Page Purporting To Show That The 'Couch Cushion Story' Actually Was In J.D. Vance's 'Hillbilly Elegy' Circulates Online, But It's A Hoax

The J.D. Vance “Couch Cushion Story” Hoax has reached the "doctored evidence" part of the "internet conspiracy" cycle, as a page purporting to come from the "first edition" of the book, with the couch cushion story written in graphic detail, has begun to circulate online.

The page is doctored and, once again, we must point out that no, J.D. Vance did not admit to having sexual relations with a couch in Hillbilly Elegy.

The excerpt went viral when it was posted by Twitter / X user @Tazerface16, who seems to be very sure that it's real, judging by his replies to many people doubting him. In the excerpt, Vance goes on a tangent that describes looking around at his groomsmen and realizing that all of them had, at one point or another, had sexual relations with a couch.

Of note, @Tazerface16 says that he had not found this page himself, but "received it" from someone who says they read Hillbilly Elegy.

After his post, user @joetheplumber5 posted what is supposedly the "full page" in the replies. Sure enough, the couch cushion story appears on page 180, which is basically consistent with the original rumor that the passage appeared between pages 179 and 181. The language is … flowery, to say the least.

When multiple users challenged @Tazerface16, he insisted that the couch cushion story only appears in the "first edition," "hardcover" copy of the book and that the passage was edited out in subsequent publications. A woman with the handle @FebWriter who claims to work in a public library said it's not uncommon for texts to be edited before being reprinted in paperback, which for some served as an explanation of how the story supposedly appears in certain copies of the book but not others.

However, there is no corroborating evidence to support the claim that the couch story ever appeared in any edition of Hillbilly Elegy.

A PDF of the first edition of Hillbilly Elegy can be read on the CUNY Baruch College website. On the college's scan of page 180, the text reads:

Years later, I looked at my wedding party of six groomsmen and realized that every single one of them had, like me, grown up in a small Ohio town before leaving for Ohio State. To a man, all of them had found careers outside of their hometowns, and none of them had any interest in ever going back.

This is consistent with a tweet by user @Kifallang, who took a photograph of page 180 of her purported first-edition hardcover copy of Hillbilly Elegy, and the page has the same text as the PDF uploaded on the Baruch College website.

Furthermore, basic context clues suggest that the couch cushion story in the supposed "1st edition page 180" image is fabricated.

Prior to the couch cushion portion of the circulating page, Vance discusses the concept of "brain drain," a phenomenon he describes as people from poor rural areas moving out of such places to more wealthy areas where they can find education and opportunity. The preceding and following paragraphs in the circulating image have nothing to do with making love with a couch.

The story appears to have originated with TikToker and Twitter user @FalconryFinance, who on July 24th, posted a reading of the doctored page to his TikTok, claiming it was the "original" version before it was edited.

On July 26th, he posted screenshots of a conversation he purportedly had with a Snopes reporter in which he admitted to editing the passage.

Thus, with no evidence corroborating the claim that the image circulated by @Tazerface16 and others is accurate and multiple sources showing what actually appears on page 180 of the first edition of Hillbilly Elegy, we conclude that the viral image is a fake.

Furthermore, a separate rumor has circulated that on page 21 of Hillbilly Elegy, Vance admitted to once using a hot dog as an adult toy. The creator of that rumor also admitted it was a joke in the immediate follow-up tweet, as @rickrudescalves did when he inadvertently started the couch cushion firestorm two weeks ago.