Character Defects
Vol. 2, Issue 46
“Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”
In 2011 two young producers took me out to an L.A. sushi restaurant because they wanted to develop a movie loosely about my life. They were interested thanks to a flattering if super sleazy GQ profile published the previous February. The piece wrestled with the “controversial but successful” brand of journalism I deployed at Deadspin and even had a bunch of splashy photos to accompany the 5,000-some words.
The photoshoot for the story had lasted a full Saturday. Some of the magazine’s stylists lugged up two clothing racks and a trunk full of expensive blue jeans to the Gawker office for me to try on. It was the old office at 210 Elizabeth Street in Soho which had a very steep staircase. They found the perfect-sized jeans and leather boots that smelled expensive. One person rummaged through a carousel of button-downs to find a few different styles, but they still ended up using safety pins on my back to make it fit better. There was someone to trim my hair, there was someone there to powder the grease off my face. There was also a trunk full of props: foam fingers, pom-poms, and, inexplicably, a shark’s head mask.
At one point, the photographer instructed me to stand on my desk in a pair of Calvin Klein boxer briefs so they could get a shot of me snapping a cellphone picture of my own dick. They didn’t use that photo -- but I was allowed to keep the underwear. The one they ended up using was of me in a fancy suit, crouched on top of a toilet seat in a bathroom stall.
It went up online first, but one of the editors sent over a few of the print issues along with a Post-it thank-you note. Tom Brady was on the cover. The story, written by Gabriel Sherman, was playfully headlined “The Worldwide Leader in Dong Shots,” but the tone of the piece was foreboding. It mentioned that I’d been binge-drinking for more than a week, had appeared on the “Today Show” stoned out of my mind, and had just recently gone back to therapy. It also spelled my last name wrong once in the body of the text.
My parents were excited about the profile until they read it. After that, they didn’t want anyone to see it, because I came off as a reckless, depressive booze-bag. Which of course was completely true.
The movie producers I met with after the profile dropped weren’t interested in making a “dark” movie, though. They wanted the swashbuckling story of a guy who got tired of trying to be a newspaper reporter “the right way” and opted for his way. They wanted to develop a character who was flawed, but heroic. “Like Hunter S. Thompson, but for blogs!” they said. They also said if their movie was based on a true story, it would make it easier to get funding.
I nodded because, for a minute, it was an exciting notion: ME: The Motion Picture.
After that night of hearing their Really Big Ideas, the producers and I clinked beer bottles and slapped the bar like it was a done deal. We shook hands and promised to work out the boring legal details about my life rights later.
I never heard from them again.
Six years later, some other producers were interested in developing a story under much different circumstances. They sent me over a synopsis of their pitch, tentatively titled 101 Seconds – the length of the Hogan tape published on Gawker. It read:
“It is a timely and topical story that has unfolded before the world’s eyes over the last two years, but no one knows the story of AJ Daulerio, the Editor-in-Chief of Gawker.com, who made the fateful decision to publish that sex tape. 101 SECONDS is all it took to destroy his life.”
This time they offered $20k for my life rights.
****
In 2017 I had no idea if I wanted to try to make money off of my Gawker experience (since it appeared many other people were), or just move on from it. I wanted to both participate in every project being developed because I desperately wanted to control my own story, but I also wished I had the integrity and the emotional sobriety to decline every opportunity offered to me.
For a while, I kept saying yes. I said yes to reporters I shouldn’t have spoken to. I said yes to sit for an interview for a Netflix documentary called Nobody Speak because some of my ex-colleagues told me it would be “good for me.” I agreed to speak with the author Ryan Holiday for his book “Conspiracy” even though everyone told me he hated Gawker. And I couldn’t outright say no to the movie producers either, even though I hated their version of me.
All of these projects began with a promise to portray me as a “sympathetic character.” But the end result was always a destitute pariah whose life was ruined by drugs and blogging.
Still, a couple of months later another screenwriter reached out on Facebook and I agreed to sit down with him. We met at a diner off Franklin and I don’t remember what he asked–-I think he mostly just looked at me. Or maybe I just didn’t know what to say to him. I wasn’t sure what character he wanted me to be.
That was the crazy-making part of all those experiences–I knew none of these projects would make me look good, or provide me any sort of closure, yet I still felt an obligation to talk to everyone, either as penance or punishment. And most of the writers and producers and directors seem to imply that they knew me better than I knew myself and could develop my character more honestly than I could.
That last screenwriter asked for a second meeting, but I told him I didn’t want to do this anymore. He said he understood. A few months later Variety announced that the spec script he wrote had a director to “helm” it, whatever that means.
****
2018 is when I finally created some distance from the trial version of me. Julieanne and I had a young son and she was pregnant with our second baby. I finally had a job, and she’d just bought us a house. I was closing in on two years of sobriety.
Then I found out that another script existed and had begun to what Hollywood-types describe as “make the rounds.” It was called (no joke!) Just the Facts: The Rise and Fall of A.J. Daulerio. It was written by a man named Kenny Kyle. I’d never met Kenny, and had no connection to him whatsoever. Unlike everyone else, Kenny had never reached out to me. His story just appeared out of nowhere.
