Where is Sabrina Rubin Erdely?
Posted on December 11th, 2014 in Uncategorized | 50 Comments »
It has been a week since the original Washington Post story which drew key aspects of Rubin Erdely’s Rolling Stone article into question. In that time, “A Rape on Campus” has only become more discredited. There is reason to suspect that both Jackie and Rubin Erdely have concocted deceptions.
Also in that time, we have not heard a public word from the author of this fatally flawed and irresponsible magazine article. She appears to have taken down her Facebook page has not posted on her Facebook page and deleted her Twitter account has gone dark. She has not responded to media inquiries; she has not made any kind of statement.
Where is she—Bermuda?
Let’s suppose that there are two possible reasons why Rubin Erdely has gone underground.
1) She is depressed.
2) Her/Rolling Stone’s lawyers have told her to say nothing.
I’m sure the first is true to some degree—and let us hope that it’s nothing serious—but I expect #2 is the predominant reason.
Whatever the cause, Rubin Erdely’s mysterious silence is disappointing. As I’ve pointed out before, she was more than happy to enjoy the perks of publicity back when people believed her story.
Now, she’s avoiding responsibility.
You can’t have it both ways, reveling in praise when things are going well and then running away when it all heads south.
Because this story isn’t just about her. It has caused hurt, pain, anger, division and controversy; it has set back the cause—in her words, “upend[ing] the patriarchy”—which was her motivation for writing the story in the first place. (Well, that and professional advancement.)
No matter how depressed she may be…no matter what the lawyers are telling her…Sabrina Rubin Erdely needs to man up do the right thing. If her lawyers are telling her to lay low, she should tell them to stuff it. It’s time for her to take responsibility for the chaos for which she is primarily responsible.
(FWIW, I think the phrase “man up” has become a gender-neutral term for taking responsibility. But I can understand why others might disagree, and I don’t want to distract from the point, so I changed the language.)
50 Responses
12/11/2023 10:01 am
From on top of the world, to the bottom of a barrel… Look in the barrel.
12/11/2023 10:04 am
Great post Richard. I just linked to it on my Twitter account.
But you might get slapped a few times by idiots like Anna Merlan for saying “man up” with regard to Sabrina. Don’t get me wrong, I loved your choice of words here, especially given her comment about “upending the patriarchy.”
Naatch.
12/11/2023 10:07 am
Her twitter account was not deleted… She hasnt tweeted since November 30th though…
Her last post was a response to a cumpliment on the first WaPo article on her.. She tweeted:
“appreciate yr corrected tweet - cause it SHOULD be “the journalist behind the article,” not “the woman,” right?! That irks.”
So it seems that “The woman behind the article” is offensive to Erdely and other feminists…
So you shouldn’t say that she “needs to man up”.. change that for “Erdely needs to woman up”
Just joking… Anyway, that’s the most coward reaction I’ve seen in a long time… no words, no excuses, no statements… She is done!
12/11/2023 10:10 am
For anyone who wants to watch this UVA Rape Hoax shitstorm on Twitter, follow my account.
I’m a UVa grad like many others here.
This shit is personal.
Hell hath no fury like a Wahoo Scorned.
12/11/2023 10:11 am
Here’s that Twitter account…
https://twitter.com/TheDailyBail
12/11/2023 10:17 am
Sabrina no source, what is your Twitter name?
12/11/2023 10:27 am
It is “Daily Bail’
I would post a link but then I would have to wait for it to be approved.
I am trying to annihilate these bastards. And I need help.
12/11/2023 10:30 am
Well, Anna Merlan has just posted her latest on Jezebel.
She is still clinging to the narrative.
12/11/2023 10:37 am
Rubi Erdley’s obviously much too busy sourcing and fact-checking her next blockbuster expose’ — Pinocchio: Liar or Victim of Horrible Genetic Condition?
12/11/2023 10:47 am
~ WRT “man up” I associate it with the Yiddish term “to be a Mensch”, that is, literally, to be a man (it has the same meaning in German). But “man” in that context simply means, be a human being, do the right thing. So I agree that “man up” can and should be gender neutral.
