At the least 3 ladies had been employed to pose as founders or execs of niche dating websites owned by Avid lifestyle Media, including Cougar lifestyle and Established Men, the Financial Post has discovered
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The National about an issue of grave importance: Discrimination against cougars in May of 2010, Canadians turned on their televisions to see Amanda Lang interview Claudia Opdenkelder on CBC’s.
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The most difficult customer support calls to simply take were the ones where in fact the devastated, irate spouses would place their children from the phone.
In a job interview at a club, the evening newscast’s guest anchor introduced Opdenkelder as “the creator of an online dating service,” CougarLife, that helps older ladies and more youthful men (ahem, “cubs”) pair up. But as Lang reported — and what would quickly be a worldwide news tale — there was clearly a robust killjoy standing in the form of cougars and cubs and their search for intimacy. Bing Inc. ended up being banning Cougar Life’s adverts, trying to explain to Lang in a declaration while it doesn’t ban less hookup-focused sites, like Match) that it does not allow “adult” dating sites (.
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It absolutely was a story that is compelling one undeniably made better still because of the undeniable fact that the founder, Opdenkelder, had been blond, curvy, news savvy, and much more than prepared to carry on tv in a tight-fitting pencil dress and explain why cougars like her deserve love too. The Globe and Mail and this newspaper over time, Opdenkelder would give voice to that struggle in The New York Times. There have been many others mag profiles of her, sometimes featuring cheesecake photos of Opdenkelder herself, and television reports. Often she had been referred to as the president or founder of Cougar lifetime.
Too bad it ended up beingn’t true.
A Financial Post research has unearthed that Opdenkelder is regarded as at the very least three women that had been employed to pose as founders, professionals or board people in niche dating sites owned by Avid lifetime Media Inc., the moms and dad business associated with adultery site Ashley Madison.
That web site had been recently the target of an attack by hackers — a massive data breach that included publicizing 37-million people’ private information. The hackers also leaked a trove of Avid Life’s business e-mails online, specifically those from the account of former leader Noel Biderman, who stepped down in August within the aftermath.
Biderman’s e-mails suggest that the women whom promoted by themselves in nationwide news as top executives during the sites Cougar Life, the top additionally the striking, and Established Men had been hired to attract promotion and brand new people by rotating a compelling backstory for the websites. The truth is they certainly were spokesmodels — invariably extremely good-looking spokesmodels — with most reporters taking them at their term about their roles that are executive. Avid lifestyle had a pay grid that provided settlement for assorted news appearances. The partnership with Avid Media would not end amicably always.
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We don’t want this turning directly into a witch hunt… We don’t want the website and Claudia to appear like вЂfrauds’
Opdenkelder’s relationship with Avid Life deteriorated as a appropriate dispute. She wouldn’t normally touch upon Cougar Life to her role, her attorney citing a clause when you look at the eventual settlement contract that now bars her from speaking about her time with Avid lifetime.
Simone Dadoun-Cohen, whom provided by www.besthookupwebsites.org/snapsext-review/ herself given that founder and CEO of Established Men, a website directed at linking men that are wealthy young women who appreciate the advantages of dating rich males, declined to comment whenever contacted by phone.
AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko
Whitney Thompson, the initial plus-sized champion of this reality show America’s Next Top Model, provided herself since the president and creator regarding the Big as well as the striking, a website that connects males with larger-sized females. The Financial Post could not achieve her directly (she would not react to tries to contact her at a more recent venture, A southern-food restaurant in Springfield, Tennessee). However the representative who worked on her behalf during Avid Life to her time said he will never offer any details about the arrangement.
Avid lifestyle Media was contacted for remark in regards to the functions for the three females early in the day this week, but hadn’t supplied an answer towards the Financial Post by deadline.
The program to own a spokesmodel identified within the news as a genuine dot-com business owner failed to come without hitches. In one single case, the ABC system Nightline had been preparing a written report on Cougar Life and Opdenkelder in 2012 that did actually worry Biderman. The CEO that is former expressed to an associate of their pr group concerning the section, that he sensed may be changing into something meatier than the puff pieces which were more prevalent.
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“I don’t desire this turning directly into a witch look,” Biderman penned. “We don’t want your website and Claudia to appear like вЂfrauds.’”
Cougar lifestyle ended up being one of two new internet sites Avid lifetime established with a big splash in 2009. One other ended up being the sugar-daddy site Founded guys.
Simone Dadoun-Cohen ended up being referred to as alternatively once the “founder,” “creator” or “CEO” of Established Men, in the Tyra Banks Show, ABC Information and somewhere else. Her backstory had been through college as a stripper at the Toronto men’s club, The Brass Rail, where she met her future husband that she was inspired to start the site after putting herself.
By 2012, she ended up being not any longer the face that is public of guys, which had Biderman racking your brains on the way to handle news demands on her. In a 2013 e-mail change, Biderman and Avid Life’s former pr supervisor Shari Cogan discuss just how to react if reporters inquire about Dadoun-Cohen and if they should ask her to complete yet another meeting for the Toronto lifestyle feature on sugar-daddy relationship.