Rittenhouse filed defamation suit against Whoopi Goldberg & Joy Behar? Fact Check

Rumours on social media claim that Kyle Rittenhouse – who shot and killed two protesters in 2020 and was later acquitted of murder charges in November 2021 – has filed a $60 million defamation lawsuit against Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar.

FALSE

In November 2021, Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of murder charges in Wisconsin following the shooting of two protestors (and injury of a third). This high profile news story in the United States has been responsible for a number of fake rumours circulating through social media.

One such example is the claim that since his acquittal, Rittenhouse has filed a defamation lawsuit against two TV talk hosts from The View, Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, both of whom were critical of Rittenhouse’s actions during his trial.

The source to this story can be traced back to a website PotatriotsUnite.com, that published a story with the headline –

Rittenhouses File $60M Defamation Suit Against Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldgerg

However, this site refers to itself as satirical, and publishes nonsensical articles not based on fact. A satirical disclaimer is at the top of the page. What’s more, the About Us page reveals that the site is part of the notorious “America’s Last Line of Defense” network of spoof websites.

PotatriotsUnite.com is a subsidiary of the “America’s Last Line of Defense” network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery…

This network of spoof websites has been responsible for numerous hoaxes on social media in the past. The websites attempt to troll conservative readers by deliberately creating headlines designed to lure them into sharing.

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Those who read the article fully may have spotted clues that the article was not genuine. For example the following paragraph –

They can’t just do that. By our rules, once Kyle was free, everything he did was sanctioned by Jesus and precedent for all other kids who want to play soldier medic during dangerous social situations they should probably just stay out of.

Such “satirical” content often gets circulated online as genuine, for two different reasons. Firstly, the articles are often believable enough to be mistaken as genuine, and those who read them do not see the “satire” disclaimers on the website. And secondly, because such spoof articles are often stolen from the original website and reproduced on third party websites that contain no such “satirical” disclaimers.

Since we could find no pending lawsuits matching the description here, we rank this claim as false.