This reporting appears as one of several scoops featured in this week’s edition of Confider, the media newsletter that pulls back the curtain to reveal what’s really going on inside the world’s most powerful navel-gazing industry. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.
Barstool Sports bro-in-chief Dave Portnoy may have a mole inside Insider, staffers at the Axel Springer-owned news outlet fear.
Portnoy has infamously launched a relentless legal crusade against Insider over two articles detailing claims that he violently assaulted women while having sex with them—and it appears as though he may have had some early assistance in combating the stories.
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In early February, Portnoy boasted that he saw journalist Julia Black’s latest Insider story prior to its publication, and even published slabs of text online that never appeared in the final article, giving rise to concerns among Insider staff that a mole inside the outlet passed along an early draft to Portnoy, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
There was even an internal investigation, these insiders said, but it is unclear what Insider management turned up on a potential mole. “We don’t comment on matters pertaining to pending litigation,” Insider said in a statement to Confider.
A review by Confider found that Portnoy did, indeed, publish to the Barstool Sports website a series of excerpts from Insider’s drafted reporting that did not make the final copy, including one woman’s claim that he pinned her down and put his hand over her mouth during sex—leading to her struggling to get away and feeling as though she was “trapped.”
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What makes the affair even more bizarre: Portnoy’s lawsuit is for defamation and invasion of privacy, yet he personally published some of the more salacious claims about his sex life that Insider actually withheld out of ostensible editorial prudence.
“I remember trying to speak up and say stuff and my face was literally getting squished in,” the woman was quoted in some of the unused Insider material that Portnoy chose to publish on his own website. “I couldn’t even talk. I could barely breathe.” The woman, who was 18 years old at the time of the alleged incident, further told Insider she felt scared for her physical safety, defeated, and objectified in that moment. “I wanted to get out. I wanted to get out of the situation,” she added.
Portnoy is being represented by Andrew Brettler of Lavely & Singer P.C., well-known for his threatening letters to media organizations on behalf of clients accused of sexual abuse including Armie Hammer, Chris Noth, and Prince Andrew.
Meanwhile, in an incredible feat of reputational laundering, Axios last week glowingly wrote about Barstool Difference, the new philanthropic venture from Portnoy’s outlet aiming in part to assist women-run businesses.
Portnoy and a Barstool rep didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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