Maybe Sabrina Rubin Erdely has gone looking for “Blanket” and “Armpit” in a last ditch effort to corroborate her article. Okay, as someone used to say, “joak here.”
There’s really nothing left to this story but the lulz.
Otherwise known as “Schadenfreude.” But I would spare Jackie from the derision: I still feel sorry for her. On the other hand, Rolling Stone, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, and the horde of internet commentators who spent the last three weeks sliming Richard Bradley, Robby Soave, Steve Sailer, Jonah Goldberg, and anyone else who had the courage to stand apart from the crowd and express sincere doubts: those folks deserve a glass or two of 86 proof mockery.
I am not a professional journalist and never wanted to be one, but if I were, I would like to think I would have had the guts to stick my neck out on this story. Those who did deserve a salute.
12/11/2023 11:09 am
It’s starting to get funny that you keep misspelling her name. Maybe that’s why she;s not reacting — it’s not getting picked up by her Google alerts?
12/11/2023 11:35 am
Sheesh, how embarrassing. I think I must have a mental block on that. Anyway, fixed now.
12/11/2023 11:46 am
Another interesting point: “As Rolling Stone‘s blockbuster campus rape story faces intensifying scrutiny, one question that has repeatedly been raised in the journalism community is “how did this get through legal?”
“The Observer has exclusively learned that upheaval within Wenner Media’s legal department may have contributed to an environment in which a story sure to generate controversy did not face the magazine’s usual rigorous level of review.”
Their in-house counsel apparently gave her one-month notice in early November, and left just after the story came out.
(From the New York Observer, link in next comment)
12/11/2023 11:46 am
Read more at http://observer.com/2014/12/rolling-stone-libel-lawyer-leaves-wenner-media/#ixzz3Lbm7LBxi
12/11/2023 11:52 am
3) She’s been too busy applying for a job as a greeter at Walmart.
12/11/2023 12:01 pm
While it would be nice to hear from Ms. Erdely, we also need to hear more from the editors at RS, too- lawyers or no lawyers. However, I think we all know that the principals involved will stay silent from this point on. I would be surprised if you see another comment from RS on this article.
12/11/2023 12:09 pm
If I were her lawyer I would definitely order her to STFU. This woman was a disaster in the interviews after the article was published.
Her main problem is she is not sure of the ultimate ending to this story. Does she attempt to defend the core “truth” of the attack? Or does she continue with her argument that it doesn’t matter whether Jackie was raped or not, the problem is the rape culture, not the rapes themselves. There is really nothing she could say at this point that will help her — which is why it is a good tactic to try to get her to speak!
Also she is probably too busy negotiating a movie deal.
This probably ends by Jackie admitting it was all made up. At that point SRE will be fired and she will issue a statement both apologizing for her errors and declaring she will continuing devoting her life to eradicating the earth of the evil scourge of rape culture, albeit limited to the overwhelming blond subset.
12/11/2023 12:36 pm
Great work Richard! I really appreciate it!
12/11/2023 1:07 pm
What do you call someone who “breaks shit” and then disappears when the bill comes due? A “new” journalist, that’s what.
Thank you, Richard. Your adherence to the time-tested principles of REAL journalism have brought a smile to this old reporter’s face.
12/11/2023 2:16 pm
Let’s not forget that her story caused harm to the fraternity in question and specific people related to the story. Harm to “the cause” is much more indirect.
12/11/2023 4:11 pm
Brief digression: There are some very witty people posting here — please keep up the excellent observations and the outstanding writing. I don’t mean to minimize the horror of true sexual assaultswhen I say I’m enjoying these posts immensely. The comments about Pinocchio and Blanket and Armpit were especially hilarious. How do y’all think of things like that??!!
12/11/2023 4:26 pm
Rolling Stone right now is 100% quiet.. not only SRE but others..
They are probably really affraid of saying something and getting caught lying again..
Remember they said they couldnt reach the accused.. and then changed for they had a pact with Jackie.. which doesnt explain the failure to reach the 3 most important people: her friends.
