by Nik Richie
The producers leave me alone with my lawyer, convinced that my guard is completely down now. Moments later, Anderson Cooper walks by the green room and gives me the check. The smirk. He gives me this look like, oh yeah, just you wait, you little shit. You’re mine.
That’s the second warning.
I ask David some last-minute questions, if I can call Anderson the thing that I’m thinking. Speak my mind. I ask him, “If it comes down to it…if we get into some sort of battle and we’re in a position were he wants to know what I think of him…I want to know if I can call him a gay communist?”
I want to know because:
a)Anderson is, in fact, a homosexual. Whether or not he wants to formally admit it, he is.77 The fact that he doesn’t admit it indicates a certain level of dishonesty, and I’m of a mind that dishonest people shouldn’t be put into a position to judge.
b)He wants to censor the 1st Amendment. Actually, he supports freedom of speech, just as long as he agrees with what’s being said. He wants to pick and choose who gets to talk and who doesn’t. I’m one of the people that shouldn’t get to talk, according to Anderson.
I run this by David, and with very little deliberation he says, “Go fuck yourself. No, you can’t say that.”
Anderson refuses to meet with me, refuses to even sit down next to me on the set. The entire time he’s in an elevated position, high above in the stadium of the audience so that I have to look up to him. It’s a little psychological.
It’s him saying: you’re beneath me, and I’m going to make an example out of you.
It’s yet another red flag in the series of red flags.
Today’s girl in question is named Kelly. She’s from Texas. Does pageants, and Kelly is one of those girls that has to appear perfect because that’s what’s expected of her in the pageant world. The problem is that I kept getting submissions of her being out in the clubs, drunk. Naked pictures of this girl kept rolling in.
Kelly is blaming me for tarnishing her reputation. She says that when you’re a pageant girl, the judges research every single contestant. Facebook, Twitter, news articles, etc.
“They disregard everything that is positive,” she says.
In other words, these judges go looking for dirt78. Kelly is alleging that her pageant career was ruined due to my site, and I’m the reason she didn’t win Miss Texas. We don’t talk about how I’m not the one that took her photo or submitted it. In her mind, I’m at fault because my site made her irresponsibility public.
Anderson asks me why I want to be this guy. As in: the guy that runs a site that “tears people down,” as he puts it. He asks me how I can look myself in the eye. He asks why I couldn’t have come up with something else.
Of course, the moment I try to answer one question he cuts me off with another. That, or the audience starts applauding one of his little comebacks.
Once again, things aren’t going well for me on TV.
It’s impossible to finish a metaphor with Anderson.
I say I’m not the author of these posts, and that’s absolutely true: I don’t title it or write the body of them, I don’t choose which picture(s) are attached, and more often than not, I have no idea who the subject is personally. I’m the guy that puts it up for public consumption and gives a little one- or two-line reaction. That’s it.
“I’m just the librarian,” I tell Anderson.
Metaphorically speaking, that means that I have nothing to do with the actual writing of the book. I simply put it on the shelf. If the book offends you, don’t read it.
This is when Anderson tells me that someone in his family is a librarian and they’d be very sorry to hear that I’m comparing myself to them. Once again, the point that I’m trying to make is lost to a storm of applause.
Sometimes our exchanges were cut out in editing:
“I didn’t want you here. We don’t want to give your site more traffic.”
“Anderson, my site gets more traffic than your show. Your show is failing. I’m here for a reason.”
And then later:
“You’re not a good person, Nik.”
“You’re not a good person, either. You judge people more than I do—and you’re judging me right now.”
No applause.
No airtime.
“You’re clearly a smart guy. You know how to use the Internet. You have creative ideas. Why not create a site that actually does good?” Anderson asks, right before he decides to put words in my mouth. “We know the answer is money. A site for troubled teens is not gonna—“
“—It’s not money,” I cut in. “I’m actually getting involved—“
“—It is money,” he cuts back.
