For rich and famous men facing allegations that they acted inappropriately with young women, Tucker Carlson Tonight has become a go-to platform to proclaim their innocence. Like Matt Gaetz telling the Fox News host in March that he had been “falsely accused of a terrible sex act” with a 17-year-old girl, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy appeared alongside Tucker Carlson on Monday to portray himself as the victim of a “character assassination” plot after Insider published a report last week detailing sexual misconduct claims made against him. “It’s disgusting,” Portnoy, 44, said. “My lawyers have said just let it go, it’ll go away. I’m not going to let it go…I’ve never been attacked like this.”
Julia Black, a freelance journalist writing for Insider, spoke with three women who alleged that they had “frightening and humiliating” sexual experiences with Portnoy. One such woman, who chose to keep her name anonymous to avoid retaliation from Portnoy and his fans, said she suffered a “traumatic experience” while visiting the home of the Barstool chief. The woman claimed that Portnoy filmed her performing oral sex on him without her consent and choked her so hard during sex that she could not breathe. During their encounter, she said she began crying and shouting at Portnoy that it was “Too much!” and “It hurts!” and that he ordered her to “stop running away from me.” In messages shared with Insider, the woman told a friend that the experience was “so rough I felt like I was being raped…. I was literally screaming in pain.”
Portnoy responded to the report by targeting the publication, its top editor, and the reporter who broke the story, with his adoring, sycophantic fans joining in on social media. “If you wrong me I will burn you to the ground,” Portnoy tweeted on Saturday. “If I burn with it that’s the cost of doing business. I’ve always been that way.” Some of his attacks were directed at Insider CEO Henry Blodget; the Germany media conglomerate Axel Springer, which owns the site; and Insider’s global editor in chief Nicholas Carlson. And on Monday, after spending the weekend waging his “#CancelBusinessInsider” crusade, Portnoy said his Twitter account had been suspended temporarily. The suspension, which Portnoy said in an Instagram story was triggered by him posting a screenshot of an email exchange with Nicholas Carlson, purportedly lasted just 12 hours.
Now Portnoy is threatening to sue Insider and is pushing a wild conspiracy theory accusing the publication of “insider trading,” claiming—without evidence—that Insider “sold info or leaked info to bigwigs” before releasing the report so that traders could bet against the stock value of Penn National Gaming, which has a 36% stake in Barstool Sports. Though, the Insider piece was published on the same day as Penn’s lackluster quarterly earnings report, which appears to have also contributed to the dip. Portnoy attempted to give credence to this theory by highlighting Blodget’s past, as the Insider CEO previously worked as a Wall Street analyst until 2003, when the Securities and Exchange Commission accused him of civil securities fraud. (Blodget, who did not admit or deny wrongdoing, settled with the SEC by paying a $2 million fine, a $2 million disgorgement fee, and agreeing to a permanent ban from working in the securities industry.) “It’s ironic you have Henry Blodget…who defrauded everyday workers out of their life savings now trying to defame me,” tweeted Portnoy, who subsequently uploaded a video in which he threatened Blodget and said, “your head is going to be on my spike.… I’m coming for his throat, and anybody who stands by him’s throat.”
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