So they are just waiting for all the facts to come out and they will elaborate with their lawyers the best version possible for them without being caught in contradiction by a new finding or a new fact..
That is quite low, to be honest..
My main bet so far? $100 that they will claim that Jackie was responsible for fooling Erdely into thinking that Randall wouldn;t talk out of loyalty to his frat
12/11/2023 6:07 pm
It’s going to be hard for Rolling Stone to shift all the blame to Jackie, if it turns out that the RS article is only one of many Erdely articles with fictitious content. And I think that’s exactly what is going to be revealed, over the next few months!
12/11/2023 7:53 pm
@ Marta - lots of other people in various comment threads here at Richard’s blog have raised questions about Erdely’s “The Rape of Petty Officer Blumer” piece for RS in 2013.
Going back farther, the archive page at Erdely’s personal website ( ww.sabrinaerdely.com/archives.html ) links to an article called “Wife, Mother, Madam” that she wrote for Philadelphia magazine in 1998.
Summarizing that article, it is the profile of a 34-year old woman living in a wealthy Main Line suburb. She is a madam running an escort service and also an ex-prostitute. Her husband owns a construction company and is from a “moneyed family.” Despite being a madam, she is a devout Catholic (attends Mass twice per week) and prefers to not to provide escorts to married clients - though a quarter of her clients admit to being married - because it goes against her morals. The article also seems to say that all services are provided to clients at their homes - there’s mention of that, but no mention of hotels or of her agency renting apartment(s) used for these rendezvous. She tells her neighbors that she is a criminal lawyer but is generally reclusive, not socializing much with neighbors or acquaintances. There’s also a small appearance of broken glass: “[she’d sit in her car with] a razor blade or shard of broken glass pressed against her skin. She’d press until the sharp edge bit in, releasing just a droplet of blood. Somehow, it made her feel better.”
As if that’s not enough, her father was murdered by “business associates” (i.e., organized crime) when she was 9. She ran away from home at 14 and became addicted to cocaine shortly thereafter, before getting clean at 18, getting a GED, and attending Rutgers. (She became involved in various aspects of the sex business along the way, including paying her tuition by being a prostitute).
It is conceivable but hardly seems likely that the woman described above both exists and decided, for some illogical reason, to tell her story to a journalist for a lengthy profile in Philadelphia magazine. It seems highly unlikely that all of the detailed pieces of this woman story - which reads like a movie of the week character - are factual.
I would love to hear how this story was fact checked at the time. Not a single person is identified by actual full name, which can be explained away by the topic. In particular, though, did a fact checker actually meet any of the 4 people discussed in the article - this woman (who was given the pseudonym “Erica”), her husband, an escort working for her service (“Julie”), or her mother? Or, was all contact via phone calls or email exchanges, with that contact information provided by Erdely?
12/11/2023 8:10 pm
I accidentally posted a bad link above. It should be -
http://www.sabrinaerdely.com/archives.html
12/11/2023 8:12 pm
Wow! Thanks, Dave. I now have a third possible answer to Richard’s question “Where Is Sabrina Rubin Erdley?”
3) Rehab — the refuge of last resort for people in the public-eye who self-immolate.
12/11/2023 11:27 pm
Richard is so relentlessly fairminded, it’s driving me crazy.
Erdley is not a journalist: she is a social justice warrior, an advocate and an agenda-driven busybody.
We don’t need to hear from her because whatever she will say will be misleading, misguided, false, self-exculpating, self-justifying, self-deluding or any number of other psychologically interesting but factually unhelpful things.
She does not understand her own psychology well enough to provide any meaningful analysis of “what happened” in the decision to go with this story. The most honest we can expect her to be (with herself or us) was when she basically admitted in the article that she resents blond WASPS and wants to “overturn the patriarchy” at UVA.
If Erdley wanted to investigate brutal crimes against women, she had plenty to choose from. In addition to the recent horrific rape and murder of UVA student Hannah Graham, just this past week a mother and daughter in Charlottesville were beaten to death and then burned by a man. Unfortunately neither of the perps in those cases are part of the “white patriarchy” so Erdley wouldn’t give a damn. Those were just “random” crimes.
