The husband of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem carried on a secret online relationship with a Colorado Springs dominatrix for the better part of a decade, paying thousands of dollars for webcam sessions and phone calls while his wife handled some of the most sensitive national security work in the federal government. That is the picture painted by a new Daily Mail report containing dozens of phone recordings, online messages, and screenshots shared by the woman at the center of the allegations.
The woman, 30-year-old Shy Sotomayor, who uses the stage name Raelynn Riley, told the Daily Mail that Bryon Noem, now 56, first contacted her through Twitter in 2016. What followed, she claimed, was a years-long paid arrangement conducted through the adult webcam platform Streammate and later Skype, phone calls, and text messages.
The allegations land on a family already weathering a cascade of damaging revelations. Bryon Noem is an insurance company executive in South Dakota. His wife served thirteen months as President Trump's DHS secretary before being removed from the Cabinet in March. The security implications alone, never mind the personal wreckage, deserve serious scrutiny.
Sotomayor told the Daily Mail that Bryon initially used the alias "Jason Jackson" and claimed to be the CEO of a company in Chicago. She said he paid $15 per minute for her to chat with and pose for him, and that their sessions were sporadic for about five years. Over the course of the relationship, she said she earned "tens of thousands of dollars."
Around 2020, the year after Kristi Noem became governor of South Dakota and Bryon became the state's first gentleman, he abruptly cut off contact without explanation. Sotomayor said she later connected the timing to his wife's rising political profile.
Then, in October 2025, he reappeared. The Daily Mail reported that conversations in November alone cost Bryon roughly $7,600. By New Year's Eve, the messages had escalated dramatically. As previously reported, the Noem marriage showed signs of strain well before any of these allegations became public.
In one exchange from that period, Bryon allegedly wrote: "I can see us leaving our spouses for each other." In another, from January 11, the Daily Mail quoted him as saying, "I want to be a woman so bad."
The recordings and messages shared with the Daily Mail show a relationship that veered between transactional and deeply personal. Sotomayor described Bryon as someone who "needed to just talk and talk," adding that "it felt more personal than I was comfortable with."
In one phone conversation weeks after their November reconnection, Bryon allegedly told Sotomayor she was "so much better" than his wife. When Sotomayor pressed him, "So much better than your wife, aren't I?", he responded, per the Daily Mail's account: "F***ing true."
On January 10, Sotomayor confronted Bryon about his real identity. "Did you think that I wouldn't find out who you were?" she asked, according to the recordings. His reply, as quoted by the Daily Mail: "I don't love the fact that you know who I am, but it is what it is."
The next day, January 11, Bryon allegedly wrote that he wanted to be called "Crystal", a name strikingly close to his wife's. Sotomayor told the Daily Mail she was "jaw to the floor, thrown for a loop that he wanted to be called that, so close to her name, when he could have gone with Stephanie or something."
By January 16, the tone shifted abruptly. Bryon wrote that things were "Really bad at home. Really bad. I've got to go and figure me out." He said he needed to "stop everything and focus on me" and would be "deleting all my stuff." But two weeks later, on January 31, he was back, writing: "I do like my wife and I know you don't."
That exchange grew pointed. When Sotomayor pushed further, "And f*** your wife. Don't you think, after everything she's done, she deserves this?", Bryon asked, "Deserves what?" He then added: "I don't know what to say to that. She's a good person. You are amazing though."
Another message showed Bryon allegedly writing: "Can talk to you tonight, but I will regret it tomorrow. Because I'm still with her." The Daily Mail reported that he also discussed wanting to take Sotomayor on a trip to New York City, though he did not pay the $20,000 she said she required for an in-person meeting.
Whatever one makes of the personal dimensions, the national security angle is not a tabloid sideshow. Kristi Noem led the Department of Homeland Security. She oversaw border enforcement, ICE operations, and counterterrorism efforts. Her husband, meanwhile, was allegedly conducting a secret paid relationship with a sex worker under a false name, using an email tied to the pseudonym "Chrystalballz666" to process payments.
Marc Polymeropoulos, a 26-year CIA veteran, told the Daily Mail the situation presented a textbook vulnerability.
"If a media organization can find this out, you can assume with a high degree of confidence that a hostile intelligence service knows this as well."
Polymeropoulos went further, describing the classic mechanics of foreign intelligence recruitment:
"They approach the person and say, if you work with us we won't expose this, and if you don't, we will. That's espionage 101."
He called the kind of information contained in the recordings "a tantalizing lead for a hostile intelligence service." The question is not hypothetical. If a dominatrix in Colorado Springs could figure out who "Jason Jackson" really was, so could the intelligence services of China, Russia, or Iran. And the spouse of a sitting DHS secretary, carrying this kind of secret, represents exactly the sort of pressure point adversaries exploit.
As Kristi Noem herself acknowledged in responding to earlier allegations about her husband, the revelations left her "devastated." The personal toll is real. But the institutional exposure is what should concern policymakers.
This is not the first bombshell involving Bryon Noem in recent weeks. The Daily Mail previously published photos it said showed him wearing fake breasts and tight clothing, including hot pink pants. Sotomayor's account adds a new layer, not just images, but extensive recorded conversations and a financial trail stretching back years.
Sotomayor told the Daily Mail she felt Bryon was "very hypocritical for standing ten toes on American family values while he was in my messages about wanting to be a trans bimbo b***h." She said she began cutting back on their paid sessions in late March.
Separate from the Sotomayor allegations, another woman has claimed that Bryon Noem funded her lifestyle and proposed marriage during an alleged years-long arrangement, further complicating the picture for a family that once projected conservative normalcy on the national stage.
The Daily Mail's reporting also noted longstanding rumors, unverified and presented as such, about Kristi Noem and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. As previously covered, those rumors have circled the Noem orbit for some time, though no party has confirmed them.
Neither Bryon Noem nor any official representative is quoted in the Daily Mail's report responding to the latest allegations. That silence, given the specificity of the recordings and messages, is itself notable.
Kristi Noem's thirteen-month tenure at DHS was already under a cloud before her removal. She oversaw aggressive ICE operations in Minneapolis, where federal officers fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the latter of whom Noem accused of "domestic terrorism." President Trump himself said he "feels badly" for the Noem family after the initial cross-dressing photos surfaced.
The open questions are serious. How long did this vulnerability exist while Kristi Noem held one of the most sensitive positions in the executive branch? Was any counterintelligence review ever conducted regarding the secretary's household? Did anyone in the administration know? The Daily Mail's reporting does not answer those questions. Someone in Washington should.
Conservatives have long argued, correctly, that personal conduct matters in public life because it creates leverage for bad actors and erodes the trust that self-government requires. That principle does not come with a party exemption. When the spouse of a Cabinet secretary spends years conducting a secret paid relationship under a fake name with a sex worker who eventually identifies him, the system failed at a basic level. The question is whether anyone in a position of authority cares enough to find out how.
