Ashley Madison, the infamous dating website for people seeking extramarital affairs, is the subject of a new Netflix documentary – and so is its 2015 hack. Now streaming, “Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal” details the rise and fall of the dating site for cheaters, and the notorious data breach when unknown hackers leaked over 30 million users’ private information. It was one of the largest hacks in internet history, and wreaked havoc on untold numbers of families. It also exposed many celebs who were Ashley Madison clients, such as then-reality TV star (and, since then, convicted sex offender) Josh Duggar.
A new Netflix documentary revisits the Ashley Madison scandal, which leaked celebs as cheaters. To make matters more unsettling, to this day, nobody knows who did the hack. Documentary director Toby Paton told The Post, “It’s a fascinating aspect of the whole story. The cyber expert that we speak to said it’s extremely unusual to have a sophisticated and high-profile [hack] and have the person who did it have never done anything before and never do anything since. It really seemed like it was a one-off.” He added that he believes the culprit was connected to Ashley Madison, “and had some kind of inside knowledge of how the company worked. But beyond that, I really don’t think anybody knows.”
“Whoever did it has done an extraordinarily good job of keeping their head down,” Paton said. Just who were the celebs who were exposed?
Rader, a YouTube vlogger known for his videos about his family and his Christian values, is the only high-profile Ashley Madison user who agreed to participate in the doc and share his story on-screen. As Paton told The Post, “I wasn’t expecting it to be quite as hard as it was [to find people willing to talk], given that that was nine years ago. A lot of people whose names were revealed [in the 2015 hack] would have either repaired [their relationships] or their marriages would have ended. So I thought, with that much water under the bridge, it would be easier than it was to find people who were willing to come on and talk.” On-screen, Rader details how he signed up for Ashley Madison and cheated on his wife, Nia. Interviewing Sam was “particularly tense and difficult” for Paton because “it’s not easy to come on camera and talk about stuff.
