The latest YouTuber to be sued for defamation by a musician has asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit, because he was simply reporting on previously known controversies. Plus the musician in question, Falling In Reverse vocalist Ronnie Radke, has long played on the controversies that surround him, not least of his 2019 song ‘Popular Monster’.
Radke’s lawsuit, says music critic Anthony Fantano, who posts videos on his Fantano YouTube channel, is “vindictive”, and was “filed with a goal of chilling” his “freedom of speech”, and to discourage him and “likely others in the industry” from “sharing their opinions” about the musician.
Not only that, but Radke “cannot have it both ways”, Fantano adds, “monetising his controversial history when convenient, but retaliating against those reporting or opining in a negative way about the same”.
Radke isn’t the first musician to sue a YouTuber for defamation. Cardi B was awarded nearly $4 million in damages after successfully suing YouTuber Taska K, while Megan Thee Stallion last year sued another YouTube creator, Milagro Gramz, for allegedly publishing “false statements and malicious content”.
While some YouTubers are prone to share salacious rumours about pop stars without the caution that would be employed by more traditional journalists, Fantano sets out a pretty robust defence for why a video he published in 2023 about Radke, titled ‘This Guy Sucks’, was not defamatory.
Radke went legal last August, initially in the Californian courts, although the case was subsequently moved to a court in Connecticut. Fantano’s 2023 video discussed various news reports and social media posts that described negative interactions with Radke.
The aim of the video, Fantano explains in a new legal filing, was to review these reports and posts, and then “question Radke’s success despite his controversial history”.
His new legal filing adds, “The gist of the video is that, viewed together, Radke’s many controversies and allegations, and especially Radke’s responses to said allegations, informed and supported Fantano’s opinion that, as the title implies, Radke ‘sucks’”.
Radke’s defamation lawsuit specifically takes issue with Fantano discussing allegations of assault that have been made against the musician by two women; his republishing of a tweet posted by fellow musician Andy Cizek that said Radke was “like the Bill Cosby of alt music”; and Fantano expressing the opinion that, taken together, “the number of allegations against Radke is suspicious”.
In his response, Fantano insists there is no case defamation, setting out various legal arguments, and stressing that, in his video, he “took no position on the veracity of the substance of the allegations, only reporting on the fact that these allegations have been made, and publishing Radke’s denials and rebuttals”.
He also cites laws in Connecticut that aim to provide “individuals subjected to free speech-chilling lawsuits” with “speedy redress from otherwise prolonged and expensive litigation”, arguing that those laws apply in this dispute.
Citing a video Radke himself posted, in which he said he would use his “vast resources” to sue Fantano and take “every dollar” he has, last week’s legal filing concludes by asking the court to “swiftly dismiss this lawsuit and prevent prolonged and expensive litigation, which [Radke] readily admits is a goal of bringing the action”.