Last year, Falling In Reverse frontman Ronnie Radke sued music critic Anthony Fantano for defamation. In 2023, Fantano posted a video titled "This Guy Sucks," which criticized Radke's music along with discussing Radke's criminal record. Fantano has been quiet about the dispute, despite Radke taking the complete opposite course of action. (Earlier this month, Radke "critiqued" Fantano live during his performance on stage.) Ronnie Radke lost the suit, and now, Anthony Fantano is finally speaking out about the whole thing.
"It's time for a review of a lawsuit that was recently filed against me and was hilariously dismissed," Fantano says at the beginning of the video. Although the video opens with him blowing up a balloon with the words "I Won" written on it, Fantano clarifies that he's not going to be trolling in this video.
He also explains why he didn't speak about the lawsuit while it was happening. "I didn't want to blow this up into something bigger than it needed to be. And also on top of it, I didn't want to give the person who was suing me the satisfaction of maybe seeing me squirm or for him to have the capacity to read into anything that I'm doing or saying or cause more of a fuss over this."
Fantano discusses why he chose to make the "This Guy Sucks" video in the first place, even though he had not previously interacted a lot with Radke's work."He couldn't stay off my radar forever, especially as I was seeing him on social media just constantly going after and attacking people commenting on him and his music," he said. "Often when he's engaging in this criticism says more about him than the person he's replying to."
Because Fantano refused to take that 2023 video down, Radke filed a suit against him. But, let's just say the preliminary process was extremely flawed. Turns out, Radke initially sued the wrong Anthony Fantano, one who lives in San Diego. Needle Drop Anthony Fantano lives in Connecticut.
"Apparently, there's another Anthony Fantano out there in America and Ronald found that Anthony Fantano and sued him," Fantano explained. "It took a while for Ronald and his legal team to realize this error. And when I did eventually get served this lawsuit right here, as you can see from the photo on the screen, it has my wrong initial in there. Presumably, because they didn't change the name after suing the wrong Anthony Fantano."
He then explains that, either way, both California and Connecticut have Anti-SLAP laws. It's a law that allowed Fantano to essentially tell the court: "I believe I am exercising my free speech and my journalistic rights and the only reason this lawsuit is being filed is to silence me essentially." Thus, the case can be dismissed and Radke will have to pay Fantano back his legal fees.
Fantano talks a little bit about the judge and Radke's handling of the whole situation. He also addresses the "bitter ass" video that Radke uploaded after the final verdict came through. Despite the year-long journey, Fantano does not regret it and that if he simply quietly took the video down that "it would have been a betrayal of how I actually felt."
Aside from Radke's notorious reputation -- in addition to a series of sexual assault allegations from 2015, he's gone to prison for battery with substantial bodily harm and has been arrested for domestic violence and for injuring a 16-year-old girl upon throwing three mic stands into a crowd -- this is a really important case. Persons of public interest (like celebrities and pop stars) have a complicated history of abusing their power when calling out critics that don't agree with or critique their art. Doxing has been a huge issue when it comes to a negative takedown of a beloved pop star. At the end of the day, what's a few hundred bucks worth of harassment from a fan army? The Fantano V. Radke case highlights the complicated intersections of the internet, social media influence, cultural power, and free speech.
"I felt it important to do this separately because I wanted to talk about my own experience, here, being sued," he said of this video. "While, yeah it was not super positive, it was kind of necessary...there is a seriously important historical precedent to this decision because there's not a whole lot of lawsuits quite like this one in the modern era where someone in the music commentary space is having to defend themselves." Fantano also alluded that there are more videos analyzing Radke's response to come.
He stressed that this suit "put me in a position where I was like I have to see this through. I can't just allow this to quietly settle in his favor or anything like that. That's going to send the message that anybody who hates me can essentially pull up with lawyers anytime I say something they don't like and shut me down entirely. Honestly, fuck that."
Watch the full video below.
