In the wake of the Ashley Madison hack and information dump, many names have been connected to the dating site that caters to the married individual looking for an affair. Some have been fakes, some have been pretty high profile, like in the case of Josh Duggar, and others have been a little surprising. The most recent of these surprises is Christian vlogger Sam Rader, from vlogging couple Sam and Nia. You probably remember them from the viral clip of Sam dipping Nia’s urine from the toilet and surprising her with a positive pregnancy test — a clip that led to a bit of (possibly staged) sadness and a lot of folks “drinking the haterade.”
The revelation that Rader was part of the Ashley Madison hack came from The Daily Mail and originated from numerous Tweets and 4Chan posts noting his identity and connection to the viral YouTube account. This would all be suspect given the amount of fake accounts being reported, but Sam and Nia released a video titled “Forgiven,” confirming his account on the site and claiming that he was a different man at the time:
The bible tells us in James to confess our sins to one another and to pray for one another.
I am a sinner, and a hopeless one at that. In no way do I meet the expectations of God for my life. I fall short of all his commands and I choose to disobey him repeatedly at my own consequences, which is why I am in such need of a savior like Jesus.
I feel ashamed of what I have to admit but I think it’s more than necessary for my dedicated followers, those who have entrusted their time and love in our family.
Over 2 years ago I did create the Ashely Madison account. To be clear this was only an account I used to navigate the site in my sinful curiosity and any messages or data pulled from that account would be evidence of that. I absolutely did not meet up or see another woman from the site. It was clearly a bad moment in my life and I acted on a sinful desire to be with another woman but never came close to going through with it.
It’s easy to watch our channel and think of us as a perfect family, but that’s simply far from actual reality. However, I am definitely not the man that I was then. I pursue my relationship with Christ on a daily basis and have since been involved in a weekly discipleship. We have our issues with sin like anyone else in the world. This is just one instance of my fallen self, one example of my imperfection and my fleshly desires. I will let you down, your friends and family will let you down, and yourself will let you down, just as I have let myself and family down. But Christ doesn’t let anyone down, which is why we are called to put our identity in Him and nothing and nobody else.
My wife and I plan to move forward as normal with our vlog, as we will not allow Satan any foothold in our lives. I have no doubts that we will continue to be attacked and shamed as we live our lives for Jesus in the public eye. It’s the reality of our humanness. You won’t see or witness any perfection from my family and especially not from myself.
I hope you are praying for one another and you pray for me. I do not plan to comment or say anything else about this situation. I am very sorry for my actions and regret it immensely. Our family would like to move on despite the hatred and criticism that will certainly ensue.
Thank you for listening and thank you for your understanding and forgiveness in this matter.
Samuel Rader
As Gawker notes, the Sam and Nia account started on YouTube in 2007 and Rader’s use of Ashley Madison is traced back to 2013. While this certainly isn’t as high profile as the Duggar connection to the site, it does once again highlight the price of notoriety online. You can parse through the full records over at The Daily Mail if interested or watch the clip below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilFuzKURvhk
(Via Sam And Nia / Gawker / Daily Mail)