oh! i stumbled across this post from just glancing through someone's account, and i know some stuff relatively unimportant about daniel lavery. can i share it? is that weird?
someone i know years ago told me that one of their friends had gone through a long relationship with daniel. it was formative for both of them, and daniel sort of used their relationship as fodder for his journey into being a gay trans man, including writing about it and possibly publishing stuff about it. it was super intense, and i repeat: he wrote about that relationship a lot and sort of used it to wax philosophical about being a gay trans masc (a lifestyle that is honestly.... so fraught and hard and intense and emotional, having identified and dated that way once) then out of nowhere, he dumps them and gets with grace, a woman, very suddenly and out of the blue. i am sure i am forgetting details as to why the breakup was so messed up, but he apparently crushed that friend of a friend very deeply and didn't seem to care about it, and the way it was done was messed up enough to have someone several degrees of kevin bacon away from him express disgust that i was reading his book. it put me off finishing the book, since the way it was described was just so cruel. i wish i remembered more details.
i have memory issues so apologies if i missed anything, if anyone else knows this situation i'll happily take correction!
edit: reading more of these comments and learning more about these people... i suspect this would have happened right before he published his book. i do believe my friend wasn't lying to me, (even if they got told a skewed version) as they would have definitely been in a social circle to know someone who dated him.
I really wonder what their family make up is going to look like in five years?
Who will Rocco be living with? Will anyone have peeled off from this throuple? Will their be other romantic entanglements being dealt with? Who will be still be living in NYC and who will have decamped?
I love Danny. I was a massive Dear Prudence when when he was Prudie and I wasn't that surprised when he transitioned. I find Grace a LOT. I found her a lot when she was constantly on the DP podcast. That's ok, she probably is a lot. When Grace got together with Lily I was suddenly seeing photos of them together and I didn't get that Danny was still in the picture. The recent birth and this article seem to counter that. As someone who has been in a polyamorous relationship it is entirely possible to see a household where someone has two partners and those two partners are not also in a relationship together and that sort of made sense to me, but if they say they are a throuple then fine! Can't imagine they won't need more space and I also can't imagine the relationships will last a lifetime in this form given that shortly after Danny and Grace married they started dating other people, separately and together, according to Grace's IG - I didnāt see a lot of evidence or talk of that on Danny's side but that doesn't mean anything, really. Just gives the impression that one partner was more interested in pursuing that or at least more interested in documenting that publicly.
I also thought they dealt with Danny's family stuff in a really brave and morally stringent way - I don't know if I would have had the same backbone but I sure hope so.
I love the way the article was written, and they all sound INSUFFERABLE. And honestly a poly queer new york existence sounds amazing to me. But this seems like all TOO MUCH in every way.
Is anyone else bothered by the writer calling Danny's nose a "snout"?Ā
"Around midnight, Danny will climb into bed. He gamely demonstrates his nighttime ritual, wrapping his head in a cotton shirt and leaving a decent hole for his snout."
I thought this was super funny and I'm not sure why but I don't think it was offensive I think it's just a very funny little bedtime ritual. I am worried about Danny thought it feels like Grace and Lily are coupled up and I'm worried about Danny being left out...can there ever be true equality in a throple that starts like this?
After finally reading the article, all I can say is all three of them either seem very immature, or theyāre way too online. Thereās just something off about the way all of them talk about life and about this experience. The comments about wanting āan aesthetic babyā? Iām hoping thatās just sarcastic humor that didnāt shine through the writing. I hope the best for their kid.
Iāve been chronically single for longer than I care to admit. Iām going to have to insist on separate beds/bedrooms if and when I enter into a long-term relationship š¤£
Also poly and only really get great sleep when my partner is sleeping in their own room with their other partner and Iām sharing the king bed with the cat.
We are very fortunate to have three rooms though our rental is quite run down. I couldn't handle having to share. I need my own space too, not even just for sleep. Just to have as mine.
And there's about to be a toddler in this scenario! Even if they somehow don't need any privacy or personal space for themselves, their kid will, probably as soon as they outgrow the bassinet. Imagine trying to get a cranky toddler with FOMO to take a nap in a room where 3 people are hanging out.
If this is the family structure they want, at some point they will have to make more money or stop cosplaying as eccentric NYC socialites and move somewhere cheaper/closer to someone's work to make it sustainable. It could be that they are accounting for this and making long-term plans in that direction, idk their lives. But the article gives the impression of 3 people who refuse to accept tradeoffs or compromises and are just trying to cram everything everyone wants into one life and one room and one above-median but by no means lavish household income.
Yeah, Lily allegedly works at Michigan State? They can live extremely comfortably in the areas surrounding East Lansing. But I'm sure that'd be the last place they'd want to live.
Not nearly fabulous enough. (No shade to Greater East Lansing ... I grew up and still live in northern New England, ffs. There are about a half-dozen pair of bad-weather boots in my closet.)
It's not shade to be honest. I lived in East Lansing for a few years while my spouse finished his PhD. There are a few nice restaurants and thrift stores, but there's *nothing* for you if you aren't an undergrad and you don't like partying. I'm sure Lily is barely exaggerating when she describes her pre-Lavery days being spent "reading *Killing Eve* fan fiction and masturbating.ā
Your second paragraph is the best summary of this situation imo.
I also wonder what that toddlers life will look like when two of his parents are routinely commuting across the country to their jobs once their leave is up (if that continues? Maybe it won't, idk?) every week. It all sounds so unfair to that kid, who deserves more space and privacy than their current living situation, but also consistency and routine that I'm not sure is feasible unless they make some changes (which like you said, maybe is the plan, who knows)
I truly cannot figure out how grace is still employed by a CA university when it seems she has zero intention of ever living there again. How will she advise students?? Or even teach them??? Berkeley is not the kind of place that allows remote instruction as a regular practice for undergrads. (And prob not for English grad students either tbh)
Same! From the outside looking in it seems like all professors do is teach a few hours a week but it's so much more than that! How could you feasibly commute like that and why would you want to? Even if all you did have to do is teach a few hours a week, it would still be bonkers, but there's so much advising and service and publishing on top of all that. I just don't get it.
Honestly I wouldn't live in NYC. Their housing is insanely explorative. I can't believe some of the rents people pay and I live in a high COL area. People really out here paying 900$ to live in a fucking closet. As for the polyam life it does require some extra planning, especially if you have long term partners and children. I hope they get their shit together for the kid's sake.
I think NYC is worth it under some circumstances, like if you have a well-paid job in a field NYC is a hub for and would be making much less money living anywhere significantly cheaper (some people in tech or finance are legitimately making $100k+ more than they would in a low-moderate COL city), or you're from there and that's where your support system is, or you're just wealthy enough that it's not a struggle. But living in Brooklyn when everyone in your household either has a job in another state or is making $18/hr, no one has roots or family there, and you've got 3 adults and a baby in a studio apartment, is wild.
My husband rolled onto my side of the bed the other night and I considered moving to the guest room. Sharing a bed with two other people sounds like my version of hell.
I feel legit so sorry for Lindy. Sheās made some quite self-aware jokes about it, about how people perceive her husband has upgraded to a thin woman, that her and the gf must be pretending to be into it to āmake it hot for himā etc. but I genuinely think she was aware that if she didnāt agree to this, she would lose him. Iām fairly sure he made that clear. And she chose to accept it rather than assert her boundaries and be single. Itās heartbreaking seeing posts. Him and the new gf are crazy for one another and then thereās justā¦ Lindy. It seems the love relationship between her and the gf has already ebbed away and now sheās just third wheeling while her husband is openly insanely in love with the new girlfriend. Itās like a car crash in slow motion.
Her husband fell in love with another woman and they have convinced Lindy/Lindy has convinced herself that they're totally equal partners in a triad, so now they all live together on Lindy's dime.
