There was, it seems, a constellation of corpulent weirdos encircling Sarma Melngailis, subject of the wildly popular Netflix true crime docuseries Bad Vegan.
Melngailis, the striking owner of New York City’s trailblazing vegan raw food restaurant Pure Food and Wine and its offshoot One Lucky Duck, first attracted the attention of the actor Alec Baldwin, who became a regular at Pure both for the food and, by his own admission, to “stare” at her. This was in 2010 and 2011.
“My understanding of her relationship with Alec Baldwin was that he was a regular customer at the restaurant, and like a lot of the gentlemen that went there, he had a bit of a crush on Sarma,” explains journalist Allen Salkin in Bad Vegan. “When Alec was talking to her about wanting to have somebody important in his life, she would, instead of offering herself as that potential person, suggest that maybe he should adopt a dog.” (Baldwin wound up meeting his future wife, Hilaria, at Pure Food and Wine around this time.)
Then came Anthony Strangis, a hustler from Boston who caught the attention of Melngailis in late 2011 due to his status as one of Baldwin’s Twitter reply-guys. Strangis would regularly send stick-figure doodles to Baldwin and Hilaria from the Twitter handle @Uknowuwant_it, and the couple became such fans of his that Hilaria nicknamed him “Enrique,” tweeting, “I created a name for you: Enrique. Since u r no longer Todd and Harry isnt ur real name… We go 4 the Spanish version, ok?” (Hilaria posed as a Spanish person for years.)
Strangis would soon ensnare Melngailis and convince her to funnel him $1.7 million from her establishments to bankroll his obsessive gambling while claiming that he was an immortal being with untold riches who could grant her brown pit bull Leon eternal life. The two eventually went on the run from the law and were nabbed by the authorities on May 12, 2016, after Strangis was caught ordering a pizza and buffalo wings from Domino’s to his hotel room in Sevierville, Tennessee. The first in-depth exploration of Strangis and Melngailis’ bizarre Bonnie and Clyde saga came courtesy of The Daily Beast’s Kate Briquelet.
Anthony Strangis and Sarma Melngailis’ mugshots following their arrest.
NetflixAnd then there was Louis C.K. In early 2012, while Strangis was developing an online relationship with Melngailis, she was also being courted by the stand-up comedian.
“My brain has thoughts about you in it. Somewhere between 27 and 93 ¹/₂,” C.K. emailed Melngailis in March 2012. (The emails were “part of a trove of documents” provided to the New York Post; neither Melngailis nor C.K. provided comment.)
Their relationship seemed to have soured by June 2012, with Melngailis emailing C.K. that she was “upset and freaked out” that the funnyman had given her an STD.
“hey. I understand you’re upset. This kind of shit is tough. I never swore that I was clean. I told you I may or may not have given this to you. I’m sorry if I did. If you gave it to me, it’s okay. We all share the current human bloodstream, which includes this kind of stuff. I should have worn a condom, you should have made me, we should have a lot of things. we are human,” C.K. responded.
He added, “Our generation has this stuff. the next generation will all be inocculated [sic] and will have sex with electric glass penises and digital vaginas and they’ll get software viruses instead. It’s part of life.”
The Post reported that C.K. then told Melngailis that he accepted responsibility “for our chemistry and exchange” before questioning if anyone is “clean” anymore.
“I’ve been told the same thing, that there’s no good tests for guys and even that condoms don’t stop shit. i don’t know. It’s a mess,” he wrote. “I hope you’re okay. i think you will be. And I am sorry… I still look back tenderly and happily on our time together. And that night. It was really wonderful, even though it never happened again and it seemed to be sort of a stopping point for us, unfortunately.”
On Aug. 9, 2012, two months after the STD email exchange, the seventh episode of Louie’s third season aired. Titled “IKEA/Piano Lesson,” and written by C.K., it featured C.K.’s character Louie being informed by Maria Bamford—who, like Melngailis, is a blonde—that she has crabs and that he may have them as well after their one-night stand.
Melngailis pleaded guilty to pilfering over $2 million from investors as well as committing criminal tax fraud in May 2017 and was sentenced to four months behind bars. In November of that year, The New York Times published an exposé featuring five women accusing C.K. of sexual misconduct, including masturbating in front of them (or over the phone) without their consent, and having his manager, Dave Becky, threaten their careers.
