The Last Days of August: Episode Seven

The Last Days of August

K Seabury

Society & Culture

4.6 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2019

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jon Ronson, the creator of Audible Original The Butterfly Effect, delves into the pornography industry again as he unravels the never-before-told story of what caused a beloved 23-year-old actress’s untimely death.

In December 2017, famed adult film star August Ames died by suicide in a park in the Conejo Valley. Her death came just a day after she’d been the victim of a social media pile-on by fellow porn professionals—punishment for her tweeting out something deemed homophobic.

A month later, August’s husband and pornography producer Kevin Moore connected with journalist Jon Ronson to tell the story of how cyberbullying via Twitter killed his wife. Neither of them could predict the rumors and secrets that Ronson would soon hear, revelations that hinted at a very different story—something mysterious and unexpected and terrible.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The last days of August contained some explicit and upsetting material involving sexuality,
0:05.5	assault, and self-harm.
0:07.5	It may not be suitable for all audiences.
0:09.5	I don't know why Kevin said he waited in the dark for hours when his apartment only
0:16.9	lost power for a few minutes.
0:19.8	It's possible that Southern California Edison gave us bad information, but I doubt they
0:25.0	did, because they confirmed it with us twice.
0:27.8	So I guess there's two possibilities.
0:31.0	Maybe Kevin didn't drive around looking for August as much as he'd said, and instead
0:35.7	he just upped and checked into the Sheraton when the lights went out.
0:39.6	Maybe, and all the panic and confusion is just misremembering the timeline of the night.
0:46.0	It's a mystery without a solution, because I never got the chance to ask him that question.
0:52.3	For reasons that will become clear, but one time when I told him that people were speculating
0:58.4	on his unusual behavior in the aftermath of August's death, this is what he said.
1:04.5	What I resent most of all is everyone expects me to be rational and normal.
1:09.2	Fuck them.
1:10.2	Tell me what grief is.
1:12.6	Tell me why, how I'm supposed to be.
1:14.9	I hide in this house and I don't go anywhere.
1:18.2	I'm not going to sit here and justify who I am because I deal with things my way.
1:26.9	But this idea that I'm supposed to grieve in a certain way, man, go fuck yourself.
1:31.7	Not to you, I'm talking to the world.
	...

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