(TW: Sexual assault)
Business Insider published an investigative piece today that alleges “frightening and humiliating” sexual interactions between Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and several different women. Two said that Portnoy had filmed them without their consent performing sexual acts.
A text exchange published between one woman and a friend shortly after she says she stayed with Portnoy reads:
“And it was so rough I felt like I was being raped he video taped me and spit in my mouth and choked me so hard I couldn’t breathe…I was literally screaming in pain.”
Portnoy not only built the Barstool media empire, but has stayed in the public eye as the face of the brand. The Business Insider article, reported by Julia Black, lists Portnoy’s personal net worth at around $100 million. Portnoy is 44, and the two women in the article were 19 and 20 years old at the time of their encounters with him. Both described being “scared,” and one of the women said she became suicidal and was hospitalized a few days after meeting up with him.
Black writes of Portnoy’s “rape jokes, his repeated use of the N-word on camera, and his harassment of female journalists.” He posted two videos on Twitter today in response to the Business Insider article, which he referred to as “a hit piece.”
In one video, he said that several women he knew had alerted him that there was a reporter “digging around.” He stated that he has never done anything “remotely nonconsensual” with a woman, and that “they’ll never be able to prove anything because nothing ever happened.” He also said “woke cancel culture wants to cancel me” and that he understood how serious these allegations were, while adamantly denying them.
In the past, when accused of using racist language, Portnoy said he was “uncancellable.” Portnoy has a long history of engaging in misogynistic behavior, including saying that sometimes women “deserve to be raped:”
“Even though I never condone rape, if you’re a size 6 and you’re wearing skinny jeans you kind of deserve to be raped right? I mean skinny jeans don’t look good on size 0 and 2 chicks, nevermind size 6′s,” Portnoy wrote in 2010.
Penn National Gaming stock, which owns a significant portion of Barstool Sports, fell to its lowest level in a year following the report.
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