As you’ve definitely seen by now, the actor Jonah Hill’s ex-girlfriend Sarah Brady, a 26-year-old professional surfer, posted screenshots to her Instagram story over the weekend of old text exchanges revealing Hill to be, Brady wrote, a “misogynist narcissist” and “emotionally abusive.” The texts included a list of demands that Hill called his “boundaries”: no “surfing with men,” no modeling, no “posting pictures of yourself in a bathing suit,” and no “friendships with women who are in unstable places…from your wild recent past beyond getting a lunch or coffee or something respectful.”
To those of us who’ve endured coercive control like this in their intimate relationships, or seen our friends and family endure them, the texts speak for themselves. Hill, who is 39, very rich, and very famous, wasn’t only trying to cut Brady off from her social circles and limit how she presents herself in public—he fucked with her ability to make a living. After the initial batch of text exchanges, released on Saturday, Brady has since posted more screenshots alleging that Hill sabotaged some of her modeling job opportunities. We also learned that Hill was initially attracted to Brady because of her Instagram presence as a surfer and aspiring model (they met when he slid into her DMs)! As soon as they got together, though, Brady says he demanded that she stop modeling as well as take down the very same photos that had horned him up in the first place. Evil loser behavior.
“It’s been a year of healing and growth with the help of loved ones and doctors to get back to living my life without guilt, shame and self-judgment for things as small as surfing in a swimsuit rather than a more conservative wetsuit,” Brady wrote. “And I’m sure there’s still much more healing from this abuse ahead of me.”
It’s been dispiriting, though not surprising, to see the inevitable backlash brewing against Brady for exposing Hill’s demands. A tweet that’s representative of a lot men’s takes I’ve seen gaining traction in the last few days: “Jonah Hill is a total loser weirdo who you should not date but there are lots of loser weirdos you shouldn’t date. It’s not like he hit her in the head and left her in a ditch. And sharing private texts years later is strange in its own right so neither of them seem like catches.”
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