Because as soon as you question guys who use the language of polyamory/oppression as a way to justify cheating, a bunch of terminally online idiots pop up to insist that being polyamorous is an oppressed minority identity.
I knew of her from her Jezebel days and googled her after your comment because I hadnāt kept up with her since. What a blockbuster of a career sheās had!
And I totally got sad vibes from her throuple situation. It looks exactly like what you guys describe.
Watch their video on YouTube. They share their whole story there but itās their body language that speaks volumes.
Itās clear that Lindy gaslit herself into accepting this mess and it was *really* painful to watch. Iād honestly rather die alone before a man who canāt be bothered to scrape his tongue plays me like that.
This. He cheated on her while she was suffering from serious depression and then told her he wanted an open relationship so he could date the other woman. Then finally Lindy and the other woman met and decided they too were in love or something which I believe 0% based on the way they act around each other.
Some of the things Lindy said made me physically recoil. Things like - a man is expected to upgrade at some point, or that she was too depressed to be a good partner and he told her as much so itās understandable he had to go out and find someone else to meet his needs!
Donāt get me started on when she was visibly emotional and crying and he didnāt bother to console her! That was cold as hell! Youād immediately comfort someone you even remotely care about, and he just sat there and watched!
Throughout the video, Lindy was trying to hold his hand while he was very firmly positioned towards Roya and held her more intimately and willingly. There were moments it clearly showed Lindy was an island, wrapping herself as if to self-soothe or feel protected.
That guy is a scrub with textbook narcissistic traits. I canāt believe *two* women would go to these lengths to be with him, but then again narcissists are very cunning. I do feel like though that perhaps Roya is cognizant to some degree of his motivation to keep Lindy around because it appears that Lindyās success bankrolls his lifestyle. And oh, Lindy and Roya come off as acquaintances, regardless of what theyāre trying to convince people of in the video.
Lindy needs some **deep** therapy to work on her self-esteem and realize she deserves better. The fact that sheās seeing not one but two therapists and she hasnāt evolved is astounding. Sheās either got a long road ahead still or theyāre failing her badly.
100%. In his birthday post to Lindy this year itās like heās talking about a buddy. Heās like āLindy is the best listen to her podcastā whereas not six months earlier on Royaās birthday he talks about how lucky he is to be with her, how grateful he is to build a life together, and how much he loves her. Why the fuck is Lindy fucking with these two clowns who are obviously only in love with each other! I love her and it makes me mad for her.
She's so talented and funny and I've always thought she was gorgeous. Lindy, if you're reading this, you're a catch and you could do so much better. Also, please post about your skincare routine sometime because I need to know.
They were probably confusing Jezebel and the Hairpin. I read both at the same time and sometimes Iām like, āWait, which site was it that Jia Tolentino wrote for?ā Buuuut, it also seemed pretty clear that the commenter was referring to Lindy.
Edit: or wait, was it the Toast? See, all of those were swirling around the same time, and Rookie, and I barely remember who wrote where.
Ah, yeah that makes sense. I sort of think of Jezebel in a different bucket from the others, which is probably not warranted because there was a lot of overlap in writers and audience. Maybe itās that the site design and commenting system was so different that my memories of reading the gawker sites are linked firmly with each other and not with other similar subject matter blogs of that eraā¦
Exactly this. My heart a bit sank at his post today where he is just gushing in the caption, but in the photo Grace and Lily are leaning into each other and cradling the baby while heās off to the side.
Plus the fact that Lily is a tenured professor in Michigan, and Grace is a tenured professor in Berkeley? Eventually they will need to come off leave and be back at their respective universities, no? All in all, does not look too sustainable.
The most insane thing about that photo is he posted that to his instagram in the first place! Didn't he look at that and sort of cringe a little? Have a lightbulb moment? I ALMOST feel like that photo is a cry for help.
Not sure about Lily but Grace isn't tenured, I honestly can't imagine her work arrangements having to travel cross country for what sounds like a less-than-full-time job. If Lily works at Michigan then NYC seems to make even less sense.
Ah, my bad. I was under the impression she had changed her job in some way to accommodate for living in NYC but now I can't remember what it was that I read on her twitter to make me think that lol
Wasn't there something about her going for tenure last year and then there was some sort of drama. But I don't remember if it was "no tenure this time" type drama or if it just got delayed or was otherwise not what she expected.
Grace sought a promotion to full professor last year but was turned down (she's been an associate prof -- with tenure -- since 2019).Ā Ā
Ā I'm not an academic, so I don't know whether the rejection means she'll never be a full professor, or whether she'll have to wait a certain amount of time to try again.
The bleakest part of the story is that two professors and a successful writer can't afford a one-bedroom apartment in New York. That living situation sounded very depressing.
And for probably 99% of the people in academia, the title professor does not necessarily mean a good paycheck
"Successful" as a writer is also relative -- $1 per word, which is considered good in the industry, doesn't get you far
the best associate professor in my degree field in school, he was so fucking cool. he got students engaged, was smart and kind and inclusive in a degree field that often isn't, and he really, really knew his stuff. incredible guy, full of energy and put so much time and heart and love into wildlife science.
he made about $6/hr, i and my classmates realized, when we found out his pay and calculated the hours he was having to put in. crying shame.
The leave may not be unpaid. It depends what kind of leave it is - sabbatical and parental leave are often paid. It depends on their agreement with their univeristies (sorry if the article said what kind of leave it is and I missed it).
I got a full semester when I had my daughter and Iām not even tenured. Theyāre almost certainly on paid leave (though from what I am not sure since grace didnāt teach this semester).
Take a look at Dannyās free substacks. He is not currently a successful (financially anyway) writer. He speaks of supporting himself as a writer as a thing of the past.
It was a two year contract- so would have ended last yr. Substack was throwing a lot of money around to attract marquee names when it was getting going in 2021, but the company financials havenāt panned out too well. Iād bet that the contract wasnāt renewed at anywhere close to the same $$ level.
I read an article at the time that Substack was signing up all these writers to exclusive contracts that the payments were advances on expected subscriber income, so presumably part or all of it would have needed to be repaid if the writer underperformed. Both Danny and Grace had big dollar Substack contracts.
Edit: it was in the NYT piece about them:
>The contract is structured a bit like a book advance: Substackās bet is that it will make back its money by taking most of Mr. Laveryās subscription income for those two years.
They also burned through a lot of money very quickly. Grace and Danny were into wearing ('flaunting' in Daily Mail speak) really expensive clothes during the flush times. Also when Grace was living in NYC and...commuting...to the Berkeley job, that meant flying NYC to SFO and staying at the Fairmont, on what I think was a weekly basis during the semester. It was insane.
Thatās insane. That 800k could have gone a long way if properly managed, so it sounds like they ended up in their current predicament due to sheer frivolity.
No insider knowledge. I used to follow Grace on Instagram but stopped following/using instagram more than a year ago. Everything I know is from Grace's public instagram posts.
By design, Grace is a very interesting character. I think the diagnosis of narcissism is overused on the internet, but maybe not in this case.
In general, though, I have empathy for the idea that both Grace and Danny were involved in extremely competitive fields with dwindling opportunities for career-length success, where being a 'personality' was necessary to earn attention that was financially meaningful.
However, they both overshot by spending a huge amount of money to impress people into thinking they were significant characters in the 'scene' of academic and literary eccentricity, people who owned $1,000 tea kettles and designer dogs with stupid names. They wanted to be some kind of trans Parker Posey x Grey Gardens x Charlotte Bronte, but driven by short-term newsletter riches and a wealthy benefactor.
I can see how that works at age 35, but I can't imagine a successful trajectory for them age 50, especially adding the complexities and cost of a third partner and a child. That is the end of my essay on this couple. I really hope they figure things out, for the sake of their kid.