I’m thinking, oh Anderson, if only you knew how long I’ve done this without getting paid.
He says, “You keep saying there’s a market for this. A market means money.”
“Okay, well, Anderson, what’s this show? What’s this show for you? It’s for money?”
“Actually, no, it’s not.”
Bullshit.
“It’s not? You mean you’re actually doing something positive by doing the show or you’re doing it for money?”
“Yeah, I’m actually trying to. Yeah.”
Bullshit.
Applause.
Anderson doesn’t want to meet me after the show.
As a joke, I ask for an autographed headshot but the producers say there’s no way in hell that’s happening. He’s not like Dr. Phil. Anderson brings his emotions into the show. He’s actually convinced he’s some kind of messiah, saving the planet by facing all the Nik Richies of the world. The reality of the situation is that Anderson is more like me than he’s willing to admit. He judges. He pokes fun. He’s done his fair share of satire.
The show is called The RidicuList, which is kind of a TMZ bit where Anderson rips on people in his own snarky little way. So all that talk about doing something good and not tearing people down is a bunch of bullshit. He’s guilty of playing the tabloid game, too.
More than likely he’d say, “But these are celebrities. These are public figures.”
When does someone officially become a public figure: when they start asking for attention or when they actually get it?
Anderson was born into fame and money.
He hasn’t seen what I’ve seen.
77Anderson would formally come out on July 2nd, 2012, in a letter to Andrew Sullivan of TheDailyBeast.com.
78Whether or not this is a common practice among pageant judges is arguable. It’s entirely possible that part of their job is contestant research. It’s equally possible that this was something that was brought to their attention by a third party or even another contestant. If the common belief is that The Dirty publishes nothing true as Kelly and Anderson continue to point out, then I fail to understand why a pageant judge would see otherwise.
Billboards
The site and all the controversy it inspires can be illustrated in billboards. We see these everyday: for fast-food restaurants, vehicle repair, fashion. Pick any major highway or interstate and more than likely you’re going to be bombarded with some kind of advertising or influence you didn’t ask for. Or perhaps you just didn’t know you were looking for it.
On I-5 you pass by billboards for McDonald’s, the San Diego Zoo, an abortion clinic. Each one serves a specific function for a particular market. Each one has a detractor. An opponent. Something to keep it in check.
McDonald’s: FDA.
San Diego Zoo: PETA.
Abortion clinic: pro-lifers.
At all times there’s a lawsuit pending for the adverse effects of the Big Mac and the unethical treatment of panda bears. A cheeseburger is no longer just a cheeseburger. It’s a murder weapon, some kind of delicious poison that’s being snuck into Happy Meals. It’s on the menu and it’s towering over a hundred feet above ground, luring you off the road into one of their nearest locations.
We hear it all the time:
“Fast foo
d is bad for you.”
“The animals don’t look happy.”
“Abortion is against God’s plan.”
They all have billboards, advertising, pulling you away from your everyday routine. Some of them are considered socially acceptable. We pass them all the time without giving them a second thought. Others, like the abortion clinic, are considered immoral. Unlike the fast-food restaurant or zoo, there’s no sheen of good intentions.
So these people, the pro-lifers, they go after the billboard company. They call the 1-800 number and make their demands, their threats. They keep bombarding them with their moral fortitude and guilt until the ad gets pulled from the side of the road. In this day and age, if you cry and complain long enough, more often than not, you can get what you want. Temporarily, at least.
The Dirty functions much the same way as a billboard company. The difference is that we’re putting up coke dealers, Vegas escorts, and fame-chasers. We’re putting up socialites and guys who are cheating on their spouses. And just like any cheeseburger or cosmetics line you see towering by the highway, you can choose to ignore it. Drive on. Don’t pay it a second thought if it offends you. That’s what I keep telling people.
“If you don’t like it, don’t come to the site.”
