Infamous hookup app unveils major rebrand to go ‘legit’
The website that told people: 'Life is short. Have an affair' is attempting a rebrand.
Ashley Madison is a Canadian-French online dating network that famously sold itself as a place for married individuals to seek extramarital hookups.
The website was launched in 2001 as a dating site for spouses looking to be unfaithful and told those who had tied the knot to embrace infidelity.
Now, however, the dating service is trying to shed its scandalous reputation.
While the platform was once a place to explore 'married dating,' the company is now seeing a surprising shift in users: 57 percent of all members are actually single.
'What that told us is that people are coming to our site for a different reason, for discretion. And so, today, Ashley Madison is shedding its adulterous past and launching a new category of discreet dating,' chief strategy officer Paul Keable told Fox News Digital.
'More than roughly 30 percent of online daters are feeling constant pressure to swipe and message, and they're not getting the outcomes they want,' Keable said.
'Worse, they're having to go back into the office and people who they're not interested in are seeing their profiles on these traditional dating apps and they feel as though it's not the experience they're looking for.
Ashley Madison is a Canadian-French online dating network that famously sold itself as a place for married individuals to seek extramarital hookups
The website was launched in 2001 as a dating site for spouses looking to be unfaithful and told those who had tied the knot to embrace infidelity
While the platform was once a place to explore 'married dating,' the company is now seeing a surprising shift in users: 57 percent of all members are actually single
Keable explained that people are fed up with 'traditional' dating apps - where yourisk awkward run-ins with coworkers and experience fatigue from endless swiping and messaging.
He describes 'discreet dating' as allowing members to date under their own management without everybody else watching.
'Ultimately, we at Ashley Madison are not going to ask you about whether you're married or not,' he continued. 'We're going to ask very little about your information, other than why you value discretion and enable you to match with the people you want to match because your business ultimately is yours and it's nobody else's.'
The rebrand comes after Ashley Madison faced multiple controversies and became the subject of a scathing Netflix docuseries in 2024.
While the website was certainly popular, with over 37 million unfaithful spouses using its services, everything came crashing down for the brand when it got hacked in 2015 - with every name on the site leaked and destroying marriages.
The docuseries - Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies, & Scandal - explored the rise, 2015 hack, and the aftermath of the notorious adultery website.