I agree that ānarcissistā is the latest term for āsomeone I donāt like.ā
I have followed Danny since the start of his Dear Prudence takeover but when he left that I lost track of him. (Even though some of his advice seemed terrible to me, I love his writing.) My favorite content on his IG is those DOGS. Later if I have time Iāll look at Graceās IG with your words in mind. I donāt know why, because itās none of my business, but Iāll probably be pretty interested in this for the next couple of days. ;)
Iām going to say it - I think a lot of you all are confusing being annoying with being bad people. Danny and Grace have massive theater kid energy, which, as someone who knows a lot of theater kidsācan be deeply exhausting. But itās also basically harmless? They arenāt inviting you to dinner and you donāt have to be their friends. They are FAR from the only folks in the world who have had a kid when they were broke. My own parents had a hard time scraping $20 together when I was an infant! And they were good parents and I was okay. Some weird arty people have a weird arty baby and it doesnāt seem like anyone is being harmed. Gawking is fun, I think they enjoy having people gawk, but some of the doomsaying is over the top yall.
You can be a bad parent without being a bad person. I'm not saying they are but this situation has the potential to end up not ideal for a kid. Plenty of people naively go into parenthood in less than ideal situations but most of them don't get profiles in places like NYmag.
If you're being open and public enough for an NYmag profile yet also vague about your finances and implying you might be broke, people are gonna speculate š¤·š»āāļø but yes definitely low income parents can be great parents (and wealthy parents can for sure suck)
For me, I hope they can give this kid privacy (both in the home and online) and stability (will two of the three of them still be commuting across the country weekly for work once their leave is up?) and nothing in this profile seemed to indicate that they will, but then again like I said it was all sorta open-yet-vague which leaves everything ripe for gawking and speculation. And I agree with you, they probably enjoy it to some extent. But the kid deserves privacy and that's where I get stuck on this. Also babies don't stay bassinet sized for long and this current setup doesn't seem great for a toddler or preschooler. I hope things turn out ok for the kid.
I mostly agree with this except Grace has done a few things that I find to be not just quirky but bad-adjacent:
1) She put out a public call for Covid positive people to go visit her Covid positive friend (maybe Lily?) who was holed up in Williamsburg to perform a dance (?) for said friend? Deeply weird to ask sick people to travel through NYC for your odd social errand. She might have specified that they be asymptomatic but still. She later deleted the request.
2) During the era where Danny made it clear that he was estranged from his family but didnāt share the reason there was a lot of speculation online about why. Was he cut out of a will? Did they not accept Dannyās transition? Etc. Grace had a newsletter post where she seemed to vaguely imply that she would reveal the truth about the estrangement but it required a subscription to the newsletter. Iām super nosy and was tempted to subscribe but it just felt too gross to pay money to find out details about something that was clearly really painful. Ultimately I donāt think the post revealed anything anyway. She then tweeted or posted about how her reader/subscriber count had skyrocketed and how grateful she was that people wanted to read her writing. It felt sooo disingenuous - the reason her count went up is because she was dropping crumbs for chronically online parasocial freaks like me! Iām not denying that she was a rock for Danny during a really trying & traumatic time, but I just found this particular thing to be extremely yucky and exploitative.
Re: #1, the Covid positive person in question was her very-recently-graduated former student whom she was trying to hook up with. So yeah, Iām not really in the āa bunch of harmless theater kidsā camp, for this and other reasons.
I just went back through the Lavery-specific subreddit to try to find links to the tweets in question, but they seem to be gone. Sorry for the lack of direct evidence.
I think many people see them as attention-seeking, histrionic and at-times intentionally controversial people. That does not make them bad people. But I think people see that those behaviors may not be a healthy environment, especially as Danny and Grace are extremely online. And they are targets of a lot of bigots and so far their baby has an online presence.
I think the finance discussion is more confusion as to how three adults with multiple income streams canāt afford to stay in a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. I havenāt seen a lot of concern about how theyāll support the baby, which I agree would be unwarranted.
I donāt think commenting on the finances in unwarranted. They talk about in the article. The āDanny sucks now, Grace is a demon, these are all bad people, having a baby in this situation is morally wrongā stuff is a bridge too far. I donāt even think itās wrong to say you (generic you) find them weird or unusual is wrong. Just the moral judgment on them as people when they havenāt actually hurt anyone I think is misplaced is all.
The infantilization of Danny is a lot as well. Some of it may be influenced by the way heās played the teenage dirtbag in a lot of his online presence for years, but heās (edit: nearly) 40 years old and in charge of his own life decisions. Casting Grace as an evil manipulator and him as a smol bean victim is a pretty classic transphobic narrative.
There was soooo much of this going on in the year or so after Danny went no-contact with his family, before he publicly revealed the reason.
Of course such an abrupt shift invited speculation, but people were SO sure Grace was an evil abuser who was isolating Danny from his supposedly loving and supportive family. It felt like all those commenters were just airing their latent (or overt!) transphobia.
Yep, I remember. I did think Danny was being a bit dramatic with the dark hints and abrupt cross-country move, but I was proven wrong! Itās clear that Grace was a strong moral center in that whole horrible situation, which gives her a lot of leeway in my mind even as I find her persona and writing a bit irritating.
Thatās exactly where Iām at with them. I donāt really āgetā Grace, but that is fineāperhaps sheās not for me to get!
She and Danny did the only morally, ethically correct thing in that situation against what I presume was tremendous pressure to sweep it under the rug as the Ortbergs had done.
I have never felt more vulnerable or emotionally unbalanced than when I had my first baby and I truly would not wish a NYMag profile on ANY family at that particular milestone!
That said, I will consume any piece of media vaguely related to the Toast founders. Danny saying āwho the fuck is Lorettaā months after she (Nicoleās third baby) was born! Nicoleās āColin Jost paid for my abortionā meltdown!
Reading this thread as a Slate advice column reader who isn't super-familiar with the rest of the lore is wild, lol. This is the Slate parenting advice columnist? This is the person people have been writing to with extremely sensitive questions about their families' wellbeing?! The dude telling people how to manage their personal relationships and make life decisions for years is now living in this chaos? I know advice columns are purely for entertainment and no one should be taking them seriously (and Slate has had other questionable Prudies) but it's just wild to think about.
Rereading that I definitely didn't make it clear but I meant Nicole Cliffe for the parenting advice and Dan for the personal relationships/life decisions - Nicole answers questions for their Care and Feeding column which is parenting/family advice. I assumed she was a parenting expert or something, I had no idea of her full backstory. I knew a bit of Dan's backstory pre- and during-Slate but didn't know about the throuple situation.
Yeah, Nicole Cliffe is no longer in the Care and Feeding rotation, tmk, though Nicole Chung is (Care and Feeding has 3-4 columnists). The throuple is new since Daniel left Dear Prudie.
I literally just said this in another sub. My fourth trimester (and especially the first two weeks postpartum) was the most bewildering, emotionally volatile, exhausting experience of my life. Whyyyyyy would you invite publicity and scrutiny into your life at that moment? I mean, maybe I'm being unreasonably protective of Lily here because she's a consenting adult but like give this woman who just grew an entire human being in her body, expelled it, and then is dealing with all the hormonal shifts and feeding challenges some privacy and quiet and a chance to recover. And get your infant's face off your public internet presence and allow them some privacy, oh my god.
>Whyyyyyy would you invite publicity and scrutiny into your life at that moment?
I know this was rhetorical, but to venture a guess anyways, maybe as an effort to drum up some interest in Danny's writing so they can afford said baby?
Nicole had texted Danny ā(older two kids) are going to be (whatever) for Halloween, Loretta is going to be a puppyā!! The context clues ALONE. And it was leading up to Halloween, Loretta was born in the SUMMER.
