Tucker Max has come out of hiding. After failing in Hollywood, running several businesses into the ground, and betraying close friends: Tucker Max has returned to the world with a great gift. Along with disgraced academic Geoffrey Miller and Nils Parker, he is going to teach men how to meet women at a website called The Mating Grounds.
Rather than teach men what Tucker knows best (go out, get drunk, meet skanks), Tucker is going to teach men something else. What that “something else” he is going to teach remains to be seen, as Tucker has been busy copying men like me rather than creating his own material.
He also also begun to lie about the very men he has been copying. He recently told a major lie about Roosh, a man who writes about men’s issues and male self-improvement.
Tucker Max’s lies about Roosh were not merely white lies. Tucker Max’s lies were defamatory. (As the lies were spoken in a podcast and published online, Tucker Max has committed libel and slander against Roosh.)
Roosh could, if he desires, sue Tucker Max and Nils Parker for defamation.
Tucker Max and Nils Parker defamed Roosh on The Mating Grounds Podcast.
On a recent The Mating Grounds podcast, Tucker Max, Nils Parker, and Geoffrey Miller discussed their marketing strategy. Rather than remain on topic, they engaged in some smear tactics. Their tactics crossed the line from bashing a competitor to fabricating lies.
On Jan. 3, 2013, Roosh wrote a post called, “25 Reasons You Should Visit Ukraine (source).” Roosh had recently left America to experience foreign beauty.
Wanting to share the beauty that is available to men who travel abroad, Roosh assembled a photo gallery. In this post, he wrote:
I assembled this photo gallery of random Ukrainian girls I found online that are 7′s and up. They exist in plentiful supply in all major Ukrainian cities. Not all will be easy to lay, but they will be available day or night for you to put in your attempt. Note: I did not have sex with these girls!
On July 26, 2014, Tucker Max published a transcription of The Mating Grounds Podcast.
On this Mating Grounds Podcast, Tucker Max referenced Roosh’s Jan. 3rd post. In the podcast, Tucker Max and his business partner Nil Parker said:
Tucker:
Apparently, one of the really big pick up artists has this book about how he slept with a bunch of women in Russia and he had, like, pictures of them. The whole thing was a lie. The Russian media called this dude out, like, all the pictures he took off, basically, Russian social media sites and all the women freaked out and this dude…he’s still seen as an expert.Nils:
He’s so bad that the Russian media did a truth expose?Tucker:
Do you know who I’m talking about? Roosh? That’s who it is, Roosh? So you know what I’m talking about, right? Roosh. Okay, so, whoever Roosh is…Nils:
The Russian media came to the defense of women and the truth…
Since Roosh’s post was not a lie, it is clear that Tucker Max lied.
But telling a lie is not enough. To sue for defamation, a plaintiff must show more.
To sue Tucker Max and Nils Parker, Roosh must show that they defamed him.
What is defamation?
Although the law of defamation varies by state, the Restatement (2d) of Torts section 559 provides: “A communication is defamatory if it tends so to harm the reputation of another as to lower him in the estimation of the community or to deter third persons from associating or dealing with him.”
Tucker Max and Nils Parker claimed that Roosh lied as a marketing strategy. Before lying about Roosh, Tucker Max discussed his and Nils Parker’s marketing strategy.
Tucker: Right. Exactly. So, here’s a good way to think about this, a business lesson. You know why Amazon’s so successful? They’re crushing everyone and they’re going to continue to crush everyone? Because essentially everything in that company is – every decision they make, they think, “What does the user think about this? What does our customer think?” Our customers. Amazon’s customers. They don’t care about publishers. They don’t care about anyone else. Fuck all those people. They only care about how customers are going to respond. And because of that, they just inexorably get bigger and bigger and bigger because people trust them, they use them, they’re an amazing company.
Tucker Max wanted to deter men from trusting Roosh, by falsely claiming that Roosh lied. Tucker Max’s and his partner Nils Parker’s statements were defamatory.
What does Roosh need to prove in order to beat Tucker Max and Nils Parker in court?
Again, the law of defamation varies by state. The Restatement of Torts (2d) summarizes the laws of the several statements and provides:
Section 558
To create liability for defamation there must be:
(a) a false and defamatory statement concerning another;
(b) an unprivileged publication to a third party;
(c) fault amounting at least to negligence on the part of the publisher
[with respect to the act of publication]; and
(d) either actionability of the statement irrespective of special harm or the
existence of special harm caused by the publication.
As shown above, the statement was defamatory as it was a marketing ploy designed to cause men to distrust Roosh.
The statement was unprivileged because it was made in public and no privileges apply. (A statement is privileged when it is made, for example, to a lawyer in the course and scope of the lawyer’s representation. A statement is privileged when made to the police or to your priest.)
Tucker Max was at least negligent as Roosh’s post is publicly available. Section 12 of the Restatement (2d) of Torts provides:
Reason to Know; Should Know . . . “reason to know” [means] the actor has information from which a person of reasonable intelligence . . . would infer that the fact in question exists, or that such person would govern his conduct upon the assumption that such fact exists.
Any reasonable person could have pulled up Roosh’s post, read it for himself, and avoided the lie Tucker Max and Nils Parker told.
Max and Parker may claim that Roosh suffered no actual damages. (That’s what the “special harm” requirement refers to.) Right now it’s too soon to determine what harm Roosh has suffered. It’s highly likely that someone who was considering buying one of Roosh’s books will not buy a book, due to Max’s and Parker’s lies.
Therefore, Roosh has a cause of action against Max and Parker for defamation.
Tucker Max and Nils Parker have a defense. They may claim Roosh is a public figure.
The law of defamation treats private and public figures differently. A public figure faces some real challenges in a defamation lawsuit.
A public figure is defined as a general or limited-purpose public figure. As Digital Media Law Project notes:
The “public officials” category includes politicians and high-ranking governmental figures, but also extends to government employees who have, or appear to the public to have, substantial responsibility for or control over the conduct of government affairs.
The second category of public figures is called “limited-purpose” public figures. These are individuals who “have thrust themselves to the forefront of particular controversies in order to influence the resolution of the issues involved.” Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc., 418 U.S. 323 (U.S. 1974). They are the individuals who deliberately shape debate on particular public issues, especially those who use the media to influence that debate.
Roosh may be a limited purpose public figure. In that case, Roosh would have to show that Tucker Max and Nils Parker acted with actual malice – that is, that they spoke with reckless disregard for the statement’s truth or falsity.
Did Max and Parker speak with actual malice when they claimed Roosh lied? It seems so, as Roosh’s post is publicly available. Anyone with an Internet connection (let alone interns, as Tucker has) could have read Roosh’s post.
Before deciding that Max and Parker acted with actual malice, “a court will look for evidence of the defendant’s state of mind at the time of publication and will likely examine the steps he took in researching, editing, and fact checking his work.”
That would be something that the court would learn after Roosh sued and obtained discovery.
Tucker would be required to hand over his hard drive and any emails he sent about Roosh and other similar writers in order to determine whether he knew he was lying about Roosh. If I were Tucker Max, I’d start deleting documents asap.
Regardless of whether Roosh would win in court, one thing is clear: Tucker Max and Nils Parker lied.
Regardless of the legalities, Tucker Max and Nils Parker have shown that they have no integrity.
If you are a man who associates with Tucker Max and Nils Parker and Geoffrey Miller, take a long look in the mirror.
I have conclusively shown that Tucker Max is a liar. Unless Tucker Max, Geoffrey Miller, and Nils Parker apologize, anyone who associates with them will leave others to wonder if their own character is suspect.