That feminist students, journalists and college administrators have spent their time and energy for years up in arms (and ruining the lives of many men) over what is by and large second-guessed and half-regretted drunken trists while remaining silent over brutal brutal crimes that actually took place will leave historians scratching their heads incredulously.
The less we hear from the likes of Erdleys, the better.
12/12/2023 1:14 am
What does it mean when it says that Rubin agreed to allow Jackie to do the fact checking of the article for her parts? Does this mean that Rolling Stone didn’t fact check these parts at all?
I have listened to her interview with Rosin many times. It is apparent that she refuses to even describe the alleged attackers and I think that we all know why.
We also hear that Jackie is concerned that she is losing control over her own story. What can this possibly mean?
I think we had the perfect storm here of an unhinged accuser and a “journalist” who simply wrote the story she wanted and plugged Jackie’s name into. Rubin states that the article flowed easily and Jackie just poured out the story.
Finally, look at Erdely’s response to the WaPo reporter. It is written deliberately to obfuscate. Could she say that there was an illuminated clock; then (notice she doesn’t say and-she says or) or could she say that Jackie showed her scars on her arms. Erdeley doesn’t state that these things were true; she simply states that she could have included these facts and they might assuage some of the critics.
I have read everything that I can find by her and she is my favorite short story author. I want to see if the Madam can help my child get into University of Maryland with only a GED.
The Madam and the Housewife on Heroin stories are completely made up. I think there are serious problems with the story about the woman from West Virginia who lives in Atlanta and runs an underground railroad. All of her stories are breathless.
I have a feeling that she views these articles as sort of a joke on the public. She made a huge mistake by picking UVa, though. Due to the Graham story and the WaPo’s ties to the area, she never expected to get ensnared like this. It probably would not have happened at Vanderbilt or Oberlin.
12/12/2023 1:26 am
William
“What does it mean when it says that Rubin agreed to allow Jackie to do the fact checking of the article for her parts? Does this mean that Rolling Stone didn’t fact check these parts at all?”
I’ve been trying to figure this out for days. I think it means she let Jackie control all communication with Andy, Cindy and Randall. It was Jackie’s way of keeping her lie from falling apart.
12/12/2023 1:32 am
William
“She made a huge mistake by picking UVa, though. Due to the Graham story and the WaPo’s ties to the area, she never expected to get ensnared like this. It probably would not have happened at Vanderbilt or Oberlin.”
Exactly. She had no idea who the fuck she was messing with. And now, we will destroy her. I’m here to chew bubblegum, and kick her ass. This shit is personal.
God, I can’t wait for the lawsuits.
12/12/2023 1:34 am
As someone who was a member of a southern fraternity at the university that is quite similar to UVa, none of the reporting about the fraternity rings true. Erdely seems to see fraternities as dark mysterious castles. The group might never be allowed to enter again even if they know the girl who cried rape. What garbage. There were plenty of rowdy guys but I never met anyone who thought that rape, much less gang rape was acceptable in any form. It was also garbage because we never would have stopped any women from coming to the frat. The more the merrier. Rubin’s version of a frat has Biker and Cookie standing out front. This is utter garbage.
We had no nicknames. Some frats did but the ones named by Rubin sound like someone who watched Animal House as her only source of knowledge about frats. People live in close quarters with thin walls. I remember a fracas in our house one time andd half the house came into the guys’ room to break it up.
To the extent that rape was a problem, it involved women who were passed out. We were all middle to upper class guys. We just didn’t fit the gang rape profile and the notion that such a thing was a standard practice is vile and you won’t find anybody who lived in a frat who agrees that this was either a common problem or anyone who would agree that it would not be a serious crime. I am not defending it but I did hear about guys kissing girls and maybe more, who were either very drunk or passed out. These were he said-she said types of things but the guys who did these things were widely derided and humiliated for engaging in such an act.