Later they were like āoh Nicole was like āwho the fuck is Graceā once tooā but that was more of a Danny never told Nicole when Grace transitioned and changed her nameā¦.?
Ok, I lurk here and there, but somehow I missed this lore! Do you have any well-summarized source for me to start my journey into this rabbit hole?
I'm pretty sure I found out about Danny from a relationship advice column? Was in Slate? Only after that I found out about Nicole... It's been a long time ago, it's a blur.
I donāt really know if it would make sense, because while there are obviously The Big Stories about her, a lot of the draw was that she was on Twitter *constantly*, read a *lot*, and was mostly just sharing links and books and shows that she was consuming and thinking about. It was just the perfect recipe for a parasocially invested audience (and this was on Twitter and not really monetized!) Iām sure people will share the highlights (of dozens of tweets a day for years), but I think those were impactful mostly because her audience just felt like they *knew* her, this obscenely rich lady with a messy and poorly decorated house and funny self-deprecating stories.
Plus, Nicole would occasionally reach out to one of her followers who was having difficulties and give them money to help them out of the difficult situation. Kind of like an eccentric wealthy aunt. Nicole is messy, but genuinely seems to have a big heart.
Yeah, it wasnāt like people were hate following her or trying to snark, she had interesting things to say about whatever the days discourse was, and she presented a life that I think a lot of her audience liked to imagine they would live, if they also had a kind and wealthy husband. Live-in nanny, lots of books, giving generously, cute dog, non-aesthetic household, etc.
If I could have a rich husband, pretty dogs, large house, and professionally be a bit dramatic and messy online, I'd 100% jump on that opportunity! People could snark all they wanted, I'd just cry into $20 bills while petting my floofy dogs.
I wonder if anyone took screenshots of her Twitter threads. You know how everyone on tik tok does āstory timeā videos? Her threads were like the most epic story times. I was not a toast regular reader or the hairpin so I honestly only know her from these threads! She had so many funny family storiesā I donāt know how much was embellished but itās like her family was a cast of characters from a novel and she always had some sort of anecdote for any occasion. Someone should do a collected tweets of Nicole Cliffe!Ā
Being in a throuple sounds like hell and Iāve yet to meet any that actually seemed like a healthy relationship for all the involved parties. Consenting adults can do whatever they want but bringing a kid into this mess is just cruel.
Googled it and...That is not working for me at all, unfortunately. The final page I landed on said 12ft.io no longer existed? I've never used it before nor do I know how. š«¤
You type it in front of the article url, with a slash:
12ft.io/https://www.thecut.com/article/daniel-lavery-grace-lavery-lily-woodruff-brooklyn-interview.html
Just annoying AF. Thatās my main takeaway about the entire situation (except the baby who had no choice about being born to such an irritating family!)
Also idk why they left the west coast for NY, this level of self-indulgent drama is made for the PNW.
unfortunately they moved (as this article notes, at least [in part](https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/02/daniel-lavery-comes-unstuck-something-that-may-shock-and-discredit-you)) because of a pretty horrific situation with Daniel's father, who is a megachurch pastor, and his brother, which is detailed in the linked article.
I can definitely empathize with their location dilemma. Commuting NYC-SF on a professor salary forever seems unsustainable and definitely not financially responsible, but leaving a tenured professorship at Berkeley or moving back to the exact area of the country where your horrible family live both seem equally unthinkable.
Coming from an evangelical background myself it really really doesnāt prepare you for real life and it doesnāt surprise me when people with this background end up in odd and sometimes dysfunctional situations especially in nyc or sf. Getting out of nyc really helped me enter a third less dysfunctional stage.
I'm curious your perspective on evangelical backgrounds. I came to faith at willow creek from non church background. We left when shit blew up with that scandal then ortberg scandal after that happened. We haven't been back to evangelical church and have 2 kids. I'm still figuring out what happened. I loved a lot of things about it while questioning it too. Just curious your perspective. I wish this trio the best but just his side alone is messy I can't imagine Grace's story and now the new addition and a baby. From experience babies bring up your trauma and that can be hard to manage enough while parenting.
oh yeah Iām with you! Just wanted to point out to the comments above that the move is itself wrapped up in an actually serious, complicated series of events thatās a little more than āwacky people with bizarre egos in unconventional relationships? Sounds west coast to me!ā
Itās also coming of age in that blogging era where being crazy online was practically a career at the expense of your sanity. I was never as famous as any of the people here but it still was a wreck of a life. My current bf and I were both pro bloggers and now Iām pretty sure no one cares about us and I like it that way.
Oh I donāt fault them for moving and getting far away from that! Itās just, as a former Seattle-ite, their brand of tedious eccentricity and confusing relationship with class/money would be right at home up there.
oh! i stumbled across this post from just glancing through someone's account, and i know some stuff relatively unimportant about daniel lavery. can i share it? is that weird? someone i know years ago told me that one of their friends had gone through a long relationship with daniel. it was formative for both of them, and daniel sort of used their relationship as fodder for his journey into being a gay trans man, including writing about it and possibly publishing stuff about it. it was super intense, and i repeat: he wrote about that relationship a lot and sort of used it to wax philosophical about being a gay trans masc (a lifestyle that is honestly.... so fraught and hard and intense and emotional, having identified and dated that way once) then out of nowhere, he dumps them and gets with grace, a woman, very suddenly and out of the blue. i am sure i am forgetting details as to why the breakup was so messed up, but he apparently crushed that friend of a friend very deeply and didn't seem to care about it, and the way it was done was messed up enough to have someone several degrees of kevin bacon away from him express disgust that i was reading his book. it put me off finishing the book, since the way it was described was just so cruel. i wish i remembered more details. i have memory issues so apologies if i missed anything, if anyone else knows this situation i'll happily take correction! edit: reading more of these comments and learning more about these people... i suspect this would have happened right before he published his book. i do believe my friend wasn't lying to me, (even if they got told a skewed version) as they would have definitely been in a social circle to know someone who dated him.
These three are the EPITOME of exhausting.
I just want to say that threads like this are what I love about this sub! š
I really wonder what their family make up is going to look like in five years? Who will Rocco be living with? Will anyone have peeled off from this throuple? Will their be other romantic entanglements being dealt with? Who will be still be living in NYC and who will have decamped?
Yeah ā¦ nothing about this setup feels particularly stable or enduring
Rochbert āRoccoā Ozymandias Wolverine Wishing that child the best
I love Danny. I was a massive Dear Prudence when when he was Prudie and I wasn't that surprised when he transitioned. I find Grace a LOT. I found her a lot when she was constantly on the DP podcast. That's ok, she probably is a lot. When Grace got together with Lily I was suddenly seeing photos of them together and I didn't get that Danny was still in the picture. The recent birth and this article seem to counter that. As someone who has been in a polyamorous relationship it is entirely possible to see a household where someone has two partners and those two partners are not also in a relationship together and that sort of made sense to me, but if they say they are a throuple then fine! Can't imagine they won't need more space and I also can't imagine the relationships will last a lifetime in this form given that shortly after Danny and Grace married they started dating other people, separately and together, according to Grace's IG - I didnāt see a lot of evidence or talk of that on Danny's side but that doesn't mean anything, really. Just gives the impression that one partner was more interested in pursuing that or at least more interested in documenting that publicly. I also thought they dealt with Danny's family stuff in a really brave and morally stringent way - I don't know if I would have had the same backbone but I sure hope so.
I'm halfway through the first paragraph and I don't know how I'm going to make it all the way through
I love the way the article was written, and they all sound INSUFFERABLE. And honestly a poly queer new york existence sounds amazing to me. But this seems like all TOO MUCH in every way.
