Writer Confesses to Sending Fake Letters to Slate Advice Column, Including One About Masked Sex That Spawned a Tucker Carlson Segment

A man says he authored at least 12 phony letters to Slate’s “Dear Prudence” advice column that were answered either on its website or on the podcast. One of those columns, titled “My Husband Won’t Take His Mask Off–Even for Sex,” inspired a May 27 segment on Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Bennett Madison, who has authored several children’s books, copped to writing the letters in an op-ed published on Gawker on Monday. He said the day after the masked sex letter ran, “I was on my first margarita at a Mexican restaurant when a colleague texted me that it was getting traction on Twitter. I was on my second when another friend alerted me to the fact that the letter had been picked up by Tucker Carlson on Fox News.”

Mediaite covered the that segment at the time.

During the aforementioned segment, guest Clay Travis told Carlson, “If the woman had any sense at all, she would leave her husband.”

Madison said he was thrilled about the attention his letter was receiving, but it also made him uneasy.

“Now, Tucker Carlson made me consider that what I thought of as harmless trolling might actually have evil consequences,” he wrote on Gawker.

“So I quit the game.”

Other letters Madison wrote were published under headlines such as “My Daughter Is Pretending to Be Demonically Possessed… and I Can’t Take It Anymore!”; ‘Help! My Sister Is Convinced She’s an Unrecognized Genius, and It’s Tearing My Family Apart!’; “My Mother Is Trying To Convince the Guests At My Gay Wedding To Come Dressed As Disney Characters”; and “Help! My Friend Thinks I Am Stealing Vaccines From African-American Grandmothers To Attend Sex Resorts.”

Watch the segment in question above via Fox News.