Lindy West's new memoir, Adult Braces, focuses on, among other things, her non-monogamous marriage. As you can imagine, all corners of the internet are having all kinds of feelings about it.
Scaachi Koul wrote a profile of Lindy for Slate which was, in my opinion, even-handed and empathetic.
In response, West's husband (Ahamefule Oluo) wrote an unhinged email to Scaachi and in so doing made himself look like a real piece of shit. Transcript of email is from an episode of the podcast ICYMI where Koul discusses the profile and the experience of receiving this email (in addition to receiving messages from Lindy herself and the third person in their non-monogamous relationship, Roya Amirsoleymani):
“This was such a shitty thing to do, Scaachi. You intentionally skewed this story to fit your own bitter narrative.
You wasted my time and all of our time to write an article that was going to be the same no matter what we said. You absolutely dehumanized me and intentionally diminished my personhood and career.
Roya and I were on a shared project in Boston. However you worded it, I was performing four shows at the Paramount, and Roya is my producer. I am a person with a life and a great career and a complicated life, and you boiled me down to a cheater who was on a school project making a diorama or some shit because you are mad about your life.
You barely wrote about the book, you just wrote rage bait articles specifically designed to direct hate toward me. You are a shitty fucking person, you're a bitter, untalented mean girl, and you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself. You fucking suck.
Ahamefule J. Oluo"
The podcast host points out that the (totally benign) piece of the post that Ahamefule seems particularly pissed about reads: West is solo in the cabin this week as she prepares for her 14-city book tour. Oluo and Amirsoleymani are away working in Boston on a shared project.
To which Koul responds: It is a shared project, and it is not a profile of Aham or Roya. It is a profile of Lindy, and so I wasn't spending a lot of time investigating what they were working on together.
Anyway, yikes. But I do love book drama.
by throwaway28910382
15 Comments
That email reads exactly like the kind of thing that makes you go “ah, so the profile was actually generous.” Like if this is how he talks to a journalist on record, imagine the group chat.
Also the faux outrage about “shared project” when she literally clarified it in the pod is killing me. This man really said “how dare you not center my career in your profile of my wife” and hit send.
i do admire how through lindy’s retelling and his own words he seems incapable of coming off as “kind” or “thoughtful.” an incredible level of commitment!
I don’t know who any of these people are but is the gist that the husband wanted to be with another woman and now he basically has a girlfriend and a wife? Are the women also able to date outside of the relationship with him?
pulling out the “ur just a jealous bitter hater” response is real good look for the feminist movement, thx
This is giving 2015 twitter drama and I didn’t realize how much I missed 2015 twitter drama until now
I used to love Lindy’s work on Jezebel (RIP). Her husband sounds whack.
This entire situation is so, so sad. The way she’s essentially gaslit herself into accepting her circumstances and insisting she’s actually empowered and choosing this (while being hyper-aware of everything everyone online says about her) is so hellish you wouldn’t even believe it with fictional characters.
Thanks for sharing this! What a wild ride! The second Samantha Irby quote in the piece is 👀…
Seattle natives know Ahamefule has never been considered a particularly kind or considerate person. His sister is great tho
Omg that article was a fairly benign and warm summary of Lindy’s book theme and her as a public exposed figure. I guess this is confirming he does kind of suck lol
“YOU MADE ME SOUND LIKE A CHEATER 😡🤬”
Hit dog will holler…
Her husband SUCKS. I hate this coercive loser
The sad state of Lindy’s life is 100% where that brand of Jezebel-era, Girl Boss™️, choice feminism goes to die.
I haven’t read all this or know what it’s about but if you read the husband’s name out loud it sounds like “I’m a Fool All o’ You”
dying to read scaachi’s profile if anyone can dm or email it to me rip