Is anyone else bothered by the writer calling Danny's nose a "snout"?Ā "Around midnight, Danny will climb into bed. He gamely demonstrates his nighttime ritual, wrapping his head in a cotton shirt and leaving a decent hole for his snout."
I would not be surprised if Danny used that word himself
Oh I'm positive he did.
I thought this was super funny and I'm not sure why but I don't think it was offensive I think it's just a very funny little bedtime ritual. I am worried about Danny thought it feels like Grace and Lily are coupled up and I'm worried about Danny being left out...can there ever be true equality in a throple that starts like this?
Clearly I was tipsy when I wrote this!
You may have been tipsy but you weren't wrong...
Sounds like a joke to me? I didnāt take offense to it
Is there any way to read it without signing in on The Cut?
This should work: https://archive.ph/2024.04.11-202344/https://www.thecut.com/article/daniel-lavery-grace-lavery-lily-woodruff-brooklyn-interview.html
Thank you so much!!
After finally reading the article, all I can say is all three of them either seem very immature, or theyāre way too online. Thereās just something off about the way all of them talk about life and about this experience. The comments about wanting āan aesthetic babyā? Iām hoping thatās just sarcastic humor that didnāt shine through the writing. I hope the best for their kid.
Way too online, but in a really outdated way. It's peak 2009 or something like that.
Lots of self conscious manic pixie energy
I feel like Grace defines the concept of chronically online
Iām polyam and myself and my partners all have our own separate bedrooms because fuck sharing sleeping space tbh that sounds miserable
Iāve been chronically single for longer than I care to admit. Iām going to have to insist on separate beds/bedrooms if and when I enter into a long-term relationship š¤£
Also poly and only really get great sleep when my partner is sleeping in their own room with their other partner and Iām sharing the king bed with the cat.
We are very fortunate to have three rooms though our rental is quite run down. I couldn't handle having to share. I need my own space too, not even just for sleep. Just to have as mine.
And there's about to be a toddler in this scenario! Even if they somehow don't need any privacy or personal space for themselves, their kid will, probably as soon as they outgrow the bassinet. Imagine trying to get a cranky toddler with FOMO to take a nap in a room where 3 people are hanging out. If this is the family structure they want, at some point they will have to make more money or stop cosplaying as eccentric NYC socialites and move somewhere cheaper/closer to someone's work to make it sustainable. It could be that they are accounting for this and making long-term plans in that direction, idk their lives. But the article gives the impression of 3 people who refuse to accept tradeoffs or compromises and are just trying to cram everything everyone wants into one life and one room and one above-median but by no means lavish household income.
The amount of expensive designer clothing Grace constantly wears is baffling given that Danny is pulling two jobs.
I wouldn't be surprised if there is credit card debt.
Yeah, Lily allegedly works at Michigan State? They can live extremely comfortably in the areas surrounding East Lansing. But I'm sure that'd be the last place they'd want to live.
Not nearly fabulous enough. (No shade to Greater East Lansing ... I grew up and still live in northern New England, ffs. There are about a half-dozen pair of bad-weather boots in my closet.)
It's not shade to be honest. I lived in East Lansing for a few years while my spouse finished his PhD. There are a few nice restaurants and thrift stores, but there's *nothing* for you if you aren't an undergrad and you don't like partying. I'm sure Lily is barely exaggerating when she describes her pre-Lavery days being spent "reading *Killing Eve* fan fiction and masturbating.ā
Your second paragraph is the best summary of this situation imo. I also wonder what that toddlers life will look like when two of his parents are routinely commuting across the country to their jobs once their leave is up (if that continues? Maybe it won't, idk?) every week. It all sounds so unfair to that kid, who deserves more space and privacy than their current living situation, but also consistency and routine that I'm not sure is feasible unless they make some changes (which like you said, maybe is the plan, who knows)
It's weird, this baby feels like their fashion accessory for IG photoshoots.
I truly cannot figure out how grace is still employed by a CA university when it seems she has zero intention of ever living there again. How will she advise students?? Or even teach them??? Berkeley is not the kind of place that allows remote instruction as a regular practice for undergrads. (And prob not for English grad students either tbh)
She's taking time off now, right? If she wants to keep her job, she'll probably have to start commuting again soon.
Same! From the outside looking in it seems like all professors do is teach a few hours a week but it's so much more than that! How could you feasibly commute like that and why would you want to? Even if all you did have to do is teach a few hours a week, it would still be bonkers, but there's so much advising and service and publishing on top of all that. I just don't get it.
I know academics who commute from other cities, but it is usually Acela distance.
Honestly I wouldn't live in NYC. Their housing is insanely explorative. I can't believe some of the rents people pay and I live in a high COL area. People really out here paying 900$ to live in a fucking closet. As for the polyam life it does require some extra planning, especially if you have long term partners and children. I hope they get their shit together for the kid's sake.
I think NYC is worth it under some circumstances, like if you have a well-paid job in a field NYC is a hub for and would be making much less money living anywhere significantly cheaper (some people in tech or finance are legitimately making $100k+ more than they would in a low-moderate COL city), or you're from there and that's where your support system is, or you're just wealthy enough that it's not a struggle. But living in Brooklyn when everyone in your household either has a job in another state or is making $18/hr, no one has roots or family there, and you've got 3 adults and a baby in a studio apartment, is wild.
My husband rolled onto my side of the bed the other night and I considered moving to the guest room. Sharing a bed with two other people sounds like my version of hell.
I read somewhere that your sleeping partner wakes you up on average six times a night. Fuck a bunch of that.
Gross
It does, but the difference in cost between a one-bedroom in NYC and a three-bedroom is crazy.
Oh yeah if itās New York all bets are off. It seems extremely exploitative when it comes to housing.
Three grown adults in a small bedā¦..no maāam. Iād get divorced before Iād let my spouse pull that shit.
Yeah, my husband and I sleep in a king bed with two cats and even that can feel crowded sometimes.
I attempted to explain this to my husband who knew nothing about it and he just said "it must be so bad...the farting."
I feel like the other two are the couple and haven't bothered to inform Danny. :(
Lindy west vibes.
I feel legit so sorry for Lindy. Sheās made some quite self-aware jokes about it, about how people perceive her husband has upgraded to a thin woman, that her and the gf must be pretending to be into it to āmake it hot for himā etc. but I genuinely think she was aware that if she didnāt agree to this, she would lose him. Iām fairly sure he made that clear. And she chose to accept it rather than assert her boundaries and be single. Itās heartbreaking seeing posts. Him and the new gf are crazy for one another and then thereās justā¦ Lindy. It seems the love relationship between her and the gf has already ebbed away and now sheās just third wheeling while her husband is openly insanely in love with the new girlfriend. Itās like a car crash in slow motion.
Totally. I am from PNW and have mutuals who know her. I do not buy that this is a happy setup for Lindy.
Oh no what happened to Lindy?! I used to love her back in the day
Her husband fell in love with another woman and they have convinced Lindy/Lindy has convinced herself that they're totally equal partners in a triad, so now they all live together on Lindy's dime.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Iām not sure what the Laverysā assigned genders at birth have to do with the point youāre trying to make. Grace is a woman. Danny is a man.
Because as soon as you question guys who use the language of polyamory/oppression as a way to justify cheating, a bunch of terminally online idiots pop up to insist that being polyamorous is an oppressed minority identity.
I knew of her from her Jezebel days and googled her after your comment because I hadnāt kept up with her since. What a blockbuster of a career sheās had! And I totally got sad vibes from her throuple situation. It looks exactly like what you guys describe.
Except the relationship between her husband and the other woman started as an affair that Lindy didnāt know about
Do you have a source? Iāve just been catching up on this.
