Death, Sex & Money | Betraying a Friendship to Get a Viral Story

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Arts, Tv & Film, Music

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When blogger AJ Daulerio broke the Brett Favre sexting scandal in 2010, it became one of the biggest stories of his career. But it came at a cost: he had betrayed Jenn Sterger, the woman at the center of the story, who had confided in him as a friend and explicitly asked him not to name her. The fallout was immediate and lasting. Jenn became the target of relentless online harassment and scrutiny that has followed her for 15 years. AJ went on to face his own reckoning when his aggressive tabloid journalism eventually led to Gawker's bankruptcy, which upended his career. In this episode, both AJ and Jenn reflect on the toxic incentives of viral journalism, the lasting trauma of unwanted internet fame, and how a stray dog unexpectedly brought them back into contact after nearly a decade of silence. AJ now writes a newsletter and hosts a podcast about recovery called The Small Bow and writes an addiction advice column for Slate called Ask A.J. You can hear more of Jenn on her podcast, Not Today... with Eddie Pence and Jenn Sterger. Podcast production by Andrew Dunn Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Has there been a person who changed the course of your life, but not in a good way?
0:05.9	Someone that left you with enough scar tissue that never encountering each other again would be just fine?
0:11.8	That was the case for A.J. Delario and Jen Sturger.
0:16.5	Jen and A.J. ran in the same circles for a time in the late aughts, both worked in sports media.
0:22.3	And Jen told AJ about Brett Farve, the very famous, very powerful quarterback, sending her repeated messages and photos and voicemails propositioning her.
0:33.7	But she asked AJ not to do a story, and at the very least not one that named her.
0:40.0	AJ did the story anyway, and he paid a source to get access to the messages Jen said were from Favv.
0:46.7	He posted those two, along with Jen's name and picture.
0:51.6	That changed Jen's life forever, making her and her motives and her looks the
0:56.5	target of sports fans' commentary. It's been 15 years since that story broke, but she can tell
1:02.6	you, a viral internet story has this way of freezing you in a difficult moment in your
1:08.4	life, and then it does it over and over again with each new search.
1:14.3	And then, years later, a stray puppy needed a home, and in a wild twist, that puppy brought
1:22.6	AJ and Jen back in contact in a way neither of them would have done on their own.
1:29.0	AJ Delario was featured on the show last fall when we shared an episode of PJ Vote's wonderful podcast search engine called,
1:36.5	When Do You Know It's Time to Stop Drinking?
1:39.9	AJ talked about his heavy drug use in drinking during the time that he was running some of the internet's most attention-grabbing news sites, the sports site Deadspin, and Gawker, the tabloid news site that relished a takedown of a celebrity or captain of industry.
1:56.1	AJ eventually had his own takedown after Gawker published a stolen video of Hulk Hogan having sex,
2:04.2	Hogan sued Gawker and A.J. and won at a jury trial. Gawker declared bankruptcy and settled.
2:12.0	That was years ago. AJ has since gotten sober, and he talks openly now about the competitive incentives and lack of ethical scruples that led him to do things he wishes now he hadn't.
2:25.1	But that wasn't something he had expressed directly to sources he'd burned like Jen. And then this dog made them cross paths again.
2:36.5	And now this week, they both talked to me together on this episode.
	...

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