Dave Portnoy's Memoir Is 300 Pages of Unhinged Self-Defense

Dave Portnoy, founder and owner of Barstool Sports, has released his first memoir, Cancel Me if You Can, and it reads like a man who has spent the last decade grinding his teeth over every criticism ever leveled at him. The book, which came with a seven-figure paycheck, is less a reflection on building a $600 million media empire and more a 300-page exercise in score-settling, petty grievances, and reflexive defensiveness disguised as honesty.

Here’s the thing about reading this memoir: it makes you wonder if it was ever meant to be read at all. The first cogent thought Portnoy offers—explaining that Barstool Sports was meant to encompass anything guys would discuss sitting around a bar watching sports—is promptly abandoned in favor of rehashing old feuds with YouTuber Jenna Marbles, Sofia Franklyn (formerly of Call Her Daddy), journalist Julia Black, and ESPN journalist Mina Kimes, whom he calls a true cancer to society. He spends pages justifying past controversies that even he admits haven’t actually affected his wealth, career, or personal life. The Streisand effect plays out in real time across the book’s chapters, where Portnoy resurrects scandals most people have forgotten just to prove they don’t matter.

What’s most exhausting about Cancel Me if You Can is how Portnoy weaponizes his own incompetence as evidence of success. He admits to copyright infringement (publishing a photo of Lindsay Lohan without rights), spreading misinformation about the Boston Marathon bombing, and making unfunny rape jokes—then frames each as a learning experience that somehow benefited him. His early business model hinged on reprinting images he didn’t own rights to and soliciting“Smokeshow of the Day”submissions from female readers, a digital wet T-shirt contest that became the lifeblood of his enterprise. Yet when he discusses women, even those who helped build his platform, it’s with barely concealed surprise that a woman could be ambitious and smart. His description of Alex Cooper—co-creator of Call Her Daddy—is so backhanded it’s nearly hostile: Behind the lip gloss and platinum blond highlights stood an ambitious, enterprising woman. As if her competence required a facade to be believed.

The memoir’s most revealing moment might be Portnoy’s suggestion that people call his ex-wife to confirm how great he is—the same ex-wife who still has access to his credit card. It’s the ultimate tell: a man so insulated by wealth and success that he genuinely believes everyone around him secretly validates him, even those closest to him have left. That’s not confidence. That’s the sound of someone who’s spent so long controlling his narrative that he can no longer hear how hollow it sounds.

For readers unfamiliar with Portnoy before cracking open this book, Cancel Me if You Can functions primarily as a greatest-hits compilation of his worst moments, complete with justifications that somehow make them worse. The book doesn’t defend him—it indicts him, over and over again, while he insists he’s been vindicated.