H3 Podcast's Ethan Klein Sued For A Third Time By Triller Co-Founder Ryan Kavanaugh

Ryan Kavanaugh, co-founder of social media app Triller, has sued H3 Podcast host Ethan Klein for defamation after the host repeatedly brought up negative headlines from Kavanaugh's past on the show. Klein hosted a live "emergency episode" of the H3 Podcast on Wednesday night to discuss the lawsuit and, ultimately, criticize Kavanaugh just a little more, who has already filed two lawsuits against Klein this year.

The Kavanaugh vs. Klein saga began back in May when Klein showed a short clip from the Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren pay-per-view event on his podcast in order to give commentary. Kavanaugh saw this as piracy, while Klein argues it's fair use, as he showed only a portion of what was a multiple-hour-long event and gave transformative commentary while watching it. The lawsuit seeks millions of dollars in reparations from Klein for what Kavanaugh sees as rebroadcasting the fight to millions of viewers.

It's important to note that Klein was involved in a similar lawsuit back in 2017 against creator Matt Hoss, who sued Klein for a critical commentary video he made on his H3H3 Productions channel goofing on Hoss. Klein ultimately won the lawsuit after a months-long legal battle, setting a legal precedent for future cases of its kind that allows creators to react to clips they don't own in their videos as long as they make transformative commentary.

After he was sued by Kavanaugh for the first time in May, the two attempted to settle the suit outside of court but failed to do so. In the following months, Klein proceeded to bring up the lawsuit and Kavanaugh regularly on the podcast. In particular, Klein repeatedly brought up public headlines from Kavanaugh's past to let the viewers know exactly what kind of person he's dealing with.

These include a story by Variety about an ex-partner of Kavanaugh's alleging he was running a Ponzi scheme (later retracted), a report alleging Kavanaugh was sued by his babysitter in a wage dispute, and an allegation about Kavanaugh fabricating a memo claiming sexual assault against Relativity Media's Co-President Adam Fields. Kavanaugh has had a number of additional run-ins with controversy on top of this.

As Klein repeatedly brought these up on the podcast, even going so far as to hang the Variety article up in the background of the podcast, the viewers had a field day, creating piles of memes about Kavanaugh and the lawsuit on the /r/h3h3productions subreddit and flooding Kavanaugh's comments with references to the show.

Beyond reminding his viewers of Kavanaugh's past crimes and blunders, he also made jokes implying Kavanaugh resembles notorious Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and made a website, doesryankavanaughlooklikeharveyweinstein.com, to help viewers spot the differences between the two.

These repeated mentions and jokes struck Kavanaugh as harassment, inspiring him to file a second lawsuit for defamation, against Klein, even including Klein and his wife Hila's clothing company Teddy Fresh in the lawsuit, stating it's an "alter ego" of the two. That lawsuit was ruled on this past Wednesday according to the Wednesday episode of the podcast and the results will likely be revealed today.

Finally, this brings us to the third lawsuit, which Kavanaugh claims is the first he's filed against Klien in a statement he posted to CSQ on Tuesday. The statement, written by Kavanaugh, claims that it was Triller that sued Klein the first two times, not Kavanaugh. It also mentions how Kavanaugh believes Klein inspired his followers and "bot accounts" to rate the Triller app poorly, leave harassing comments on his social media, and states that Klein used SEO tactics to make negative stories and videos about him take priority on Google.

Klein has denied all of this multiple times. This time around, Kavanaugh has hired big-time defamation lawyer Thomas Clare to handle the case, which mainly looks to sue Klein for repeatedly mentioning the Ponzi scheme allegation, which was retracted by the accuser later. Klein has mentioned the retraction on the podcast in previous episodes.

Klein has since posted a statement in response to Kavanaugh's CSQ article on the doesryankavanaughlooklikeharveyweinstein.com website where he links to numerous articles about Kavanaugh's controversial past and insists that reading a headline on-air is not defamation, as Klein has never made up any new allegations about the former Relativity Media CEO (a company which he famously bankrupted back in 2015).

Like the Hoss v. Klein lawsuit before it, the outcome of the Kavanaugh v. Klein lawsuit stands to set a further legal precedent on what is and is not considered fair use. Similarly to Hoss as well, Kavanaugh doesn't seem to be garnering a whole lot of support online, especially in comparison to Klein, who is receiving support from creators including Philip DeFranco, Def Noodles, media outlet The Hollywood Reporter and Emily D. Baker, a lawyer who reacts to lawsuits on her YouTube channel, not to mention his millions of YouTube subscribers.

Despite the expensive new lawyer and millions of dollars in his pocket, things are not looking good for Kavanaugh according to many online. If Kavanaugh does win the suit, however, this could be a huge blow to the state of commentary and free speech online. Until judgment day finally comes, millions of H3 Podcast viewers will be waiting with bated breath for the results of the lawsuits.