Last year, Anthony Fantano — the music critic known as the Needle Drop on YouTube — got into a squabble with Falling In Reverse frontman Ronnie Radke. He called one of the scene band’s songs “gross and tacky as fuck,” which led to a Twitter fight in which Radke said Fantano is “like the Perez Hilton of music critics, looks 25 years older than he is and nobody will care about him in 3 years.” Fantano later posted a video about Radke titled “This Guy Sucks,” and now Radke is suing Fantano for defamation.
According to Rock Feed, the lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. It claims Fantano’s video, which was shared in Aug. 2023, “exceeds the bounds of permissible commentary and ventures into actionable innuendo, unfounded rumors, and outright falsehoods.”
One of the issues Radke has with Fantano’s video is that he displays a since-deleted tweet that calls Radke the “Bill Cosby of alt music,” essentially accusing him of rape. He also displays other tweets from people accusing Radke of assault and says Radke uses his Twitter account to harass his accusers. He also mentions Radke’s 2015 sexual assault allegations. Radke repeatedly asked Fantano to take the video down, but he refused.
Radke is a notoriously difficult person; along with the 2015 sexual assault allegations, the 40-year-old has spent time in prison for battery with substantial bodily harm, was arrested for domestic violence, and was arrested for injuring a 16-year-old girl upon throwing three mic stands into a crowd.
In 2022, Cardi B won a $4 million verdict against a YouTuber in a similar suit, and Soulja Boy recently sued that vlogger too. Activision dropped its suit against Fantano last year.
