The Trailer for Netflix’s Ashley Madison Docuseries Has Sex, Shame, and One Life-Ruining Data Breach

Tony Maglio
·2 min read
10

“Life Is Short. Have an Affair.”

That was the tagline for — and the promise of — AshleyMadison.com, the controversial website where married people could sign up to have an affair with another married person. It seemed like a good idea to many — especially those who directly profited from the proposition — until the site’s servers were subjected to arguably the biggest (or at least most damaging, to many) data breach of all time. The hack exposed millions of users’ very personal data, ending marriages and ruining lives.

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Netflix on Wednesday released the trailer for its three-part docuseries “Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies, & Scandal.” It hails from Minnow Films and is directed by Toby Paton; each episode is 50-minutes long. The series is produced by Chris McLaughlin and executive produced by Fiona Caldwell and Sophie Jones. Episodes are directed by Zoe Hutton and Gagan Rehill.

“Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies, & Scandal” will be released on Netflix on May 15, 2024. Watch the trailer here:

Paton had a whole lot to say (below) alongside the trailer’s release — all you bro:

“When Minnow Films approached me to make a series about the rise of infidelity dating site Ashley Madison, and the catastrophic hack that led to its 37 million members having their identities exposed online, my first thought was ‘wow, what a story!’. It has everything — from the propulsive narrative and high stakes drama of a tech thriller to the tender, messy intimacy of the real marriages and relationships that are at the heart of the Ashley Madison story.

“We all know infidelity can be incredibly destructive and hurtful, but at the same time, the fact that Ashley Madison had 37 million members tells us something else we all know — that committing to one person for the rest of your life is really hard. Rather than berating people who joined Ashley Madison we were much more interested in exploring why they were drawn to the site — what were they looking for? What was going on in their relationships? And crucially — what was their partner’s side of the story?

“We were blessed with some extraordinary, larger than life characters and stylistically we felt there was a great opportunity with this story to go beyond the familiar true-crime tropes of dark, moody lighting and ominous music. We wanted to create a world that was unexpected and fresh, something that could feel playful and humorous one moment, but genuinely shocking and emotional when the story takes a tragic turn. The result, I hope, is a wild and enjoyable ride that also offers a chance to reflect on love, marriage and desire in the age of the internet.”

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