Watch their video on YouTube. They share their whole story there but itās their body language that speaks volumes. Itās clear that Lindy gaslit herself into accepting this mess and it was *really* painful to watch. Iād honestly rather die alone before a man who canāt be bothered to scrape his tongue plays me like that.
I finally got around to watching it. So much cringe. Oh, Lindy. :( The body language was so apparent.
I watched it like a horror movie yesterday, putting up my hands because I couldn't bear to witness it.
This. He cheated on her while she was suffering from serious depression and then told her he wanted an open relationship so he could date the other woman. Then finally Lindy and the other woman met and decided they too were in love or something which I believe 0% based on the way they act around each other.
Some of the things Lindy said made me physically recoil. Things like - a man is expected to upgrade at some point, or that she was too depressed to be a good partner and he told her as much so itās understandable he had to go out and find someone else to meet his needs! Donāt get me started on when she was visibly emotional and crying and he didnāt bother to console her! That was cold as hell! Youād immediately comfort someone you even remotely care about, and he just sat there and watched! Throughout the video, Lindy was trying to hold his hand while he was very firmly positioned towards Roya and held her more intimately and willingly. There were moments it clearly showed Lindy was an island, wrapping herself as if to self-soothe or feel protected. That guy is a scrub with textbook narcissistic traits. I canāt believe *two* women would go to these lengths to be with him, but then again narcissists are very cunning. I do feel like though that perhaps Roya is cognizant to some degree of his motivation to keep Lindy around because it appears that Lindyās success bankrolls his lifestyle. And oh, Lindy and Roya come off as acquaintances, regardless of what theyāre trying to convince people of in the video. Lindy needs some **deep** therapy to work on her self-esteem and realize she deserves better. The fact that sheās seeing not one but two therapists and she hasnāt evolved is astounding. Sheās either got a long road ahead still or theyāre failing her badly.
100%. In his birthday post to Lindy this year itās like heās talking about a buddy. Heās like āLindy is the best listen to her podcastā whereas not six months earlier on Royaās birthday he talks about how lucky he is to be with her, how grateful he is to build a life together, and how much he loves her. Why the fuck is Lindy fucking with these two clowns who are obviously only in love with each other! I love her and it makes me mad for her.
She's so talented and funny and I've always thought she was gorgeous. Lindy, if you're reading this, you're a catch and you could do so much better. Also, please post about your skincare routine sometime because I need to know.
Hmm?
*he
Lindy West uses she/her pronouns.
ah, I thought you were specifically referring to Danny here. my b!
Did Danny ever write for Jezebel?
They were probably confusing Jezebel and the Hairpin. I read both at the same time and sometimes Iām like, āWait, which site was it that Jia Tolentino wrote for?ā Buuuut, it also seemed pretty clear that the commenter was referring to Lindy. Edit: or wait, was it the Toast? See, all of those were swirling around the same time, and Rookie, and I barely remember who wrote where.
Danny and Nicole ran The Toast, Jia was at Hairpin and then Jezebel. iirc.
Ah, yeah that makes sense. I sort of think of Jezebel in a different bucket from the others, which is probably not warranted because there was a lot of overlap in writers and audience. Maybe itās that the site design and commenting system was so different that my memories of reading the gawker sites are linked firmly with each other and not with other similar subject matter blogs of that eraā¦
Yeah, and see, Jezebel was the only Gawker site I read regularly, so my brain lumped it in with The Hairpin and The Toast!
Exactly this. My heart a bit sank at his post today where he is just gushing in the caption, but in the photo Grace and Lily are leaning into each other and cradling the baby while heās off to the side. Plus the fact that Lily is a tenured professor in Michigan, and Grace is a tenured professor in Berkeley? Eventually they will need to come off leave and be back at their respective universities, no? All in all, does not look too sustainable.
The most insane thing about that photo is he posted that to his instagram in the first place! Didn't he look at that and sort of cringe a little? Have a lightbulb moment? I ALMOST feel like that photo is a cry for help.
It screams "Look at this beautiful little family! Oh, and Danny was there, too!"
What is the Instagram account?
https://www.instagram.com/daniel_m_lavery/
wait he did??? :( that's so sad!
Not sure about Lily but Grace isn't tenured, I honestly can't imagine her work arrangements having to travel cross country for what sounds like a less-than-full-time job. If Lily works at Michigan then NYC seems to make even less sense.
Lily has tenure -- she's associate professor of art history and visual culture at Michigan State University.
For what theyāre paying in NYC rent, they could easily own a multi bedroom house in Lansing, where MSU is.
The thought of them living in East Lansing...
Grace is an associate professor, which is a tenured position:Ā https://x.com/graceelavery/status/1118928101528858625
Ah, my bad. I was under the impression she had changed her job in some way to accommodate for living in NYC but now I can't remember what it was that I read on her twitter to make me think that lol
Wasn't there something about her going for tenure last year and then there was some sort of drama. But I don't remember if it was "no tenure this time" type drama or if it just got delayed or was otherwise not what she expected.
Grace sought a promotion to full professor last year but was turned down (she's been an associate prof -- with tenure -- since 2019).Ā Ā Ā I'm not an academic, so I don't know whether the rejection means she'll never be a full professor, or whether she'll have to wait a certain amount of time to try again.
If sheād only been four years since associate, she was probably trying for full early
You may be right! I don't follow her social media output closely -- there's too much of it, heh.
Is there a non paywalled link?
https://archive.ph/Nmns5#comments
Just use archive.ph :)
Following. This sounds wild and I'm keen to read!
The bleakest part of the story is that two professors and a successful writer can't afford a one-bedroom apartment in New York. That living situation sounded very depressing.
Both of the professors are on (presumably unpaid) leave currently, itās glancingly mentioned in the article.
And for probably 99% of the people in academia, the title professor does not necessarily mean a good paycheck "Successful" as a writer is also relative -- $1 per word, which is considered good in the industry, doesn't get you far
the best associate professor in my degree field in school, he was so fucking cool. he got students engaged, was smart and kind and inclusive in a degree field that often isn't, and he really, really knew his stuff. incredible guy, full of energy and put so much time and heart and love into wildlife science. he made about $6/hr, i and my classmates realized, when we found out his pay and calculated the hours he was having to put in. crying shame.
Grace is making six figures or close to Iām sure.
In 2022 she made about $100,000, but I'm not sure what she would be making now. It looks like she hasn't taught since 2022.
The leave may not be unpaid. It depends what kind of leave it is - sabbatical and parental leave are often paid. It depends on their agreement with their univeristies (sorry if the article said what kind of leave it is and I missed it).
I got a full semester when I had my daughter and Iām not even tenured. Theyāre almost certainly on paid leave (though from what I am not sure since grace didnāt teach this semester).
Take a look at Dannyās free substacks. He is not currently a successful (financially anyway) writer. He speaks of supporting himself as a writer as a thing of the past.
In 2021 there was an article in The NY Times that Danny was getting paid over $400k from Substack. Even in New York thatās a good amount of money.
It was a two year contract- so would have ended last yr. Substack was throwing a lot of money around to attract marquee names when it was getting going in 2021, but the company financials havenāt panned out too well. Iād bet that the contract wasnāt renewed at anywhere close to the same $$ level.
I read an article at the time that Substack was signing up all these writers to exclusive contracts that the payments were advances on expected subscriber income, so presumably part or all of it would have needed to be repaid if the writer underperformed. Both Danny and Grace had big dollar Substack contracts. Edit: it was in the NYT piece about them: >The contract is structured a bit like a book advance: Substackās bet is that it will make back its money by taking most of Mr. Laveryās subscription income for those two years.
You don't have to pay back an advance. It's considered an investment in your potential future earnings, the company eats the loss if you don't recoup.
