Who Are Sam and Nia Rader? Meet the Couple at the Center of Netflix's Ashley Madison Docuseries

There's a new Netflix series that has taken viewers by storm.

Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal debuted May 15, and the three-part documentary has already secured a high spot on the streaming service's list of Top 10 TV Shows in the U.S.

Ashley Madison, which advertises itself as a website for "affairs & discreet married dating," launched in 2001. The docuseries explores its early beginnings, the rise in popularity of the controversial website and the famous hack in 2015 that led to its customers' information being leaked. 

The program also follows a couple—Sam and Nia Rader—and how their marriage was affected after he created an account and was exposed through the data leak. And if their names sound familiar, it might be because they're also Christian vloggers who have more than two million subscribers. 

As for how they feel about the documentary?

"I feel like everything you see on the documentary, as a whole, our storyline is accurate to us—it's not like they twisted this crazy twist on us. But it's like every little thing you see is void of all context," Nia said in a May 19 YouTube video, going on to promote their book Sam and Nia Live in Truth: Public Scandals, Secret Vows, Restored Hearts. "We have so much context. "

Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal is now available to stream on Netflix. To learn more about Sam and Nia and what they share in the docuseries (warning: spoilers ahead), keep reading.

Who are Sam and Nia Rader, and how did their relationship begin?

Sam and Nia are Christian vloggers who share videos about their life with their four children—Symphony, Abram, Juliet and Josie—on YouTube. And the father of four will never forget the day they met.

"When I saw Nia, it was such an amazing moment for me," Sam recalled in the Netflix docuseries Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal. "It was just like all of these dreams that I had coming to reality."

The couple wed when he was 24 and she was 20, and they welcomed their first child together soon after.

When did Sam join Ashley Madison?

While Sam loves his family, he admitted he wasn't ready for the level of responsibility parenthood entailed. 

"I had imagined my life being exciting, and it wasn't exciting anymore," he said in the docuseries. "Life became monotonous. That picture of love that I saw in movies and that I so desired to be a part of just started disappearing, and I longed for that kind of passionate, romantic love. I didn't want to leave my family, but I wanted something exciting in my life."

As Sam shares in the docuseries, he signed up for Ashley Madison during one of his night shifts as an ER nurse—with him using the name dirty_little_secret_man and including his real information and photos.

"I just remember seeing an advertisement for Ashley Madison: 'Life is short, have an affair,'" the content creator remembered. "I was like, ‘That sounds intriguing. Life is short. They're right—they have that right. Maybe they have having an affair right, too.' I wanted more of the good stuff that life had to give. So I signed up because it sounded like they had the answer." 

How did Sam and Nia become famous?

In March 2014—after Sam joined Ashley Madison—he and Nia uploaded a video of them singing Frozen's "Love Is an Open Door" to YouTube. The clip went viral, and now has more than 24 million views. Afterwards, the Texas pair continued to post content and their channel grew.

"With the validation that I wanted so much in my life from women, from other people, to get that validation from YouTube and the world, it was better than winning the lottery," Sam said in the Netflix documentary. "Like that was winning the lottery to me. It was huge." 

So, he deleted his Ashley Madison account. 

"I was still carrying all these secrets," Sam continued. "My intentions were to keep them to myself until my death and that nobody would know about them except the people that were involved. And I was gonna be taking this to my grave."

What happened next?

But that didn't happen. In July 2015, Ashley Madison was hacked, and the hackers threatened to release its customers' information if the company didn't shut down. 

"I didn't wanna consider it," Sam said about the news. "It would have just completely decimated my reputation, especially as a Christian. I would've been known for the opposite of what I stood for."

And it was around this time that he and Nia were trying to have another baby. In August 2015, they uploaded a YouTube video that showed him taking a sample of her urine from the toilet, confirming she's pregnant before she even knew and capturing her reaction. The clip further increased their popularity—with it racking up more than 19 million views to date.

"We were living in the public now, and suddenly I felt so vulnerable," Sam said in the documentary. "If my name was discovered in the Ashley Madison dump, I'm done. That's it for me and my marriage."

How did Sam get caught?

Later in August 2015, the hackers followed through with their threat and leaked Ashley Madison's data.

As Sam recalled, he and Nia were at the airport on their way to a vlogger conference in Seattle when he found a tweet about how he was among the names revealed in the leak. So, he told his wife about his past account, the data leak and how he was exposed—insisting that while he messaged other women he never met up with anyone. Though Nia felt betrayed, she believed him and was willing to forgive.

Soon, word about Sam's Ashley Madison account spread. So, he issued a response on their YouTube channel with the hope they could move forward.

"She has forgiven me for this mistake that I made in opening the account," Sam said in the video. "I've sought forgiveness to God, and He's forgiven me. So I've been completely cleansed of this sin."

Wait, there's more?

But as Sam put it in the docuseries, it was a "phony" video. 

"What I said in the video was mostly, pretty much all lies," he admitted. "It was just like, 'Protect yourself man.'"

Nia recalled coming across a text in their family group chat from Sam's brother telling him to be honest. And while Sam denied there was anything more, he knew the truth. 

"I was keeping a lot of secrets from Nia," he said in the series, "and the secrets went a lot deeper than Ashley Madison and a lot further back."

So, he called his pastor, who encouraged him to come clean. Sam admitted to going to massage parlors, strip clubs and what Nia described as "years of betrayals that he had acted out in our marriage."

"I was flirting with various people that were kind of acquaintances to us," he said. "Two emotional relationships that I had. I was cheating on my wife with these people."

Sam also said he "did come on to a couple of her friends who didn't reciprocate," and Nia remembered "reeling" from the deception.

"I felt like, literally, my world was crumbling," she shared. "Every single aspect of my life up until this point felt like a lie."

So, are Sam and Nia still together?

Nia said she and Sam agreed to have him temporarily move out. And while he said he regretted his actions and that he wanted to "fight tooth and nail for this marriage," Nia expressed that she felt like their marriage was over.

Sam shared in the docuseries that he and Nia did marriage counseling with their pastor and his wife. 

"I started to really think about the selfish decisions I made," he said. "Lookin' back, I just realized that it was all about me. I'm not thinking about Nia, and that was not how I was gonna live anymore." 

And at the end of the docuseries (spoiler alert), they revealed they're still together.

"Falling in love is beautiful, but I've learned that continuing to be deeply in love takes work," Sam said. "There's a lot of things I do regret, but I don't regret the hack. It had to happen for where we're at today."

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