In no uncertain terms, I lost my shit. There was now a script in the world with my name in the title, which made it seem like I’d signed off on it. I consulted Julieanne’s entertainment lawyer about how something like this could ever happen and he explained to me that because of the trial and the suit my name was public domain. Public domain–what a demoralizing and dehumanizing designation.
I thought it would just disappear like most of these things do, but a couple of months later, Just the Facts had also found a director who was interested. His name was Seth Gordon, he was the director of both the Horrible Bosses movies and more recently the Baywatch movie. He wanted to get me involved, and I was mortified.
****
Lots of lawyer-agent types I spoke to advised meeting with Seth, because it could be the only way to assert some control over the project. Especially since there were other Gawker movies in development and those people might not be as forthcoming. They used words like leverage and suggested how to maximize a financial return on my unique problem. Not a windfall, nothing life-changing, but maybe enough to feel okay about all of it, perhaps enough to put one of my brand new children through a semester of college.
I didn’t want to meet with him, but some version of me was ready for a “sympathetic character” to exist for other people at long last. Part of me wanted a movie made, and I hated that part.
As with most of my bad feelings in 2018, I blamed someone else for it. This time it was Kenny Kyle, whose script had conjured up the worst version of myself, the one that needed recovery every single day.
****
I met with Seth Gordon at Mess Hall in Los Feliz. He’s a big man–like throwing people out of saloon doors-big–but also completely endearing and affable, nothing like the dipshitty Brett Ratner-type I’d made him out to be in my head.
He ordered an Arnold Palmer like a person who always orders Arnold Palmers. I liked him, even if I didn’t want to. But I still wanted to tell him my life was not for sale, that this script was not authorized or welcome, and I had no interest in this project, thank you very much.
But after about ten minutes I started to gesticulate violently and spouted off unhinged invective against lawyers and journalists and Gawker and Kenny Kyle and everyone else who I thought had betrayed me. I was shocked at how quickly that response jumped out of me.
Seth Gordon’s eyes went big and he nodded.
“I wish I had a camera so I could film this,” he said. He got a refill of his Arnold Palmer.
****
In October of 2018 we met at Mess Hall again, maybe even the same table, but now he had come with a new draft of Kenny Kyle’s script. I hadn’t read all of the original one–although many friends did and so did Julieanne–because I would get so upset before I even got beyond the title page. Seth said he wanted to move forward with this, he said that he’d found a studio willing to make it. They just wanted to know if I was on board. I told him I would have to discuss it with Julieanne and her lawyer.
A monetary offer came in to consult on the script. They also offered me two red carpet tickets to the premiere of the movie when it came out. That bothered me the most. I couldn’t shake the image of Tonya Harding at the premiere of I, Tonya hugging Allison Janney and Margot Robbie as she pretended that the movie they made about her life was one she wanted the world to see. I wondered if she got a similar deal.
The whole prospect of signing on for this made me uneasy and didn’t seem worth the aggravation, so I told them no. When the lawyer asked what number would get me to say yes, I said “$500k! Nothing less!”
I told Julieanne the number with confidence, proud of my plan to provide a big financial boost to our growing household. She laughed at me.
“Jackie Robinson’s family didn’t get that but, yeah, sure, they’ll give it to you for posting nudie photos on the internet."
****
Seth eventually CC’d me and Kenny on an email to try to broker peace and get the project moving. Kenny emailed me separately and apologized for how he handled things and then said he wanted to meet up.
This is how I responded:
“Not a fucking chance, Kenny. Go away.”
It was a low moment. Things fell apart after that, and I stepped away from the movie completely.
****
That December I received a congratulatory text message from my friend Wynter because Just the Facts had made the 2018 Blacklist. She was confused when I told her I had nothing to do with that screenplay.
"But that's your name!" she texted back with what I presumed was a sense of horror and frustration on my behalf. I dropped it, though. I didn’t want to get into it again.
At that point in time, my parents and I weren’t speaking very much. I didn’t tell them anything about what was going on in my life, let alone that an embarrassing movie about me might get made. I wanted to. I wanted to put the detachment on hold, and just have them listen to me for a couple of hours with unconditional support and compassion.
Instead, I stalked Kenny Kyle’'s Instagram. He had posted a picture of the Blacklist write-up:
"...the meteoric rise of A.J. Daulerio..." #Blacklist 2018.
I resisted the urge to comment because, bizarrely, that seemed rude. I checked his Instagram again the next night and he appeared to be out celebrating with his management team. I debated driving over and walking in to see if they were still there. Would they congratulate me? Or would they call the police?
For the first time in a long time, I wanted a drink.
****
Earlier this year there was another Gawker project, this time a TV show. The two writers behind the project were former colleagues, both of whom I consider friends. But when I first heard about their show, I lost my shit again, feeling an extra level of betrayal. I even called one of them a slimy jackass. I spent the next few days grinding in self-pity and regret.
