What happened to Darren Morgenstern? Ashley Madison founder's fate explored

Netflix's new documentary series, Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal, follows the controversy surrounding the dating website for extra-marital affairs, Ashley Madison. Released on May 14, 2024, the website was subject to a cyber-attack in 2015 which leaked the personal information of millions of users and destroyed their lives.

As per Netflix, the synopsis of the show reads:

"When a dating site for people seeking adulterous affairs is hacked, millions of users' intimate data is exposed, wrecking marriages and destroying lives."

The Ashley Madison website was founded in 2002 by Darren Morgenstern. According to his brother, Morgenstern got the idea to create the platform after seeing a statistic that 30% of people on dating sites were married.

In 2007, he sold the website to Avid Life Media, which was headed by CEO Noel Biderman.

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Ashley Madison founder Darren Morgenstern was also the director of a fitness company

A screenshot of the Ashley Madison website (Image via ashleymadison.com)

As per a 2016 article by Mississauga News, Darren Morgenstern is an investor, mentor, and venture capitalist. He was reportedly nurturing emerging health and wellness startups while also offering nutrition counseling services. At the time, his team was reported to be developing an app tailored for remote counseling by certified healthcare professionals.

In 2019, Global News reported that Morgenstern was a director of a fitness company called Weight Loss Grants. However, the coverage was not positive as his company was accused of cheating clients out of money. In a case similar to Ashley Madison, Weight Loss Grants was also accused of revealing clients' personal information without consent.

As per reports, Darren is married to Marissa Mayles Morgenstern who has been his partner for over 22 years. The couple also have three children. Marissa was also named as a director in the company associated with Weight Loss Grants.

The couple does not have a large public presence, with very few details available about their personal life. Darren Morgenstern does not have any active social media accounts and has not appeared in any recent news.

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Darren Morgenstern's entrepreneurial exploits, explored

As per a 2016 Facebook post by the Mississauga Board of Trade, Darren Morgenstern displayed business acumen from a young age.

At 14 years old, he began delivering newspapers and successfully increased subscription numbers for the Toronto Star. This led him to secure a position as a primary circulation contractor for the Edmonton Sun newspaper in Alberta.

Since then, Darren dabbled in various business ventures such as telecommunications, internet services, real estate, and television production. He found huge success with his website Ashley Madison after its launch in 2002.

Darren Morgenstern at the MBOT Growth and Power meeting (Image via Mississauga.com)

During the Growth and Power meeting in 2016, he revealed that he was inspired to create a service for adulterous affairs after learning that one-third of Lavalife's (a dating site) registrants were married.

He embarked on research and paid $50 to adulterers to talk to him about their experiences with infidelity. After gathering sufficient information, Darren founded Ashley Madison where married people could conduct extra-marital affairs in secrecy.

As the website enjoyed increasing success over the years, Darren eventually realized that his passion leaned more toward brainstorming new ventures rather than engaging in its daily operations. Thus, he made the decision to sell Ashley Madison to Avid Life Media and proceeded to new business endeavors.

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Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal is currently available to stream on Netflix.