BOSTON (CBS) – Barstool Sports founder David Portnoy defended a post on his website that included naked photos of Tom Brady’s 2-year-old son on Friday.
The photo, posted on Boston Barstool Sports Thursday afternoon, included graphic commentary and several other photos of Benjamin Brady and his mother, Gisele Bundchen, recently seen vacationing in Chile.
A spokesman for the Norfolk district attorney’s office told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 that they will neither confirm nor deny that an investigation into Portnoy’s posting of the pictures is underway. And despite concerns raised by local advocates, in an interview with WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Carl Stevens, Portnoy was adamant he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“I said he had a big ‘howitzer.’ So that’s not sexual. If you’re making a connection to that being sexual then I would look into the mirror is what I would say; because it’s not sexual at all,” Portnoy told Stevens. “I don’t know how anyone with a rational brain could say, ‘Oh, that’s because I said that, that’s sexual.’ It’s a ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ joke.”
Portnoy Talks To WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Carl Stevens
Portnoy told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 that his decision to post the pictures was completely legal.
“I don’t think it’s out of line at all, or else I wouldn’t have posted it,” he said. “For somebody to say me posting it has somehow fueled the fire of a pedophile, I’d say they’ve never been on the Internet.”
Before the interview, former child abuse prosecutor Wendy Murphy told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 that while Portnoy may not have intended to “cause any sexual experience for anybody” who may have viewed the photos, she thinks he could still face legal trouble.
Wendy Murphy Talks To WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Carl Stevens
“It’s about whether (the photo) has a sexual purpose attached. And make no mistake about it, if you’re asking the public to look at the photograph and have a certain feeling or reaction to the size of a little boy’s penis, you are sexualizing the child, period, end of discussion,” Murphy said. “If we mean it when we enact laws that say we don’t want children’s genitalia to be exploited, especially for monetary gain, then here’s a statute on the books that says this man can and should be prosecuted. Why wouldn’t an elected district attorney take this case on, just to make it clear to anybody else who’s thinking of doing this, ‘don’t you dare.’”
Portnoy appears to have taken the controversy even further by soliciting ideas for a ‘howitzer’ t-shirt.
Many have weighed in on his decision to post the pictures. Some have criticized it, others defend his post.
“Whoever is legit angry about this is a whack job,” one supporter commented on Portnoy’s site.
One Somerville man is attempting to get advertisers to boycott Barstool in light of the controversial post, and he created a blog to front the effort.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Carl Stevens reports
“My message to the advertisers is, ‘Do you know that your money is supporting this? And if you do and you stand by that, that’s fine,’” said the boycott site’s creator, named Jesse.
