Washington Post Publishes Dave Portnoy Story That Sparked Feud With Barstool Founder
The Washington Post published the story that Dave Portnoy had claimed days earlier would be a hit piece focused on pressuring sponsors to drop out of his One Bite Pizza Festival.
The piece focused on the influence the Barstool Founder has in the pizza world and how one positive review from him can help create years of profit for small pizzerias. Portnoy had branded the story as a “hit piece” earlier this week when he released a video of him berating Wapo reporter Emily Heil.
Moreover, he later released a screenshot of an email sent by WaPo to advertisers of the festival asking them about Portnoy’s history of “misogynistic” and “problematic” behavior. Although the story did include some positive messaging about Portnoy’s positive influence in the pizza industry, his past scandals were aired out.
Per WaPo:
In a 2010 blog post that has apparently since been deleted, Portnoy wrote that “even though I never condone rape if you’re a size 6 and wearing skinny jeans you kind of deserve to get raped, right?” He later told Huffington Post that the comment was intended to be a joke, and that he didn’t intend to poke fun at rape, but rather at skinny jeans.
In another blog post in 2014, he made sexist comments about ESPN host Samantha Ponder, including that her job was “to make men hard.” He defended his words, saying they were just part of “an hour-long podcast in which Barstool criticized all sportscasters,” according to Business Insider.
In 2016, he wrote that he was “#nohomo” for thinking former Jets quarterback Christian Hackenberg was handsome.
In a 2016 video segment surfaced by the Resist Programming Twitter account, Portnoy discussed NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem. “I’m going to say something that’s racist,” Portnoy said. “I thought he was an ISIS guy. … Throw a head wrap on this guy and he’s a terrorist.” After those comments stirred criticism, Portnoy released a video aimed mostly at Barstool employees in which he said “the intent was to make people laugh.”
The story also went over Portnoy’s infamous showdown with Insider after the outlet published a story from multiple women accusing the media mogul of having “violent” sex with them.
However, none of the festival’s sponsors indicated to WaPo they were pulling out of the event and some doubled down on their support for Portnoy, while others claimed they are only participating for the publicity.
Jeremy Schneider, who wrote a column for NJ.com called, “Why are N.J. pizzerias supporting misogynist bully Dave Portnoy?” also gave his thoughts on Portnoy’s tactics when dealing with negative press.
“It’s about a pattern of bullying behavior that many journalists and critics have faced before and will face again,” he told WaPo. “It’s also about local pizzerias who may not know Portnoy’s history, only his successful pizza review videos, and link themselves to such a person without knowing the whole story.”
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