Former NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson admits porn habit, says he lied to protect Trump
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Robinson admits long‑standing porn obsession and lied during 2024 campaign.
- He says he lied to protect allies and avoid harming Trump’s election chances.
- CNN unearthed forum posts; Republicans distanced themselves and he lost.
Former North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has admitted to having an obsession with sex and pornography from a young age, but lied about it during his failed 2024 gubernatorial election in order to protect the people around him, including President Donald Trump, he said Thursday.
And if given the opportunity to go back and do it over, he would lie again, he said.
“I don’t know where it came from: an obsession with pornography, an obession with sex,” Robinson told pastor Josh Hall on an online podcast called “After the Call.”
Robinson’s admission came on the first episode of the show, which was released at 5 p.m. Thursday. The show from Real Truth Media promises, “One guest. One room. No script. Josh Hall sits down for real, unfiltered conversations about the moments that break people — and the truth that rebuilds them.”
Hall is a pastor at Ocean Church in Florida.
In the hour-and-a-half interview, Robinson also discussed his abusive upbringing, being a “carnal person” since he was young and turning to women to make himself feel good.
“When you’re not being who God wants you to be, and you know you’re not fulfilling that role, oftentimes you’ll fulfill that role with other things,” Robinson said. “Some people fill it with alcohol or drugs. Some people fill it with women and other carnal things. And that’s what I did.”
Since fall 2024, when the Republican lieutenant governor was in a heated campaign against then-Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, he has denied allegations uncovered by CNN that he posted lewd and racist remarks on a porn forum called Nude Africa. He sued the news network for $50 million for its report.
On Thursday’s show, he continued denying some of the allegations in the CNN article, saying, he didn’t “completely lie” because some of the comments in the article were falsely attributed him. But he recognized that past statement he made, made those believable.
Robinson said when CNN released its report, he responded as he always does: “a place of combat.”
“The most expedient thing to do for the people around me was to continue to fight, and if I had to ignore the truth at that moment for their expediency, I felt like it was the right thing to do. We can deal with this on the back end, but I certainly don’t want to be the person that costs the president of the United States the election. Didn’t want to cost anyone else their election.”
Robinson told Hall if he could go back in time, he would still choose to lie, because he believes the story wasn’t about him.
“They knew that they could use me to destroy the people around me, up to and including the president,” Robinson said.
“They would do it. And so I’d make the exact same decision, I’d fight the exact same way, because I always knew, I always knew there would be time for this (acknowledging the truth). But in those eight weeks, there wasn’t time for that. What there was time for then was try to protect as many people as I could and do whatever I could to make sure that the fire that I was drawing didn’t get drawn to them as well.”
He said after he lost to Stein, when he was no longer lieutenant governor and things got quiet, that’s when things got dark for him. He said he had thoughts he never had before, because he knew the role he played in all of it.
“I had to look at myself in the mirror and see my part in it,” Robinson said. “That’s when it got bad.”
Teasing the truth
Robinson has been teasing for the past four days that he would tell “the truth” in the podcast.
It began Monday afternoon with a cryptic video post from “After the Call,” but without information about Robinson. The video showed cameras and lights turning on, as someone hits a record button. Then the following words, barely audible: “Why lie?”
Robinson shared the post on X with nothing but an emoji of a pair of eyes.
At 9 a.m. Tuesday, Robinson posted a second video from the show with the caption, “It’s time to be honest.” The video showed Robinson walking toward a chair and sitting down with a voiceover: “You can’t be honest with people in politics.”
At 10:26 a.m. Wednesday, a 39-second clip posted, opening with Trump speaking positively about Robinson, and the headlines of various scandals that plagued Robinson’s 2024 gubernatorial race. It concluded with a voiceover saying, “That’s not ever going to be forgotten. What’s done in the dark, always comes to light.”
At 9:05 a.m. Thursday, it became clear who was talking in those original clips. Robinson was asked, “Why lie in that moment?” He replied: “You can’t be honest with people in politics” and “What comes in the dark, always comes to the light.”
