Ben Smith Defends BuzzFeed Outing Weiner Sexting Partner

On Wednesday evening, Ben Smith of BuzzFeed appeared on Piers Morgan Live to discuss the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal. Gloria Allred appeared on the same show, and talked about how one of the women she represented in the Anthony Weiner Twitter scandal that led to his resignation in 2011 had been outed by the media. That seemed to be a tacit slap at Smith’s BuzzFeed, which slut shamed the 23-year-old woman who revealed her sexts with Weiner from last year. Smith responded, “You’re not required to send your communications to TheDirty.com.”

“There’s no way Anthony Weiner would be in this race,” Smith said, if Huma Abedin “wasn’t in some way driving it.” Smith continued to say that it wasn’t clear to him that Huma knew Weiner was continuing to participate in sexting for as long as he did.

Smith said that many politicians want “affection, love and attention,” and called Weiner’s scandal “traditional.”