But once they began to fill their writers’ room, I wondered what it would be like if I chose not to be angry this time.
For so long my automatic response had been entitled, self-centered rage. I thought that every Gawker story was about me, even the ones that weren’t. When I was a character, I was usually the most pitiful. Other people’s stories about me were sometimes worse than the ones I told myself. Or were they?
I apologized to my friends. I even visited the writers’ Zoom room for two days to tell old stories and try to help them color in some background details of my time at Gawker. There were several familiar faces in the room, so it was like a mini-reunion of sorts. Some of the questions they asked made me uncomfortable, but I wanted to get through this, to move on, and to help them sketch a character out of the man I used to be.
– AJD
This is The Small Bow newsletter. We send it out every Tuesday morning and (sometimes) Friday afternoon. It's fun and helpful to talk to other weirdos and wasteoids. Please FORWARD it along to anyone you think would enjoy it.
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And Now...An Interview With Kenny Kyle
By The Small Bow
Absurd Absurdum
Kenny Kyle signed up for The Small Bow newsletter a few months ago and it drove me nuts because I thought he was fucking with me or writing another draft or something shady. He even became a VIP Patreon subscriber, which was very generous of him, but why?
It took me a while to reach out to him, but I wanted to before I finished this essay because I didn't like the idea of writing it without his approval. Go figure.
I also didn't like the idea of us both existing in the world but never speaking. He suggested we do a Facetime call first and then an email interview after, like our very own Charlie Kaufman movie. Off we go.
So first off–I'm sorry. I never wanted to believe you were a living, breathing human because it was easier for me to move all my anger about every unresolved issue related to the trial over to you. Did you think of me as a person or just a character?
Initially, I saw you as a character. Which, during the timeframe that the film takes place, you kind of were. I think you would agree that during your runs at both Deadspin and Gawker, you adopted a persona. Like a pro wrestler playing a heel. I saw the story as a person who adopts a persona and loses control of it.
Writing a movie about someone's life is different from writing a news article or making a documentary. Your main job is to make the story entertaining and engaging. So throughout its development that was my central focus.
By the time it got onto your radar, Seth was attached to direct and their script was more or less out of my control. Since you weren’t interested in speaking to me we ended up being siloed off from each other which, in hindsight, I think kept us both from humanizing each other.
Once I started reading TSB, you very much became a person.
When did you get approached by Seth Gordon about the script? That must have been a thrilling day for you.
It happened within a day or two of signing with WME.
I can’t necessarily say that it was “thrilling”. Mostly because this business involves so much failure and disappointment that you can't really let yourself get “thrilled” about anything. Out of self-preservation, I’d adopted an ‘open-to-all-possibilities-but-attached-to-none’ view on things so I guess you could say the day was filled with “cautious optimism.”
Did you ever read any of the Gawker sites?
Only in passing. Truthfully, I wasn't a fan. I thought the sites were spiteful, cruel, and had virtually no journalistic value.
That changed during the trial. As the water was rising around Gawker, all these journalists, some of whom had been targets of its sites, were speaking out in its defense which piqued my interest.
After the verdict, there was a deluge of ‘Best of Gawker’ pieces on different media sites with links to the greatest hits. I ended up going down a Gawker archive rabbit hole that shifted my entire view of the quality of the work, what the site stood for, and what its value was in the media ecosystem.
When I noticed that you signed up for TSB, my first thought was "Man, this motherfucker's doing more research! Why can't he leave me alone?" But then a very wise person once told me that it's better not to know why anyone reads the newsletter and that it should be an open invite for everyone, even those who may not be here for the right reasons. So why did you sign up?
An exec who had read the script randomly sent me a link to the Sterger essay. It dealt with regret, guilt, and forgiveness which I found deeply relatable. Ironically, there was a lot of overlap in the way you felt about how things had gone down with Jenn and how I felt about how things went down between us.
From there I dug back into the archive and got a feel for what TSB was. I’ve always enjoyed your writing, but this was different. It felt like you had kept the humor that your work had at Gawker but jettisoned the toxicity and cynicism. As I mentioned, I thought you were playing a character in your Gawker work. You aren’t a character in your TSB stuff. You’re a human being just trying to make sense of things.
There was also an Al-Anon element to it for me as well. I have a lot of friends who are in recovery or were or should be so I'm familiar with the culture and the challenges. So I signed up.
In the first letter after I signed up, you said something along the lines of “I hope everyone who has signed up is here for the right reasons.” I suspected that was targeted at me. I wasn’t offended for me. I totally understood. There wasn’t a single moment where I ever even considered trying to mine TSB for anything.
Do you have any regrets about the Just the Facts experience?
I do and I don't. I regret not reaching out to you sooner and directly. But I also recognize that it wouldn’t have changed anything. It was still going to be some guy you didn’t know asking to write about and/or have you be a part of a movie about a time in your life that you wanted to move on from.
Do you still want to see the movie get made?
I do.
Illustrations by Edith Zimmerman