12/12/2023 1:38 am
Hanna Rosin is masterful here:
https://soundcloud.com/slateradio/hanna-rosin-interviews-sabrina-rubin-erdely
She gives Erdely plenty of rope to hang herself and Erdely thinks that it is just a standard media plug experience.
12/12/2023 1:45 am
Rosin asks here if she contacted the alleged rapists and Erdely changes the topic to whether she contacted anyone from the fraternity and tells us that she got an email from the Chaper President and from a National representative. They were sort of helpful.
Wow! 2 whole emails. I grew up using phones and she looks to be in my age bracket. Does anyone talk to people anymore?
Erdely: “People seem to know who people are.”
Quote of the century.
12/12/2023 1:47 am
I am lazy but Rubin Erdely says that “they were kind of hard to get in touch with, because their contact information was outdated.” It is hard to get in touch with people when their contact information is outdated. Maybe we are being too hard on Rubin Erdely.
12/12/2023 2:08 am
Rosin: “Who is (Drew).” ?
Rubin: ” I don’t want to say much about them as individuals. IShe wants to talk about Pi Psi. “They have the biggest and best fraternity house that has the best piece of real estate on all of Rugby Road….”
Rosin: “Yeah, I think there was a photograph of the frat house actually in the article.” “
12/12/2023 2:23 am
Rosin: “She had bruises from going through the glass table?”
Rubin: “I found her very convincing.”
That is called a non sequitur.
12/12/2023 6:52 am
@william o douglas
Erdely was absolutely OWNED by Rosin in that podcast… Rosin knew she was dealing with a complete fraud… and made Erdely comfortable enough to brag about her terrible methods..
Anyway, google that: That time Stephen Glass got mad at Sabrina Erdely for printing a made-up story.
It is a tweet from Brandt @UrbanAchievr with interesting stuff about Erdely
12/12/2023 8:05 am
Erdely appears to be the worst kind of person- an ideologue armed with a poison pen, an ax to grind, and utterly without scruples.
Even before the serious questions about the story arose, I found her to be extremely arrogant- the worst kind of person in the career field. A know-it-all who seemed to be basking in the glory of the praise of her “masterful reporting” and so on. Her fiction is not even Walgreen’s paperback aisle-grade stuff.
Just a horrible person who deserves nothing but scorn and contempt and who should be made to pay for the damage she appears to have done.
12/12/2023 10:32 am
I’m not sure what to make of this, or how much I trust the source. But this is certainly an ironic connection between Glass and Erdely: http://thefederalist.com/2014/12/12/sabrina-erdely-was-once-disciplined-by-stephen-glass-for-fabrication/
12/12/2023 5:08 pm
[…] what’s the response from Sabrina Erdely and Rolling Stone? Answer: almost none. Erdely seems to have gone into hiding; it’s been almost two weeks since anyone heard from her. Rolling Stone, meanwhile, has […]
12/12/2023 8:12 pm
This is just a pedantic side note on Sabrina Rubin Erdely.
When I first heard about this story, I just assumed her last time would be pronounced (approximately) “AIR-day” because that is the way it is pronounced in Hungarian, where the word means “Transylvania.”
However, today I heard her name spoken for the first time, and it was pronounced “ERD-lee”. So that explains why everyone mispells it as Erdley. That makes perfect sense, and no one should apologize.
More pedantic: “ly” in Hungarian is a single consonant, it denotes a “light” L, such as you would have in the word “leaf”. However, it is almost always softened such that you never hear the “l” sound at all, just a lengthening of previous vowel. Something similar in Slavic: Thus the Pope named “Wojtila” had his last name always pronounced “Voy-tiwa”. (Slashed “l” in Polish = “ly” in Hungarian.)
12/13/2014 12:33 am
The Girl Who Played With Fire is essentially unverifiable online. I can tell a large amount of it is false because Rubin has the characters saying things, especially the police, that they would never say. It ends with the family in hiding, which is probably convenient because it made fact checking impossible.
She claims that they were being sued for a tort that I have never heard of and one that is almost sure to go out on summary judgment if it does exist. It is apparently the Florida tort of undue influence over someone’s mind.
She never explains how they were served with papers. You would think that the wife of a lawyer would know better but apparently she does not.