‘After the Call’ and ‘Real Truth Media’
Real Truth Media Inc. is a business registered two months ago in Florida by Matt Hurley, according to documents from the Florida Secretary of State office, obtained independently by McClatchy. Hurley took over as Robinson’s political consultant during his 2024 gubernatorial election after the series of reports about his porn habits led most his staff to quit.
Hurley’s connection to Hall or his church is not clear, but he appears in multiple photos on social media that include location tags at the church.
Prior to joining Robinson’s team in 2024, WINK News in Florida uncovered that Hurley already owed $2 million in civil judgments and faced lawsuits seeking $1 million in damages due to his business practices involving political consulting, NASCAR, real estate and cryptocurrency.
Robinson’s past
Robinson, 57, was once considered the future of the North Carolina Republican Party, with Trump describing him as Martin Luther King Jr. “on steroids.”
Robinson had a meteoric rise in politics after a 2018 speech he gave during public comments to the Greensboro City Council in favor of Second Amendment rights. From there he spoke at many events for the National Rifle Association, became North Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor and the first Black person nominated by the Republican Party to serve as governor. All that happened within a six-year span.
But it was during his 2024 gubernatorial campaign that everything came crashing down around him.
That’s when CNN found his posts on Nude Africa. Among his writings he called himself a “Black Nazi,” endorsed slavery, used slurs against the LGBTQ+ and Jewish communities, admitted to watching women shower and enjoying gay porn.
Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from Huntersville, did not endorse Robinson, even before the CNN report. He suggested in September 2024 that if the allegations were false, Robinson should hire a lawyer and prove CNN wrong.
He said if Robinson couldn’t do that in a reasonable amount of time, then “some, maybe not all, but some of these allegations are true, and if they are, they’re devastating and disqualifying.”
He told Robinson to get it done by the end of the week. Robinson didn’t listen, though he did eventually sue. He dropped the litigation after losing the election to Stein by double digits.
Defending Robinson
The scandals that mired Robinson’s 2024 election weren’t out of character for the lieutenant governor. He was outspoken in his views against certain groups of people including the LGBTQ+, Jewish, Muslim and Black communities. He would speak in local churches using religion to rebuke and demean them.
In an appearance in Winston-Salem, Robinson compared being gay to “what the cows leave behind” as well as maggots and flies, which he said all serve a purpose in God’s creation. “If homosexuality is of God, what purpose does it serve? What does it make? What does it create? It creates nothing,” Robinson said
The Republican Party stood by Robinson, both in the state and nationally, until the porn forum was uncovered. Just months before, he was given a prime speaking slot at the Republican National Convention, chaired then by North Carolina’s U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley. At the time, Whatley was chair of the national Republican Party.
After CNN’s report, Republicans began to distance themselves from Robinson. He stopped appearing with Trump at rallies, and several called for him to end his campaign.
He chose not to.
Defending porn
This is not Robinson’s first media appearance since his election loss.
Eight months ago, he appeared on a YouTube podcast from Pastor John Amanchukwu, where he continued to deny CNN’s report.
Amanchukwu told Robinson he was “baffled” that people were willing to bring drag queens to legislatures or allow books in school that he deemed inappropriate, but then took offense by a “fabricated story of you doing something 10, 15, 20 years ago on a porn site.”
“They’re upset with you about something you did as an adult, supposedly, in the privacy of your own home with your own internet,” Amanchukwu asked, before punctuating the word supposedly again.
He asked how Robinson explained that, and Robinson quickly denied the allegations again.
“Even if they were true, again like you said, why does it upset you so bad that a grown man views pornography, or a grown man in the privacy of his own home would view pornography or say something pornographic on an adult website? Why does that upset you so much, when like you said, you want to put pornography in the hands of 5-year-olds?”
He then reminded people that conservatives believe CNN is “fake news.”
“CNN pops this fake story about me and all of a sudden a bunch of conservatives start to believe it.”
This story was originally published March 19, 2026 at 6:13 PM.