No one is forcing you to buy a Coach purse, the same way I’m not forcing you to come to The Dirty. Every post is a billboard submitted by someone else: a friend, an ex, a family member. It’s submitted by an enemy or someone you’ve fallen out of favor with. It’s not Nik Richie. It’s not the staff. We hit “publish” and move on. Nine times out of ten, we have no fucking clue who you are. We’re just the billboard company.
And people like Anderson and Dr. Phil are always suggesting that I shut down The Dirty, as if that would really clear up all the so-called “problems” they have with my site and what it does. They make it sound so easy. So simple. The problem with that logic is that there are plenty of billboard companies. There are numerous sites trying to do what I do, and the moment I shut down, ten more would rise up in an attempt to fill the void. You can take down a billboard for something you don’t agree with, but that doesn’t mean it won’t crop up on another interstate the next week. There’s always another company, another website. Someone is always waiting to step in, and that applies with The Dirty too.
Shutting it down wouldn’t fix a fucking thing. I know this because there’s a demand for the platform. It’s a demand that I can numerically measure with analytics and track in hits, and as the years go on, the consumer base gets larger and larger. Closing the door on The Dirty would open up ten windows for the next wannabe Nik Richie.
And one Nik Richie is enough.
Origins (Part 5)
It was a bad situation.
One of my investors had quit. The other one was telling me that all the money was gone and we had to close up shop. Shut down the site. Meanwhile, my wife and I were on the verge of divorce. We barely spoke. She resented me as a person and gave up on me as a husband. Being Nik Richie was literally the only joy I had left in my life, so once again, I had to fight for it.
I sat Jim down at one of the laptops, opened up a browser window and asked, “When you look at this site, what do you see?”
He leaned toward the screen, pointing to different parts of the page, saying, “The colors are off here on this graphic, and we need to reformat this part—”
“—Jim, I’m not talking about the graphics or the colors,” I cut in. “I’m asking you, when you go to this site, what do you see?”
He paused, thought it about. Jim said, “I see Nik Richie.”
“Why do we have sixteen employees, Jim?”
He looked at me, not speaking. I really didn’t want him to say anything since there was no right answer.
“Why are we spending all this money? This isn’t Club Jenna,” I told him. “We’re not trying to be cool and down. We already are cool and down.”
“What are you telling me? That you’ve got a solution?”
“Tomorrow I’m coming in and I’m firing everyone. I’ll keep Gayden, but everyone else is gone,” I explained. “We’ll cut the overhead, we’ll cut my salary down to 5K a month. All I need from you is to make it so the existing ads can cover the payroll.”
“Okay…” Jim said, as if he wanted to hear more of the plan.
“Give me two months. Let’s see what I can do in two months.”
“Fine,” he nodded. “Two months. I think you know what happens after that if this doesn’t start turning around.”
I knew exactly what would happen.
Nik Richie would die.
The next morning I did what had to be done.
I gathered everyone up and told them that due to the financial situation, we were going to have to let everyone go. It wasn’t a long dragged-out speech. Even though some of the girls were crying, I knew they understood it wasn’t anything personal. Gayden was informed that he’d made the cut (purely out of nepotism).
The Dirty resigned from the Club Jenna offices and moved into one of Jim’s condos in Phoenix. The place had been empty for months, so we turned that into our new headquarters and saved even more money on our overhead. We found our groove. Jim handled the business stuff, tracking our expenditures and trying to fetch more ad revenue. He put in an additional $100K to keep everything alive. Gayden went over posts. I made my comments on the bottle rats in New York or the pretend models in L.A., hit publish, and moved on to the next thing. It made me happy. Doing this, being Nik Richie, it didn’t feel like work. I got to say what I thought all day, but I had just gone from a staff of sixteen to just myself and Gayden. Two guys combing through thousands of submissions. We literally could not keep up, so I had to make the call.