Strangely enough, the family does seem to have disappeared from the internet about the time of the article and what I mean is that there are no follow-ups.
It is impossible to check the references to sites in the story because they have been either shut down or they are too numerous according to Erdely.
There’s rape, sort of, and lots of bullying that does not ring true. As in the UVa article, random people come up to Kiki in public and assault her. School administrators and the police are strangely powerless in this article to even address online threats of murder. They also seem incapable of checking IP addresses. I found one reference that seemed to corroborate the article but it was in Yahoo Answers. Who knows who planted that one. David Brooks was stupid enough to write an article about this article in the Times.
The mother in this article is from Illinois but is quoted using the word “amongst.” Perhaps she is a fan of the BBC. Did Rolling Stone ask to see the filing of bankruptcy? There should be a public record of that, as well as the lawsuit filed by her ex’s mother.
12/13/2014 5:43 pm
The longer this goes on, without a peep from Rolling Stone or anyone associated with it, the stranger this whole thing gets.
Are they hoping to wait everyone out and then do a Chistmas Eve news dump?
Once when I was young, I accidentally broke a neighbor’s window with a baseball. I ran and hid in the basement, pretending I’d been working on a project there all afternoon. Not twenty minutes later, I was at our neighbor’s house apologizing — having been marched over by my uncle, who didn’t have very much English at that point but who had seen the whole thing.
Are there no Responsible Adults over at the RS?
12/14/2014 6:20 am
She may be thinking about how to apologize. If so, if I was her I would not ask Anna Merlan for advice on that.
12/15/2014 10:41 am
I live 8 houses away from Rubin-Erdely. It is not wonder she disappeared. She is an ego-maniac and was largely ostracized from a group she actually founded her in our neighborhood.
She is an arrogant, “facts do not matter” person, I have known it for years since my run-in with the Philadelphia Bella Vista’s Princess of BS.
She is hiding and plotting how to get out of this mess because after-all that is what sociopaths do.
12/15/2014 4:26 pm
Tran, I will hazard a guess that Rolling Stone is trying to figure out the answers to two related questions before saying more publicly.
First, Rubin Erdely has written over 10 feature articles for Rolling Stone (going by the list at her personal website). Do some or all of those other articles have problems similar to this one?
Second, is RS going to clean house, firing editors and fact checkers over this fiasco? The answer to that question could obviously be influenced by the answer to the first question.
I also assume at this point that legal advice is heavily influencing everything that RS is doing and saying (or not saying).
12/15/2014 7:31 pm
The honorable Japanese journalist, facing world class shame and disgrace, would destroy herself. Coward that she is, she could hide out in Surry Co, , Virginia. She and Tawanna Brawley could meet and come up with some great stories…
12/15/2014 8:10 pm
My dear departed mother used to advise me that “Hell will be full”. I am not so sure about the full part, but as a Virginian, I am requesting that Ms. Erdley not come here. Brawley was told that a simple apology could erase her $400,000 judgement. Erdley might consider apologizing to all of the people she has hurt. Hiding under her mom’s bed is not the answer. All I can do is pray for these two.
3/9/2024 3:35 pm
I can tell you exactly where and what she is up to. They attend my family’s synagogue, they were there for Purim last Wednesday and they were loaded drunk. Her husband gathered the courage to come up in the middle of services and threaten me physically for making disparaging comments about Sabrina. Sabrina in a glassy eye drunken state harassed and berated by wife and I in front our kids until we had to get Security.
Instead of sitting down and writing an explanation, apology or something relevant they are running around harassing people who wrote things about her that she does not like. The irony.
The disturbing thing is I did not post a single thing about her in about 2-2.5 months on twitter. They have been letting this build for that long.
3/14/2015 2:23 am
Erdely is the anti-Christ. Plain and simple. Pure drunken evil. Imagine being that hag’s husband and having to look at that mug every day and listen to that whiney, lying mouth day in and day out? Sounds like he deserves her. Guess there is such a thing as Kharma - for both of them. They can now crawl into a bottle together for all time.