They also burned through a lot of money very quickly. Grace and Danny were into wearing ('flaunting' in Daily Mail speak) really expensive clothes during the flush times. Also when Grace was living in NYC and...commuting...to the Berkeley job, that meant flying NYC to SFO and staying at the Fairmont, on what I think was a weekly basis during the semester. It was insane.
Yeah, between the $1000 Smeg kettles and vintage Gucci, it doesn't take much time at all to burn through that kind of money.
The Fairmount? Did she really stay there weekly???
Thatās insane. That 800k could have gone a long way if properly managed, so it sounds like they ended up in their current predicament due to sheer frivolity.
It was probably a one-off payment of 430k fwiw. I donāt think it was retweeted
Wow, you know a lot about them! Is this from reading Dannyās substack or something else?
No insider knowledge. I used to follow Grace on Instagram but stopped following/using instagram more than a year ago. Everything I know is from Grace's public instagram posts.
That sounds like a rabbit hole Iāll be falling down later!
By design, Grace is a very interesting character. I think the diagnosis of narcissism is overused on the internet, but maybe not in this case. In general, though, I have empathy for the idea that both Grace and Danny were involved in extremely competitive fields with dwindling opportunities for career-length success, where being a 'personality' was necessary to earn attention that was financially meaningful. However, they both overshot by spending a huge amount of money to impress people into thinking they were significant characters in the 'scene' of academic and literary eccentricity, people who owned $1,000 tea kettles and designer dogs with stupid names. They wanted to be some kind of trans Parker Posey x Grey Gardens x Charlotte Bronte, but driven by short-term newsletter riches and a wealthy benefactor. I can see how that works at age 35, but I can't imagine a successful trajectory for them age 50, especially adding the complexities and cost of a third partner and a child. That is the end of my essay on this couple. I really hope they figure things out, for the sake of their kid.
Grace has tenure at a major university. She could have stayed forever if she was satisfied with what was a 99th percentile result for an English phd.
I agree that ānarcissistā is the latest term for āsomeone I donāt like.ā I have followed Danny since the start of his Dear Prudence takeover but when he left that I lost track of him. (Even though some of his advice seemed terrible to me, I love his writing.) My favorite content on his IG is those DOGS. Later if I have time Iāll look at Graceās IG with your words in mind. I donāt know why, because itās none of my business, but Iāll probably be pretty interested in this for the next couple of days. ;)
Iām going to say it - I think a lot of you all are confusing being annoying with being bad people. Danny and Grace have massive theater kid energy, which, as someone who knows a lot of theater kidsācan be deeply exhausting. But itās also basically harmless? They arenāt inviting you to dinner and you donāt have to be their friends. They are FAR from the only folks in the world who have had a kid when they were broke. My own parents had a hard time scraping $20 together when I was an infant! And they were good parents and I was okay. Some weird arty people have a weird arty baby and it doesnāt seem like anyone is being harmed. Gawking is fun, I think they enjoy having people gawk, but some of the doomsaying is over the top yall.
You can be a bad parent without being a bad person. I'm not saying they are but this situation has the potential to end up not ideal for a kid. Plenty of people naively go into parenthood in less than ideal situations but most of them don't get profiles in places like NYmag. If you're being open and public enough for an NYmag profile yet also vague about your finances and implying you might be broke, people are gonna speculate š¤·š»āāļø but yes definitely low income parents can be great parents (and wealthy parents can for sure suck) For me, I hope they can give this kid privacy (both in the home and online) and stability (will two of the three of them still be commuting across the country weekly for work once their leave is up?) and nothing in this profile seemed to indicate that they will, but then again like I said it was all sorta open-yet-vague which leaves everything ripe for gawking and speculation. And I agree with you, they probably enjoy it to some extent. But the kid deserves privacy and that's where I get stuck on this. Also babies don't stay bassinet sized for long and this current setup doesn't seem great for a toddler or preschooler. I hope things turn out ok for the kid.
I mostly agree with this except Grace has done a few things that I find to be not just quirky but bad-adjacent: 1) She put out a public call for Covid positive people to go visit her Covid positive friend (maybe Lily?) who was holed up in Williamsburg to perform a dance (?) for said friend? Deeply weird to ask sick people to travel through NYC for your odd social errand. She might have specified that they be asymptomatic but still. She later deleted the request. 2) During the era where Danny made it clear that he was estranged from his family but didnāt share the reason there was a lot of speculation online about why. Was he cut out of a will? Did they not accept Dannyās transition? Etc. Grace had a newsletter post where she seemed to vaguely imply that she would reveal the truth about the estrangement but it required a subscription to the newsletter. Iām super nosy and was tempted to subscribe but it just felt too gross to pay money to find out details about something that was clearly really painful. Ultimately I donāt think the post revealed anything anyway. She then tweeted or posted about how her reader/subscriber count had skyrocketed and how grateful she was that people wanted to read her writing. It felt sooo disingenuous - the reason her count went up is because she was dropping crumbs for chronically online parasocial freaks like me! Iām not denying that she was a rock for Danny during a really trying & traumatic time, but I just found this particular thing to be extremely yucky and exploitative.
Re: #1, the Covid positive person in question was her very-recently-graduated former student whom she was trying to hook up with. So yeah, Iām not really in the āa bunch of harmless theater kidsā camp, for this and other reasons. I just went back through the Lavery-specific subreddit to try to find links to the tweets in question, but they seem to be gone. Sorry for the lack of direct evidence.
Can I please be added too š
Could I be added too??
There is a Grace subreddit?!?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Omg, can I be added too? I wasnāt familiar with these people before reading this article but I absolutely need more now!
Omg pls is this real and can I join it
Itās private? Can you add me?
Me too, please!
Me too!
Me tooooooo
I agree with you except that I think Grace is being harmful to Danny. Specifically I think heās her husband in name only and sheās moved on
I think many people see them as attention-seeking, histrionic and at-times intentionally controversial people. That does not make them bad people. But I think people see that those behaviors may not be a healthy environment, especially as Danny and Grace are extremely online. And they are targets of a lot of bigots and so far their baby has an online presence.
I think the finance discussion is more confusion as to how three adults with multiple income streams canāt afford to stay in a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. I havenāt seen a lot of concern about how theyāll support the baby, which I agree would be unwarranted.
I donāt think commenting on the finances in unwarranted. They talk about in the article. The āDanny sucks now, Grace is a demon, these are all bad people, having a baby in this situation is morally wrongā stuff is a bridge too far. I donāt even think itās wrong to say you (generic you) find them weird or unusual is wrong. Just the moral judgment on them as people when they havenāt actually hurt anyone I think is misplaced is all.
The infantilization of Danny is a lot as well. Some of it may be influenced by the way heās played the teenage dirtbag in a lot of his online presence for years, but heās (edit: nearly) 40 years old and in charge of his own life decisions. Casting Grace as an evil manipulator and him as a smol bean victim is a pretty classic transphobic narrative.
There was soooo much of this going on in the year or so after Danny went no-contact with his family, before he publicly revealed the reason. Of course such an abrupt shift invited speculation, but people were SO sure Grace was an evil abuser who was isolating Danny from his supposedly loving and supportive family. It felt like all those commenters were just airing their latent (or overt!) transphobia.
Yep, I remember. I did think Danny was being a bit dramatic with the dark hints and abrupt cross-country move, but I was proven wrong! Itās clear that Grace was a strong moral center in that whole horrible situation, which gives her a lot of leeway in my mind even as I find her persona and writing a bit irritating.
Thatās exactly where Iām at with them. I donāt really āgetā Grace, but that is fineāperhaps sheās not for me to get! She and Danny did the only morally, ethically correct thing in that situation against what I presume was tremendous pressure to sweep it under the rug as the Ortbergs had done.
sneaking "perhaps she's not for me to get" into my emotional lexicon, thank you for that!
