Trump was three days after he had sex with Madison. In one Instagram post, the woman shared a photo of Portnoy and Trump together and wrote, “Ok. Not my proudest f—.”

In a second Instagram post, the woman criticized Portnoy and threatened to expose him “if he ever truly pisses me off.”

“Portnoy was a d— and lame and grumpy. He gets a 2/10 from me. If he ever truly pis-es me off I have lots of content to expose him with. I am going to stick to the athletes,” the woman wrote.

During his live session, Portnoy shared screenshots of the woman’s Instagram posts, though he blurred out her username.

https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1458888312698118146

Madison also responded to a tweet where Portnoy bragged about his net worth being $118 million. She replied “Venmo” and listed what was presumably her Venmo account name. She seemed to be implying that Portnoy should send her money.

Business Insider omitted all of this context from its hit piece on the Barstool Sports founder.

A good portion of BI’s story was regurgitated criticisms of Barstool Sports published in other media outlets over the years. Then the majority of the remaining portions of BI’s article stemmed from Madison’s issues with Portnoy.

Since BI published its hit piece on Portnoy, which they have used to run ads on Twitter in hopes of gaining subscribers, Portnoy has pointed out other significant issues with the outlet’s takedown attempt.

Portnoy posted screenshots of messages he received from women who warned him about the author of the story contacting them. The women shared with Portnoy that the writer of the BI piece, Julia Black, seemed to have an agenda and was hunting for people who would bad-mouth Portnoy.

Portnoy shared that he believes Black was biased against him, already arrived at the conclusion that he was terrible, and that she worked backwards from there, looking for any sort of evidence that would support her takedown attempt. He noted that Nantucket police said Black did not contact them to verify a claim she included in her story.

Since the story’s publication, Portnoy has questioned other ethical/journalistic issues involving Business Insider’s dealings.

Portnoy pointed out that there was unusual trading activity involving his company’s publicly-traded stock (symbol: PENN) the day the story came out (which also coincided with the day Penn National Gaming reported its quarterly earnings). Portnoy shared speculation that either those at Business Insider who knew the outlet was about to publish a takedown piece against him either profited themselves, or shared information with other people, who then placed stock bets against PENN that paid off when the stock dropped around 20 percent the day the piece was published. (Note: the stock may have dropped due to a combination of the company’s earnings report and the publication of the takedown story.)

Portnoy pointed out that Business Insider’s CEO has been found guilty of securities violations and banned from the securities industry.

Portnoy also alleged that Business Insider was proactively alerting Barstool Sports advertisers that they were working on a follow-up piece on Barstool. Portnoy believes that was Business Insider’s attempt to get advertisers to “cancel” Barstool.

The full video of Portnoy defending himself is below.

Disclosure: Steve DelVecchio and Larry Brown own shares of PENN stock.

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