Young Chiefs fan's defamation lawsuit against Deadspin to move forward: 'Crossed the

[4th and Long]

Young Chiefs fan's defamation lawsuit against Deadspin to move forward: 'Crossed the fine line'

A Delaware judge ruled Monday that the Armenta family’s lawsuit against Deadspin for accusing their son of wearing "blackface" at a Chiefs game last year can proceed.

In 2023, Deadspin writer Carron Phillips wrote an article using an image of nine-year-old Holden Armenta sporting black and red Kansas City Chiefs face paint at a game, showing only the black half of his face. Phillips accused Holden of finding a way to "hate Black people and the Native Americans at the same time" and accused his parents of teaching him "hatred."

Holden’s parents Raul Jr. and Shannon later filed a lawsuit in February accusing the sports blog of maliciously attacking Holden by selectively posting only one half of his face and accusing them of racism.


Holden Armenta, 9, attends the Chiefs-Raiders game on Nov. 26 in Las Vegas.

On Monday, Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg denied Deadspin’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, agreeing that the blog posted "provable false assertions" as facts rather than opinion.

"Deadspin published an image of a child displaying his passionate fandom as a backdrop for its critique of the NFL’s diversity efforts and, in its description of the child, crossed the fine line protecting its speech from defamation claims," the judge wrote.


"Having reviewed the complaint, the court concludes that Deadspin’s statements accusing [Holden] of wearing black face and Native headdress ‘to hate black people and the Native American at the same time,’ and that he was taught this hatred by his parents, are provable false assertions of fact and are therefore actionable," Lugg added.


Deadspin posted an image showing only one half of Holden's face at a Chiefs game.

Lugg also refused to dismiss the case based on the assertion that the case should have been filed in the Armenta family’s home state of California rather than Delaware, where Deadspin’s parent company G/O Media resides. G/O Media later sold Deadspin to Lineup Publishing one month after the lawsuit was filed.

A representative from G/O Media declined to comment to Fox News Digital.

Deadspin did not retract the original article. However, an editor’s note was added to address the controversy.

"We regret any suggestion that we were attacking the fan or his family. To that end, our story was updated on Dec. 7 to remove any photos, tweets, links, or otherwise identifying information about the fan. We have also revised the headline to better reflect the substance of the story," the note read.

The headline was also changed from "The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress" to "The NFL Must Ban Native Headdress And Culturally Insensitive Face Paint in the Stands."



Judge Lugg agreed the original article asserted its accusations of racism as "provable false assertions of fact."


Phillips initially doubled down on his accusations in a since-deleted X post.

"For the idiots in my mentions who are treating this as some harmless act because the other side of his face was painted red, I could make the argument that it makes it even worse. Y'all are the ones who hate [M]exican but wear sombreros on cinco [de Mayo]," Phillips said.

[Nirvana58]

Originally Posted by POND_OF_RED

Oh, I completely agree. The only people I know calling for an end to the chop have never been on a reservation in their entire lives. The fact of the matter is that they still have so many issues they deal with on a daily basis like their women disappearing off the reservation in alarming numbers. No one on a reservation has time to worry about an NFL team doing the tomahawk chop.

The parents put the kid in this situation, though. Just own up to being bad parents. Don’t try and make a fortune off your kids misery. Do you think them filing this lawsuit will help people forget about this so the kid can get on with his life? Deadspin can definitely go **** themselves, but let’s not reward the kids parents for being a couple ****ing obtuse morons.

Kid and his father are both Native American. You nor anybody else has the right to tell them how they can dress and celebrate their culture.

The parents have every right to sue their asses to oblivion for making up a story and trying to defame a child.

[Megatron96]

Best thing that could come from this is Deadspin shuts down permanently, and the dipstick that wrote the story ends up on unemployment. And the general population learns to mind their own ****ing business.

But that'll never happen. So, instead, I hope that kid gets as much $$$ as the law allows.

[suzzer99]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Bad news - that was like 8 years ago.

And magary cut his own balls off a couple of years before that even.

Around the time they gave Daulerio the keys, it was over.

https://gen.medium.com/my-goodbye-to...n-132a2ac48063

This says 2019. So 5 years I guess.

[dlphg9]

Originally Posted by JohnnyHammersticks

“She”?

Boy are you gonna be surprised when you google Carron Phillips.

Lmao, shit I figured Carron (pronounced Karen correct?) was a girl.

[POND_OF_RED]

Originally Posted by Nirvana58

Kid and his father are both Native American. You nor anybody else has the right to tell them how they can dress and celebrate their culture.

The parents have every right to sue their asses to oblivion for making up a story and trying to defame a child.

His father stated in an interview that their tribe do not wear a headdress and admitted his son bought it as a costume. Also, the chairman for the tribe his family claims to be apart of already made a statement claiming they don’t support the cultural appropriation and distanced themselves from the family. He’s not celebrating his culture. He’s desecrating it.

Also, I’m the biggest supporter of keeping the Chiefs name and Tomahawk chop. I know the lady who owns Warpaint and was absolutely pissed when the Chiefs fired her before the season because of a bunch of idiots crying. Like I said, I’ve never met a single person on a reservation who has ever had an issue with the chop or the Chiefs name. They all have an issue with fans wearing a headdress to a sporting event. Stop giving the idiotic stop the chop movement any actual momentum by being completely obtuse to an obvious cultural appropriation situation.

[Nirvana58]

Originally Posted by POND_OF_RED

His father stated in an interview that their tribe do not wear a headdress and admitted his son bought it as a costume. Also, the chairman for the tribe his family claims to be apart of already made a statement claiming they don’t support the cultural appropriation and distanced themselves from the family. He’s not celebrating his culture. He’s desecrating it.

Also, I’m the biggest supporter of keeping the Chiefs name and Tomahawk chop. I know the lady who owns Warpaint and was absolutely pissed when the Chiefs fired her before the season because of a bunch of idiots crying. Like I said, I’ve never met a single person on a reservation who has ever had an issue with the chop or the Chiefs name. They all have an issue with fans wearing a headdress to a sporting event. Stop giving the idiotic stop the chop movement any actual momentum by being completely obtuse to an obvious cultural appropriation situation.

Not that it matters. But pretty sure when this all came out. The family had made the head dress and did it accurate to their customs.

But honestly that doesn't matter at all. It also doesn't matter if the chairman of the tribe signed off on it or not. It is the families heritage and can celebrate it however they want.

[New World Order]

Go get em kid!!!