Welcome to The Weekend Press! Today, the woman who planned JFK Jr.’s wedding on how Taylor Swift could get married in secret. Two Drinks with the Republican senator who says Iran is running rings round our president. Sitcom star Mayim Bialik gets real about her “personal neuroses.” And more!
But first, Suzy Weiss introduces the origin story of a media empire. . . .
The beginnings of media empires are seldom smooth. The Free Press began on Substack, when Bari and Nellie created an account using crappy airplane Wi-Fi. But after that, it was like we were News Corp. Just kidding: There was endless confusion about everything from incorporating (hello, Delaware!) to office kitchen-cleaning politics (ceramic coffee cups are a privilege, people!) to office leases on both coasts. (Thank you, Craigslist!)
Dave Portnoy knows what I’m talking about. He started Barstool Sports—the bro-tainment juggernaut that pumps out sports articles, gambling picks, podcasts about getting girls, and fodder for internet drama at an industrial scale—with a loan from his dad that he used to buy 100 newsstands, which his mom helped him set up all over Boston.
He was just a recent Michigan grad (Go Blue!) with a deadening sales job and a hunch about what guys really wanted to read, and the gambling companies that might take an interest on the ad side. But he eventually sold a stake of his company for millions upon millions of dollars. These days, the brash-talking Boston kid is, somehow, the Rupert Murdoch of people who spend weekends shotgunning beer.
In today’s lead essay, Portnoy lays out exactly what the beginning of Barstool Sports looked like: broken-down vans, drunk contractors, Hooters ads, and all. The first edition of the paper introduced it as a publication by normal dudes, for normal dudes: “The people at Barstool Sports are a bunch of average Joes, who like most guys, love sports, gambling, golfing, and chasing short skirts.”
And that, says Portnoy, is the secret to his success. Long live the bro. —Suzy Weiss
The marriage of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce is perhaps the closest thing America will have to a royal wedding—and everyone’s convinced it’s happening on Friday, at Madison Square Garden. Permits have been filed, Travis’s teammates are booked at a Times Square hotel, and Amtrak officers have been told to expect it. RoseMarie Terenzio has seen celebrity mania like this before—and knows a thing or two about secret weddings. The former chief of staff to JFK Jr. helped plan his and Carolyn Bessette’s undercover nuptials—spiriting them off to a remote Georgia island. Afterward, members of the press chased a fake honeymoon in Ireland. Her read on the rumors: “If this information is out there,” she writes, “it’s because she put it there.”
The young GOP senator from Montana Tim Sheehy wears several silver bracelets, one for each friend he lost while serving as a Navy SEAL in Iraq. They were killed by radical Shiite forces funded by the Iranian regime—a regime that Sheehy understands “through the barrel of a gun and through the receiving end of IEDs and bombs.” So when he went viral this week for warning that it is not to be trusted, he knew what he was talking about. On Wednesday, with the Trump administration locked in negotiations with Tehran, Audrey Fahlberg visited him in his office, and Sheehy—while sipping his drink of choice, Coors Banquet—discussed death threats, Tucker Carlson, and why America must hold the Iranian regime “by the throat.”
Once upon a time, Columbia Journalism School professor Nicholas Lemann couldn’t understand why his parents, born in 1926, had to hide their Judaism in New Orleans: “Having come to maturity at the dawn of what was supposed to be an era of multicultural tolerance and ethnic pride, shouldn’t they have felt free to embrace being Jewish?” In this week’s Things Worth Remembering, he explains how Myron S. Kaufmann’s little-known novel “Remember Me to God” helped him understand their religious dilemma—and recognize how our culture continues to shame young Jews out of their identity today.
Second Thought
She’s an anti-diaper mom of two, an award-winning sitcom star, a neuroscience PhD, a former Jeopardy! host, and a certified lactation educator. Meet Mayim Bialik, who sat down with Suzy Weiss for the latest episode of Second Thought, to talk about it all. “I wouldn’t consider myself normal by a lot of [Hollywood] standards,” she said. But she does think of herself as “normal” in other, more relatable ways: “personal neuroses, fears, anxiety, insecurity.” Listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the YouTube video below. And to hear Suzy’s thoughts on the episode, check out her newsletter.
Knock Knock, It’s Cupid!
A new batch of ads from single Free Pressers is live on the site! Click here to meet an intellectual fitness trainer in Brazil; a pickleball-loving gay woman in New Jersey; or a new Washingtonian looking for a love to last a lifetime. Your special someone could be just one email away! If you’d like to take a chance on Free Press love, write a paragraph that defines you, including your age, where you live, and what you’re looking for, and send it over to Cupid@TheFP.com.
We’ve published a lot of stories worth catching up on this week, including Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger’s reaction to being banned from the site, and Madeleine Kearns’s deep dive into the controversial practice of letting babies cry themselves to sleep. . . .
How should you spend the rest of your weekend? This week, we only have one recommendation: our latest true-crime podcast, The Lindbergh Conspiracies, which we released last month.
Joe Nocera spent years digging into one of history’s oddest cases: the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. For nearly a century, people have questioned if the man blamed really did it, with no major leads, hints, or clues since—but 2026 could finally be the year that changes. Kurt Perhach, a lawyer in New Jersey, is trying to get the court to unseal new evidence, and the state government is fighting him every step of the way.
The full series is now out and available for all to listen to. Plus, in a new bonus episode, Joe sits down with Perhach to find out what he knows, and why the authorities are trying to stop him. You can find the episode—along with the rest of the series—here, or wherever you get your podcasts. It’s the perfect binge-listen for a long drive.
Last but not least: While it may not be our national pastime, the Team USA soccer team dominated its group stage at the World Cup and will be advancing to play Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32 next week. Our country salutes you! Here’s the team celebrating victory.
That’s all, folks! Have a great weekend.
Excellent piece on Portnoy.
Interviews with interesting characters like Dave are just one of the reasons I subscribe.
Trump is a total fool and Iran holds the puppet strings.
When you start something that is moral and ethical finish it or get off the pot.