Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) was the inspiration for one sex-crazed political character on “Parks and Recreation.”
Mike Schur, the creator of the America sitcom that ran from 2009 to 2015, said on Friday’s episode of “Pablo Torre Finds Out” that the character Councilman Bill Dexhart was inspired by Sanford.
“[Dexhart] was based entirely on Sanford, who at the time we thought was the funniest version of those guys because the lie was so outrageous and just so egregious,” Schur said.
On “Parks and Rec,” the Dexhart character is a city councilman who is constantly admitting to sex scandals with no guilt.
“All I can say is, I wasn’t just having sex,” the Dexhart character says in one “Parks and Recreation” episode. “I was making love to a beautiful woman. And her boyfriend. And a third person whose name I never learned. Furthermore, it was wrong of me to say I was building houses for the underprivileged when I was actually having four-way sex in a cave in Brazil.”
Schur added that the show casted actor Kevin Symons to play Dexhart because of Symons’ resemblance to Sanford.
Sanford did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Schur’s revelation on the podcast comes as Sanford has entered the news for an alleged affair once again. Sanford’s first newsworthy affair happened in 2009, when he disappeared from his wife, staff and the public for six days. While he told his staff he would be hiking the Appalachian Trail, he later admitted during a news conference that he had met up with a woman to carry out an affair. He also admitted that during his 20 years of marriage, he had “crossed the lines” many times.
But this week, a second alleged affair was brought to light when Ryan Lizza, a political reporter, wrote in a Substack that his then-fiancée and fellow political reporter Olivia Nuzzi had an affair with Sanford in 2020. Lizza’s revelation comes as Nuzzi is gearing up to release her memoir, “American Canto,” detailing her affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
On “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” Schur and podcaster Jessica Smetana broke down the story surrounding Nuzzi, Lizza, Sanford and Kennedy that The New York Times called “a media scandal drenched in sex, politics, secrets and self-dramatization.” After Nuzzi’s affair with RFK Jr. broke last year, Nuzzi left her job at New York Magazine as its White House correspondent, but today, she works as an editor at Vanity Fair.
Vanity Fair told The New York Times on Friday that they are reviewing the allegations that Nuzzi had an affair with Sanford.