Stars of Netflix’s Ashley Madison documentary share update on marriage after cheating admissions-Pierra Willix-Entertainment – Metro

A couple who appeared in the Netflix Ashley Madison documentary have spoken about staying together (Picture: Sam and Nia / Youtube)

A couple who shared their experience being caught up in the Ashley Madison hacking scandal have shared an update on their marriage.

Earlier this month the Netflix documentary Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal was released, telling the story of how the dating site which encouraged married people to cheat on their partners, was targeted.

In 2015 hackers released the personal information of thousands of the site’s users after its owners refused to bow to demands to shut it down.

One of those who was exposed was Sam Rader, who had signed up for the site seeking ‘attention and excitement’.

A year earlier, the Texas-based nurse had become a social media influencer with his wife Nia after a video of them singing the song Love is an Open Door from Frozen with their young daughter went viral.

Creating a public persona of being a committed Christian husband, a few days after Sam was exposed in the leak, the couple uploaded a video online in which he claimed he had never met anyone face-to-face or had an affair.

Sam Rader was exposed in the 2015 Ashley Madison hacking (Picture: Netflix)

However, as Sam explained in the Netflix documentary, he’d been unfaithful throughout their entire marriage and had even tried to cheat with one of his wife’s close friends.

After their dirty laundry was aired again in public, the couple have now revealed that they don’t blame the hackers for what unfolded.

Sam and Nia, who married in their early 20s, describe their romance as a ‘fairytale’ and have said they saved each other from troubled upbringings.

When she was three years old, Nia’s mother died and she was raised by her grandparents, who eventually split due to infidelity in their marriage.

He and wife Nia had gone viral a year earlier and then became social media influencers (Picture: Netflix)

After discovering his dad was also being unfaithful, Sam revealed the infidelity to his mother, which led to his father walking out on the family.

Despite facing the very real possibility of his marriage breaking down too, Sam had said God ‘has been preparing me for this moment’.

‘I have been surrounded by brothers and Christ to open up about these things and I owe it to them to strengthen me and be open about my betrayals,’ he told The Daily Mail.

‘I see time and time again so many men in the same place I was and if I can help other marriages, I will do whatever it takes.

The Christian family vloggers posted a video where Sam spoke about being exposed (Picture: Sam and Nia/ YouTube)

‘Failing in a marriage doesn’t just impact your spouse, it impacts your children, and as I have seen in my past, it echos in generations to come. It is so important that we stop and make good decisions. God has called me to be open about this on Netflix.’

Sam went on to say he ‘wasn’t mad’ at the hackers and instead God ‘exposed me for what I was’.

When Nia was first told about the betrayals, Sam moved out of the family home, however in the years since they’ve welcomed another three children and also renewed their vows in 2019.

Crediting professional and pastoral counselling for being ‘a huge part of our healing journey’, Nia said it was ‘intense and hard work, but it needed to be done’.

Sam has now said he was ‘glad God exposed me for who I was’ (Picture: Sam and Nia/ Instagram)

Praising her husband for being ‘present’ and ‘taking the kids to school, putting them to bed, cooking, doing laundry’, Nia said she ‘made him feel very unwelcome’.

‘But he never backed down and that was a key thing that helped us take a step forward for me to even consider him,’ she said.

After the three-part documentary series hit screens, the couple have come under fire, with many saying Sam ‘doesn’t deserve’ Nia.

‘But we have a happy marriage, full of true, deep intimacy, which was absent early on. We know each other down to the core and when that’s there, the intimacy is unmatched,’ he said.

The couple have also written a book about their experiences, titled Live in Truth: Public Scandal, Secret Vows, Restored Hearts.

They are still married and have since welcomed three more children (Picture: Sam and Nia/ Instagram)

Sam said the book centred on ‘how our relationship was pulled out of a movie’ and how it was ‘so romantic’ and that they ‘filled roles in each other’s lives that have been missing’.

He also said: ‘We became each other’s dad, which was strange, we helped raise each other but we were deeply in love too.’

The couple now have four children together, Symphony, 13, Abram, 10, Juliet, seven, and Josie Grace, three.

Sam and Nia have e said they’ve told their kids about their ‘controversial story’.

Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal is streaming on Netflix.

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