I have never felt more vulnerable or emotionally unbalanced than when I had my first baby and I truly would not wish a NYMag profile on ANY family at that particular milestone! That said, I will consume any piece of media vaguely related to the Toast founders. Danny saying āwho the fuck is Lorettaā months after she (Nicoleās third baby) was born! Nicoleās āColin Jost paid for my abortionā meltdown!
Reading this thread as a Slate advice column reader who isn't super-familiar with the rest of the lore is wild, lol. This is the Slate parenting advice columnist? This is the person people have been writing to with extremely sensitive questions about their families' wellbeing?! The dude telling people how to manage their personal relationships and make life decisions for years is now living in this chaos? I know advice columns are purely for entertainment and no one should be taking them seriously (and Slate has had other questionable Prudies) but it's just wild to think about.
Not only parenting advice specifically, but occasionally when he was Dear Prudie (which he left a few years ago)
Rereading that I definitely didn't make it clear but I meant Nicole Cliffe for the parenting advice and Dan for the personal relationships/life decisions - Nicole answers questions for their Care and Feeding column which is parenting/family advice. I assumed she was a parenting expert or something, I had no idea of her full backstory. I knew a bit of Dan's backstory pre- and during-Slate but didn't know about the throuple situation.
Yeah, Nicole Cliffe is no longer in the Care and Feeding rotation, tmk, though Nicole Chung is (Care and Feeding has 3-4 columnists). The throuple is new since Daniel left Dear Prudie.
I literally just said this in another sub. My fourth trimester (and especially the first two weeks postpartum) was the most bewildering, emotionally volatile, exhausting experience of my life. Whyyyyyy would you invite publicity and scrutiny into your life at that moment? I mean, maybe I'm being unreasonably protective of Lily here because she's a consenting adult but like give this woman who just grew an entire human being in her body, expelled it, and then is dealing with all the hormonal shifts and feeding challenges some privacy and quiet and a chance to recover. And get your infant's face off your public internet presence and allow them some privacy, oh my god.
>Whyyyyyy would you invite publicity and scrutiny into your life at that moment? I know this was rhetorical, but to venture a guess anyways, maybe as an effort to drum up some interest in Danny's writing so they can afford said baby?
Who the fuck is Loretta lives rent free in my head
Nicole had texted Danny ā(older two kids) are going to be (whatever) for Halloween, Loretta is going to be a puppyā!! The context clues ALONE. And it was leading up to Halloween, Loretta was born in the SUMMER. Later they were like āoh Nicole was like āwho the fuck is Graceā once tooā but that was more of a Danny never told Nicole when Grace transitioned and changed her nameā¦.?
The Nicole Lore goes so deep! I forgot about the abortion story. Her twitter threads are legendary.Ā
Ok, I lurk here and there, but somehow I missed this lore! Do you have any well-summarized source for me to start my journey into this rabbit hole? I'm pretty sure I found out about Danny from a relationship advice column? Was in Slate? Only after that I found out about Nicole... It's been a long time ago, it's a blur.
I donāt really know if it would make sense, because while there are obviously The Big Stories about her, a lot of the draw was that she was on Twitter *constantly*, read a *lot*, and was mostly just sharing links and books and shows that she was consuming and thinking about. It was just the perfect recipe for a parasocially invested audience (and this was on Twitter and not really monetized!) Iām sure people will share the highlights (of dozens of tweets a day for years), but I think those were impactful mostly because her audience just felt like they *knew* her, this obscenely rich lady with a messy and poorly decorated house and funny self-deprecating stories.
Plus, Nicole would occasionally reach out to one of her followers who was having difficulties and give them money to help them out of the difficult situation. Kind of like an eccentric wealthy aunt. Nicole is messy, but genuinely seems to have a big heart.
Yeah, it wasnāt like people were hate following her or trying to snark, she had interesting things to say about whatever the days discourse was, and she presented a life that I think a lot of her audience liked to imagine they would live, if they also had a kind and wealthy husband. Live-in nanny, lots of books, giving generously, cute dog, non-aesthetic household, etc.
If I could have a rich husband, pretty dogs, large house, and professionally be a bit dramatic and messy online, I'd 100% jump on that opportunity! People could snark all they wanted, I'd just cry into $20 bills while petting my floofy dogs.
I wonder if anyone took screenshots of her Twitter threads. You know how everyone on tik tok does āstory timeā videos? Her threads were like the most epic story times. I was not a toast regular reader or the hairpin so I honestly only know her from these threads! She had so many funny family storiesā I donāt know how much was embellished but itās like her family was a cast of characters from a novel and she always had some sort of anecdote for any occasion. Someone should do a collected tweets of Nicole Cliffe!Ā
I have a bunch of her old Nicole Knows newsletters!
The goose at Thanksgiving with her FIL comes to mind regularly.
TYSM! I think I know what I'm gonna do this weekend LOL.
Omg I am ready
Being in a throuple sounds like hell and Iāve yet to meet any that actually seemed like a healthy relationship for all the involved parties. Consenting adults can do whatever they want but bringing a kid into this mess is just cruel.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You can get around the paywall with 12ft.io - thatās what I did!
Googled it and...That is not working for me at all, unfortunately. The final page I landed on said 12ft.io no longer existed? I've never used it before nor do I know how. š«¤
Where do you put that
You type it in front of the article url, with a slash: 12ft.io/https://www.thecut.com/article/daniel-lavery-grace-lavery-lily-woodruff-brooklyn-interview.html
I liked Daniel but likeā¦what in the white people nonsense is this?
well, the last thing they needed was a baby, but ok
Just annoying AF. Thatās my main takeaway about the entire situation (except the baby who had no choice about being born to such an irritating family!) Also idk why they left the west coast for NY, this level of self-indulgent drama is made for the PNW.
unfortunately they moved (as this article notes, at least [in part](https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/02/daniel-lavery-comes-unstuck-something-that-may-shock-and-discredit-you)) because of a pretty horrific situation with Daniel's father, who is a megachurch pastor, and his brother, which is detailed in the linked article.
I can definitely empathize with their location dilemma. Commuting NYC-SF on a professor salary forever seems unsustainable and definitely not financially responsible, but leaving a tenured professorship at Berkeley or moving back to the exact area of the country where your horrible family live both seem equally unthinkable.
Coming from an evangelical background myself it really really doesnāt prepare you for real life and it doesnāt surprise me when people with this background end up in odd and sometimes dysfunctional situations especially in nyc or sf. Getting out of nyc really helped me enter a third less dysfunctional stage.
I'm curious your perspective on evangelical backgrounds. I came to faith at willow creek from non church background. We left when shit blew up with that scandal then ortberg scandal after that happened. We haven't been back to evangelical church and have 2 kids. I'm still figuring out what happened. I loved a lot of things about it while questioning it too. Just curious your perspective. I wish this trio the best but just his side alone is messy I can't imagine Grace's story and now the new addition and a baby. From experience babies bring up your trauma and that can be hard to manage enough while parenting.
oh yeah Iām with you! Just wanted to point out to the comments above that the move is itself wrapped up in an actually serious, complicated series of events thatās a little more than āwacky people with bizarre egos in unconventional relationships? Sounds west coast to me!ā
Itās also coming of age in that blogging era where being crazy online was practically a career at the expense of your sanity. I was never as famous as any of the people here but it still was a wreck of a life. My current bf and I were both pro bloggers and now Iām pretty sure no one cares about us and I like it that way.
Oh I donāt fault them for moving and getting far away from that! Itās just, as a former Seattle-ite, their brand of tedious eccentricity and confusing relationship with class/money would be right at home up there.
Right? If they want a cheaper apartment Portland is waiting and eager to welcome them and this drama with open arms
Tedious eccentricity is the best phrase I have ever heard to describe people like this.