In 2002 the Ashley Madison website went live. It was a dating agency with a difference for its targets were people already in relationships. Inevitably, Ashley Madison was roundly criticised. The company’s CEO, however, stated that affairs actually helped marriages.

In 2015, hackers broke into the website and published the names, addresses, credit card information, and more of every user. Relationships were destroyed, and some of those named committed suicide.

Directed by Toby Paton, Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal is a three-part Netflix docu-series that tells the story of the website’s rise and fall. It goes behind the scenes of what happened through interviews with both people who worked for and who used Ashley Madison, and with people whose partner’s infidelity was exposed by the hack. 

Toby is Matthew Sherwood’s guest in this episode of Factual America. Among the topics they discuss are how the controversy over Ashley Madison has become forgotten, what it was like working at the company, and what the identity of the still unknown hackers might be.

What drives a person to cheat on their partner? This question is key to Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal. And Toby goes in depth as he explores what he learnt in the making of the docu-series. The answers that he found are more nuanced, and more empathic than you might have expected. It isn’t just about cheating.

Watch the episode at https://factualamerica.com

“Whenever you make a film or a series, no matter how closely you followed it in the news, when you actually start talking to the real people, who have lived through it... the whole thing takes on a depth and a richness that goes far beyond what you ever would have gathered from the news.” – Toby Paton