What Anthony Fantano Said About Winning Ronnie Radke Lawsuit

Online music critic Anthony Fantano recently won a defamation lawsuit filed by Falling in Reverse's Ronnie Radke and he's made his first comments about it in a new video that addresses his experiences over the course of the legal action.

Fantano initially posted a video titled "This Guy Sucks" to his YouTube channel in August 2023 in which he addressed some of Radke's online behavior and critiqued his music.

In return, Radke threatened to sue over the video and eventually followed through by taking legal action in 2024.

The recent ruling on the case landed in favor of Fantano, who spoke about his victory and why he felt it was essential to follow through on the case in a 16 minute-plus video.

What Did Anthony Fantano Say About Winning the Defamation Suit Against Him?

Though the video started with Fantano blowing up a yellow balloon with the words "I won" on it, the music critic kept the trolling to a minimum. Rather, the new video focused more on his experiences dealing with the case, why he remained largely quiet about it and what his ultimate goal was in seeing it through.

Within the clip, Fantano shares that he purposefully was not actively speaking about the case publicly as 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 that was suing me the satisfaction of maybe seeing me squirm or just for him to have the capacity to read into anything I'm doing or saying," he explained.

Admittedly, having to pay out legal fees was not an ideal situation, but Fantano shared that he understood the importance of following through with his defense rather than caving to make the suit go away.

"All of the headlines and Ronnie's tweets and crash-outs and announcements on this topic publicly essentially put me in the position where I was like I have to see this through," expressed the critic. "I can't just allow this to quietly settle in his favor or anything like that because that's going to send the message that anybody who hates me can just pull up with lawyers anytime I say something they don't like and shut me down entirely. Honestly, fuck that."

Within the video, Fantano ran through a timeline of the suit and shared that Radke initially filed suit against the wrong Anthony Fantano in the state of California. But once he was officially served, he used the Anti-SLAPP law (SLAPP stands for "strategic lawsuits against public participation") to defend himself feeling that Radke had used the suit as a method to silence him.

The judge eventually ruled in his favor.

What Did Anthony Fantano Conclude About the Case?

After running through some of the key points that led the judge to rule in his favor, Fantano shared his final thoughts on the matter.

"While yeah it was not super positive, it was kind of necessary. As my lawyer Emilio told me .... there is some serious historical precedent to this decision because there's not quite a lot of lawsuits like this one in the modern era, where someone in the music commentary space is having to defend themselves in quite this way," he shared.

"Sure, while I could have saved myself some headache by paying Ronald some money and taking the video down, after that I know I wouldn't have been able to look at myself in the mirror because that would have been a betrayal of how I actually felt and most likely would have created more headaches down the road," he concluded.

He also shared that he felt it was important that other content creators see that Radke was not unbeatable in using a lawsuit to shut down criticism.

Anthony Fantano Responds After Winning Lawsuit Against Ronnie Radke

What Did Ronnie Radke Say After Losing the Defamation Lawsuit?

Fantano's response video the lawsuit ruling came several weeks after Radke himself posted about the decision.

Back in early August, Radke shared a 15-minute video in which he expressed that he wished Fantano would just retract what he said, but he knew that the critic wouldn't.

"For me, people think that I’m insane, right? They think that’ I’m doing all this stuff, because I’m insecure, like responding to people online. Guys, it’s not that serious. I respond to people online because they say the same things that Anthony was implying that I’m a gang rapist or that I’m a bad person or, you know, sometimes ‘your music sucks.’ I’m just being funny," he commented.

The singer shared, while pulling back the curtain on his approach to online interactions, "The only way I can respond is to be funny to these people. The stuff that you don’t see me talk about, if I’m not responding, those are the things that are making me mad."

He felt that Fantano's video addressing some of the allegations against him had gone too far.

"This video really pissed me off because — and it pissed off a lot of people — it implies to the people that are watching this, the NPCs that follow Anthony Fantano and wait for him to give them their opinion on what they like, they’re not going to go do their research," shared Radke.

"They’re just going to go, ‘Wow, he really gang raped somebody.’ ‘Wow, he really is transphobic.’ ‘Wow, he is a racist,’ says the singer.

"This is why I sued him and this is the point that I’m making. I knew I was going to lose the lawsuit. It’s not a big deal. It’s just a defamation suit. The reason I did this is so I can put this out, so I can put something out and say my piece before Anthony does. Because you know, Anthony is going to put some video together so he can gain views to pay his rent," said the singer.

"I wanted to put this out and say my piece," continues Radke. "So if you’re watching this and you’re not a fan and you hate my guts, I really hope that even if you’re not a fan, you can really understand where I’m coming from, because it’s really fucked up and I don’t think anybody should ever do that. I would never make a video about how Anthony Fantano was racist, allegedly, you know what I mean I would never do that.”

Within Radke's video statement, he shares that he knew the chances of victory were not likely. The singer commented, “I went into this lawsuit suing you because of this video and all this stuff… I went into this lawsuit and my lawyers like, ‘you’re not gonna win this.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t care.’ And it’s all for this, man."

Fantano shared at the end of his video that he intended to address Radke's comments from his early August posting in a separate video outside of his lawsuit commentary.

Ronnie Radke Addresses Losing His Lawsuit Against Anthony Fantano

Why Did Ronnie Radke Initially Sue Anthony Fantano?

At the center of the legal dispute between Radke and Fantano was a 2023 Fantano video titled "This Guy Sucks" (seen below).

In the nearly eight-minute rant, Fantano proceeded to address multiple accusations that had been made against the singer, while Radke noted that the critic had failed to note how each of the accusations had turned out. In three of the instances, accusers had later retracted their statements.

In the suit that Radke filed in August 2024, it's argued that by failing to disclose the resolution of the incidents, Fantano had "acted with malice aforethought and/or engaged in fraud, malice and/or oppression."

It was noted within the suit that "Fantano‘s nearly eight-minute verbal tirade regarding Radke — whom the defendant does not know and has never even met — goes beyond the bounds of permissible commentary and extends into the realm of actionable innuendo, unfounded rumormongering and outright untruth.”

Anthony Fantano's "This Guy Sucks" Video

There had previously been a history between Radke and Fantano, who had publicly beefed in 2023 after the critic negatively reviewed the new Falling in Reverse song, "Watch the World Burn" at the time.