Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Aaron Smith-Levin, Mike Rinder, Andy Signore—three best buddies, trading places on each other’s shows, and all with track records as abusers of women.

Smith-Levin made a name for himself as an abuser for his aggression and denigration of women in his personal life and workplace, making no exception for women young and old.

Rinder’s violent abuses of women are infamous, exploits from breaking a female coworker’s tooth to violently assaulting his estranged wife, gouging her right arm, wrenching her shoulder, dislocating her collarbone and fracturing another bone. The resulting nerve damage and mobility loss in the right arm has impaired her for life.

Signore sought out affairs while married and engaged in a series of sexual harassment incidents so egregious he was fired from his job and removed as producer of YouTube shows he helped create.

Several women were willing to use their names when they spoke out publicly to tell their stories of abuse by Signore. The common denominator: Signore was in a position of authority over the women and the instances of his verbal or physical abuse were harassment.

Some of the allegations against Signore include:

• April, a fan of his YouTube show, said Signore repeatedly sexually assaulted her and threatened to get her boyfriend fired from his job if she told anyone.

  In a tweet, April said, “He took out sex toys and tried to force them in me” and “promised a position at Screen Junkies for sexual favors. I hope this encourages more women to come forward.” It did.

• Emma, an intern for Signore, said he wrote to her about photos he’d found of her, telling her he was “jacking it to you in your undies!” He then invited her over so he could do that in person and said “You can read a book for all I care.”

  She later said on Facebook that interactions with Signore affected her career goals. “I tried to move on, but the experience killed my desire to get into costume design,” she wrote.

  “I wish I’d fought more, wish I’d screen capped his messages, but I was young, scared, and dumb. So, I didn’t. Girls in Hollywood get taken advantage of so much. I just want people to believe me when I say this happened.”

Signore later tried to save face by issuing an unrepentant and trivializing “apology,” describing his harassment as “awkwardly flirt[ing] with and mak[ing] inappropriate comments to some of my fans—despite being married…. When I look back, I realize I was sometimes a real jerk. I was selfish, I was arrogant, I was angry, I was way too full of myself…I’ve changed a lot. But to be honest, I’m still angry.”

He would later say about the dozen other women who came forward that his behavior was “appalling and inappropriate.”

In November 2022, additional allegations were put out by another woman who had appeared on YouTube with Signore. She said that Signore had sent her sexually explicit materials including a video of him masturbating. “He makes money off victims and says he is one,” she said.

Signore, Rinder and Smith-Levin’s abuses are common knowledge and have no doubt drawn together this group of a serial sexual abuser, a violent woman abuser, and a drug-addled chauvinistic lunatic. They were made for each other.