Wired Slams ‘Baseless’ Madison Square Garden Defamation Lawsuit Over Its Gay Celeb Surveillance Story
Wired vowed to “vigorously defend” itself after Madison Square Garden sued the outlet for defamation Thursday over a report alleging the company surveilled gay celebrity fans.
“Earlier today, Wired learned that Madison Square Garden was suing us for accurate reporting,” leadership for the outlet wrote on X Thursday evening. “We stand by this reporting, and plan to vigorously defend it against this baseless and ridiculous lawsuit.”
The statement continued: “We look forward to continuing our coverage of MSG, and on billionaire James Dolan’s use of technology across his entertainment empire. It’s one part of our wider mission and the critical job of journalist, now more than ever: holding power to account.”
The outlet’s response came hours after the Garden’s bombshell lawsuit surfaced, in which they accused Wired of using stolen data “to manufacture a false narrative portraying MSG as targeting the LGBTQIA community for discriminatory purposes.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth – MSG is a fervent supporter of the LGBTQIA community with a long history of inclusion, not exclusion,” the company defended, even claiming that the list in-question was “created by the reporters themselves through their own manipulation of raw data.”
Though, the company did note that some of the data was hacked from a “standard customer relationship management platform,” which was used for “extending invitations to LGBTQIA support events, identifying sales and sponsorship opportunities and facilitating charitable donations and community outreach.”
In the suit, the Garden referred to a July 9 Wired article titled “Madison Square Garden Kept a List of Gay Celebrities,” in which it claimed the venue kept a secret database of celebrities, where they assigned “risk scores” and allegedly catalogued their race, gender and sexual identity. The piece alleged that dozens were categorized as “LGBTQIA.”
However, the company has pushed back on this narrative, and, in turn, is now seeking both a retraction and correction, as well as damages.