{"id":43970,"date":"2026-08-14T08:48:03","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T03:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=43970"},"modified":"2026-08-14T08:48:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T03:48:03","slug":"alexa-nikolas-wins-ruling-in-defamation-case-against-bryan-freedman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=43970","title":{"rendered":"Alexa Nikolas Wins Ruling In Defamation Case Against Bryan Freedman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div xmlns:default=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\">\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tMonths after a resolution to the sprawling legal battle over the filming of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/it-ends-with-us\/\"><em>It Ends With Us<\/em><\/a>, Hollywood power lawyer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/bryan-freedman\/\" id=\"auto-tag_bryan-freedman_1\" data-tag=\"bryan-freedman\">Bryan Freedman<\/a> is still dealing with fallout from the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<em>Zoey 101 <\/em>alum <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/alexa-nikolas\/\">Alexa Nikolas<\/a> won a key ruling on Wednesday in a defamation lawsuit against Freedman, with a court finding that she\u2019s established a probability of prevailing on defamation claims accusing him and those in his orbit of marshaling a smear campaign against her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tNikolas, founder of advocacy organization Eat Predators, has a long and contentious history with Freedman, who had represented her ex-husband Michael Milosh when she sued the musician for sexual abuse. She had organized protests outside of his offices in 2022 after discovering that he had also been accused of sexual assault in a case that resulted in a no-fault settlement in 1991. Around the time of these protests, a smear site that aimed to undermine her activism \u2014 including through assertions that her current husband was a predator \u2014 popped up about her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tNikolas didn\u2019t connect Freedman to the site until Lively sued <em>It Ends With Us <\/em>director Justin Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer. The thrust of Lively\u2019s lawsuit focused on alleged sexual harassment on the set of the film, but it also accused Baldoni and his public relations team \u2014 led by top crisis publicist Melissa Nathan and digital fixer Jed Wallace \u2014 of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/business\/business-news\/inside-hollywood-smear-campaign-scandals-1236501807\/\">spawning a smear machine<\/a> that threatened her reputation. This led to sister lawsuits, including one from publicist Stephanie Jones, who claimed that Nathan and Wallace have long engaged in creating smear sites targeting women. That gave Nikolas the ammunition to file a lawsuit, which points to alleged data identifying Freedman as involved in the generation of some of the sites.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIn Wednesday\u2019s ruling, Los Angeles Superior Court judge Michael Whitaker rebuffed Freedman\u2019s bid to dismiss the case. He concluded that Nikolas has produced enough evidence to potentially prove the alleged campaign was defamatory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAmong the findings: Nikolas sufficiently demonstrated a probability of proving the allegedly defamatory statements were untrue. This includes a claim on a second smear site about her that she partnered with former California senator Joe Dunn to push others into making false accusations of sexual assault.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWhitaker also pointed to court records across multiple cases in which several plaintiffs describe a \u201csimilar modus operandi and common website traffic optimization tactics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tFreedman had argued that Nikolas can\u2019t prove the assertions advanced in the sites were false and that some were simply statements of opinion, which can\u2019t give rise to a defamation claim. On this front, the court said that the allegations in the site \u201call imply provably false assertions of fact\u201d that Nikolas is \u201ceither a criminal who has committed criminal acts, or she is not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tMultiple smear sites identified in the case between Jones and Baldoni appear to have evidence of common authorship, including Alexanikolas.net, which claimed she extorted multiple ex-boyfriends by threatening them with manufacturing sexual abuse claims, among other things. In Jones\u2019 case, a cybersecurity expert submitted an expert report indicating that those who created the site about Nikolas may have also created ones about Amanda Ghost, who\u2019s engaged in a defamation battle against Rebel Wilson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cThere is a tangled web of connections between these sites and numerous others in addition to that authored about plaintiff,\u201d Whitaker wrote, noting a \u201cconspiracy to smear various individuals\u201d who had adversarial connections to Freedman\u2019s clients. That not only suggests a motive, the court found, but also indicates that the lawyer may have been \u201cinvolved in directing or otherwise effectuating all of those alleged smear campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tEarlier this year, Wilson\u2019s crisis public relations team \u2014 comprised of Nathan and Wallace \u2014 was heard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/business\/business-news\/rebel-wilsons-smear-campaign-leaked-audio-1236527759\/\">discussing plans<\/a> to create anonymous sites that accused Ghost of sex trafficking as part of an alleged smear campaign solicited by the actress against <em>The Deb<\/em> producer. In a recording obtained by <em>The Hollywood Reporter,<\/em> Wallace instructed Nathan to assert without evidence that Ghost is a \u201cmadame\u201d whose work involves procuring young women for wealthy and powerful men.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cWe can\u2019t just do, like, oh, she\u2019s a bitch, she sucks,\u201d Wallace says in the recording. \u201cIt\u2019s, like, it\u2019s got to be really, really heavy and connected to something that heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAt one point in the conversation, Wallace referenced the involvement of Freedman, Wilson\u2019s then-counsel in the case. Freedman and Nathan didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment, though they\u2019ve previously denied involvement in the creation of the smear sites. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Months after a resolution to the sprawling legal battle over the filming of It Ends With Us, Hollywood power lawyer Bryan Freedman is still dealing with fallout from the case. Zoey 101 alum Alexa Nikolas won a key ruling on Wednesday in a defamation lawsuit against Freedman, with a court finding that she\u2019s established a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-2196938366-EMBED-2026.jpg?crop=0px%2C3px%2C1000px%2C560px&resize=1440%2C810","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}