I had been receiving emails. For months, these things had come in, and they all pretty much said the same thing: that he couldn’t believe I cut him out, that he had always been there for me. He was there for me through thick and thin. Sometimes it was a guilt trip. Other times it was a death threat. Not a for real-death threat. Anthony was telling me that he was disappointed in the way that Anthony does, and I ignored the guy. Ignored the emails and calls. There was one instance where we talked about The Dirty and how it wasn’t my decision on who got hired. I blamed it on the investors, but it was bullshit. Anthony had been around in some capacity for the CIG and NPMG scams. I didn’t want him around for this. The Dirty wasn’t a scam or a way to fuck people out of money, so in my mind, Anthony wasn’t right for it. That didn’t stop him from reaching out. Like clockwork, the guy either emailed or called, telling me that he deserved a spot after all the shit we’ve been through. This isn’t how you treat your friends, he said. I ignored it. All of it.
I put off Anthony until I absolutely couldn’t anymore: this particular moment in which I was trying to run a site that’s understaffed and over a half-million dollars in the hole. It was the situation in which I would have accepted anyone’s help, but I needed a guy that I could trust, and that truly wanted to be here with me. So I finally called Anthony. It had been close to two years since I had last reached out to him.
He picked up, and the first words out of his mouth weren’t hello.
He asked, “Where do you want me, boss?”
Anthony came on board. I told him I wasn’t paying him shit for like five months. He was going to have to prove himself as an intern first, which was fine by him. All the guy ever wanted was to be included, and he made plenty of money selling drugs and painting houses on the side. I only had one rule: the minute we put him on payroll, he couldn’t sell drugs anymore. I didn’t care if he did them, but I refused to employ a guy that dealt. Until then, he could do whatever he needed to make ends meet.
So he started working out of the condo with Gayden, but it came to light pretty quick that the kid didn’t know shit about computers or Photoshop or anything that would have been considered useful for the job. We had to train him from scratch on everything. Literally everything, and this is how A
nthony came to be called Junior Varsity.
The phone call proved something to me, and I think I had known it for quite a while, but when I reached out it was confirmed: JV would take a bullet for me. I could not talk to the kid for fifty years, but if I was in Russia with a gun to my head, he’d be on the first flight out with a million dollars in ransom money. He’d find a way to get me out of the situation. If he couldn’t, he would find someone that could. JV is a jammer, but the problem is that everything he does is junior varsity79 level. He’ll get the job done, but it’s going to be slightly janky and fucked-up. That’s the thing Gayden and I learned when he started working for the site: the work ethic was there, but it was fucking junior varsity.
I remembered something that happened in Hawaii: Amanda and I were hiking, and we had gotten to a spot on the island where we were elevated enough to get a great view of everything. I remember my eyes tracing the place where the ocean and the beach met, taking in clean air and feeling calm for once. There was this beautiful view in front of us, and my wife broke the silence and told me, “I don’t know what the fuck it is, but every time I do something good you top it.”
It was an out-of-the-blue comment, yet I knew exactly what she was talking about. The thing about Amanda is that she tried. She worked hard; she had the credentials. She was a smart businesswoman. All things considered, she should have been making six figures by now. Yet somehow this college dropout scam artist of a husband had made something bigger than what she could. I was successful by accident. That’s what bugged her. I wasn’t even trying and I still overshadowed anything she had ever done.
“I’m going to be honest,” she said. “I’m jealous.”
That was her way of saying: “I resent you.”
I think that was the first time I realized this wasn’t going to last.
I started taking more of an interest in the things Amanda was working on, asking about her career and her plans. I tried to be encouraging, communicative. I tried to be the guy she met all those years ago, and it started to work. She smiled more, and we were kissing good-bye again rather than simply parting ways in the morning. We were intimate. For the first time in forever, we were having sex and sleeping in the same bed. Most importantly, I never mentioned The Dirty. If she asked how things were going (she usually didn’t), I kept it short and said either “fine” or “good” or “okay.” There was no need to brag or rub salt in the wound. I had learned a long time ago that despite her emotions toward me, she was still a competitive person that didn’t like being outshined. The least I could do was keep it to myself, so I did.