{"id":1646,"date":"2023-08-02T16:52:06","date_gmt":"2023-08-02T16:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nyadfactcheck.com\/annex\/diana-nyad-begins-covering-up-lies-after-biopic-announcement-2\/"},"modified":"2024-11-19T19:15:11","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T19:15:11","slug":"diana-nyad-begins-covering-up-lies-after-biopic-announcement-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nyadfactcheck.com\/annex\/diana-nyad-begins-covering-up-lies-after-biopic-announcement-2\/","title":{"rendered":"After Biopic Announcement, Diana Nyad Begins Covering Up Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the time she\u2019d reached her twenties, Diana Nyad knew she was worthy of a blockbuster. \u201cI\u2019ve written a screenplay based on my life,\u201d she told the Miami Herald <\/em><\/a>in 1978. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like Rocky. And the happy ending is the Cuba swim.\u201d<\/p>\n

After 45 years, Nyad\u2019s Hollywood fantasy is about to come true. Nyad<\/a><\/em> \u2014 starring four-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening and two-time Oscar recipient Jodie Foster, directed by Oscar winners Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi \u2014 begins screening at festivals next month.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The film will have its International Premiere \u2014 its first showing outside of the U.S. \u2014 at the Toronto International Film Festival<\/a> (TIFF), which runs from September 7\u201317. TIFF will post its schedule<\/a> in mid-August.<\/p>\n

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Above:<\/strong> The first publicly available image from the Nyad biopic. Via the TIFF website<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nyad <\/em>will likely have its World Premiere \u2014 its first showing anywhere \u2014 at the Telluride Film Festival<\/a> (TFF), which goes from August 31\u2013September 4. (H\/T Michael Patterson, who explains premiere designations<\/a> on his Telluride Film Festival blog.)<\/p>\n

Those TFF dates may sound familiar; subtract 10 years, and you get roughly the dates of Nyad\u2019s Cuba\u2013Florida \u201cswim.\u201d It began on August 31 and ended on September 2, 2013.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure Nyad plans to celebrate her tin Channelversary<\/a> in a big way. But before she uncorks the champagne, she needs to ensure that the media and the public don\u2019t discover the real Diana Nyad, the one dragging five decades of deception behind her. Even those involved in the film don\u2019t know they made a movie about one of the most successful con artists in sports history.<\/p>\n

Diana and her advisers would like to keep it that way. So, with a little help from her friends, she\u2019s scrambling to cover up her fabrications and sanitize her past. Here are the locations where Nyad & Company have been scrubbing away her lies.<\/p>\n

Wikipedia<\/h3>\n

Shortly after TIFF\u2019s announcement, someone began removing untruths from Nyad\u2019s Wikipedia entry<\/a>. At the same time, they reinforced the big one, the one that brought her a book contract, six-figure speaking fees, and a biopic.<\/p>\n

The edits came from two separate Wikipedia accounts, with one edit from each account. Each edit included multiple changes (see Appendix).<\/p>\n

As of today, they are the first and only edits from either account. They occurred so close together (within 13 minutes of each other) and with such similar changes that one person likely made both. For this discussion, I\u2019m going to assume a single editor.<\/p>\n

Neither account has any text on its user page. In other words, someone appears to have created both accounts solely to undo Nyad\u2019s fabrications.<\/p>\n

The changes required inside knowledge. Given Nyad\u2019s lack of technical know-how, it\u2019s unlikely she made them herself. So, it was likely someone close to her or from a PR firm or other organization with an interest in the biopic\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

The editor removed two untruths I\u2019d suspected but could never disprove: Nyad\u2019s national squash ranking and her tenure on Lake Forest College\u2019s tennis team. However, those lies remain scattered across the internet in places that will be much harder to redact. For example, see these Washington Post<\/em><\/a>, HuffPost<\/a> , and Fort Lauderdale News<\/em><\/a> articles.<\/p>\n

Her Lake Forest bio<\/a> still lists the tennis fabrication.<\/p>\n

The editor also excised the Find a Way<\/em> subtitle, One Wild and Precious Life.<\/em> Nyad originally wanted to use that phrase \u2014 from Mary Oliver\u2019s poem, \u201cThe Summer Day\u201d<\/a> \u2014 rather than Find a Way <\/em>as the title of her 2015 memoir. But Oliver asked her not to.<\/p>\n

Nyad says she respectfully deferred to Oliver\u2019s request (clip<\/a> | podcast<\/a>). However, articles posted<\/a> around the time of Find a Way\u2019s<\/em> publication retain One Wild and Precious Life<\/em> as the subtitle. I suspect the true \u201cwild and precious life\u201d story differs from the one Nyad tells.<\/p>\n

In a move that has become a tradition with Nyad\u2019s wiki-entry manipulators, the editor ratified her unratifiable crossing. The last time this happened, open-water swimming entrepreneur and Nyad fan Steven Munatones changed her entry on Openwaterpedia, a marathon swimming wiki, to read that the World Open Water Swimming Association (WOWSA) ratified Nyad\u2019s crossing<\/a>. Diana has also made<\/a> this claim.<\/p>\n

This time, Guinness World Records (GWR) implicitly became the marathon swimming governing body that sanctioned her crossing. But GWR is as much a governing body as it is a celestial one. Nyad\u2019s endeavor remains unratified<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Above:<\/strong> One of the July 22 changes to Diana Nyad\u2019s Wikipedia entry. Yellow indicates the text was removed, and blue text was added.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Interviews<\/h3>\n

Two days before the Wikipedia changes, former sports agent and Michigan State University tennis player Molly Fletcher<\/a> posted an interview with Nyad.<\/p>\n

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Above:<\/strong> Diana Nyad attempts a reputation makeover on Molly Fletcher\u2019s \u201cGame Changers\u201d<\/a> podcast, 20 July 2023.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here are a few examples of Nyad\u2019s fabrication revisions:<\/p>\n