There is “so much more to the story” of the small-town Alabama mayor and Southern Baptist pastor who lived a secret life as a “transgender curvy woman” and author of “erotic slasher fiction,” according to the editor-in-chief of the publication that broke the story.
Jeff Poor, editor-in-chief of 1819 News, an Alabama-based conservative news outlet, shared with Breitbart News in an exclusive interview more details on the outlet’s series of stories that continues to generate national headlines.
“There’s a whole lot more here,” Poor said. “This was clearly a troubled man, and it’s unfortunate that he ended his life. But it wasn’t for any of the reasons or any of the stated narrative of the mainstream media.”
The mayor of tiny Smiths Station, Alabama, F.L. “Bubba” Copeland operated social media accounts as a self-described “curvy transgender woman” under the pseudonym Brittini Blaire Summerlin through which he shared graphic sexual material, the outlet broke last week. He also authored “erotic slasher fiction” in which the narrator murders and steals the life of a local woman, whose name and real local business Copeland named.
“He didn’t just write erotic fiction,” said Poor, who is a Breitbart News contributor. “He wrote erotic slasher fiction where he fantasized about murdering a woman in the local community and used her real name.”
Copeland took his own life Friday afternoon in front of local law enforcement who had been summoned to perform a welfare check. Leftwing and establishment media outlets have accused 1819 News of bearing responsibility, even claiming the outlet has “blood on its hands.”
Poor rejected that narrative. “I don’t think it’s true at all,” he said.
“We didn’t go seek the story out,” Poor explained. “The story came to us. It wasn’t like we woke up one morning and said, Hey, let’s go find a transgender man to go criticize…”
Poor described the decision to publish the stories, saying, “I think this was in the public interest. We went back and forth on it. I mean, it wasn’t an easy decision.”
He continued:
But for me, personally, I got to kind of thinking about this, like, Hey, is he a public figure? And yes, he’s the mayor of Smiths Station, Alabama, that put it at 50/50. That doesn’t mean it was necessarily a story that we had to report, but it was a story nonetheless. He’s a public figure, and does it impact his job as mayor? Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. But we put that one aside.
What kind of got me was his role as the lead pastor of the First Baptist Church of Phenix City. And I know very little about this church. I don’t know what their church politics or any of that’s like. But I am a member of a church. We contribute money to this church. We trust our two-year-old with this church’s ministries. And if this was going on in my church, if this were the face of my church that was doing this, I think I would have a right to know. So that put it over the edge.
Poor said Copeland originally denied responsibility for the content when contacted by 1819 News until presented with corroborating evidence before the first story was published.
“We would come to find out over time there was more and more things he was kind of misleading us on,” he said.
He confirmed that 1819 News had been planning additional pieces on Copeland, and that Copeland was aware additional revelations were coming. However, Poor said “we’ve yet to determine” if more will be published. “From the sake of the tragedy, we’re gonna be very cautious proceeding.”
Former Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), who misidentified in his tweet the name of the town he once represented, joined those attacking 1819 News.
“It is sad and disgusting how he was treated by the @1819News for personal decisions however misguided they might have been,” Jones tweeted. “We live in a mean, bitter world where the self righteous tend to throw the largest stones and the @1819News is the perfect example.”
I am so saddened at the death of my friend Mayor Bubba Copeland. He was a good man and a great mayor who led the small town of Smith Station through the tough times of a devastating tornado a few years ago. I toured the destruction with him, helped him navigate the FEMA…
— Doug Jones (@DougJones) November 4, 2023
Poor pushed back against Jones and others for assuming content published last week is the reason Copeland took his own life.
“Those who think that this guy was just sitting on this couch upset about a website bullying him and decided to end his life, they reside in the shallow end of the kiddie pool,” said Poor. “There’s so much more to the story that they’re not willing to at least even give the benefit of the doubt about.”
Follow Bradley Jaye on Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
