Hollywood attorney Bryan Freedman lost a key ruling in his legal battle with “Zoey 101” alum Alexa Nikolas Wednesday, with a judge denying the power player his anti-SLAPP motion in full.
In court documents, obtained and viewed by TheWrap, Judge Michael E. Whitaker found that the former child star had established probability of prevailing on the defamation claims she brought against Freedman, which alleged that he and his circle coordinated a smear campaign against her.
“Finding that Plaintiff is a limited public interest figure and that the alleged statements arise in connection with her role in that public interest dialog, but that Plaintiff has established a probability of prevailing on the merits,” the filing noted, “the Court denies Freedman’s special motion to strike and request for attorneys’ fees in its entirety.”
Nikolas, who founded the advocacy organization Eat Predators, has faced off against Freedman on more than one occasion. Namely, the attorney represented Nikolas’ ex-husband, Michael Milosh, who she sued for sexual abuse in August 2021. The next year, the former Nickelodeon star staged a protest outside Freedman’s office, highlighting a no-fault settlement the attorney made in 1991 after being accused of sexual assault.
“Ms. Nikolas was the subject of a smear website and social media activity designed to discredit and defame her,” she alleged in the documents. “It has come to light that the Defendants in this case, along with Does 1-100, were behind this website and social media activity.”
Nikolas said she failed to identify who was responsible for the website until Blake Lively sued her “It Ends With Us” director Justin Baldoni, accusing the latter’s camp of a coordinated smear effort designed to attack her reputation. Publicist Stephanie Jones made similar accusations in her own lawsuit, which allegedly highlights data that identified Freedman as being involved with some the sites in question.
“The evidence uncovered in the Lively and Jones cases has revealed that Ms. Nikolas was a victim of a smear campaign taken from the playbook of Melissa Nathan, Bryan Freedman and Does 1-100,” Nikolas’ camp argued in the document. “Ms. Nikolas has suffered severe damage caused by the lies published about her and only now has learned the identities of some of those responsible. Throughout discovery, Ms. Nikolas will identify anyone and everyone else involved in defaming her.”
In response, the judge wrote in his ruling, “There is a tangled web of connections between these sites and numerous others in addition to that authored about Plaintiff.”
He added: “Thus, the Court finds that Plaintiff alleges Defendants were engaged in a conspiracy to smear various individuals, including Plaintiff, each having an adversarial connection to one of Freedman’s clients, which not only alleges a motive, but also suggests that Freedman was involved in directing or otherwise effectuating all of those alleged smear campaigns.”
Freedman did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment. Though, per the filing, Freedman argued “that many of the allegedly defamatory statements are actually non-actionable opinions.”
The post ‘Zoey 101’ Alum Alexa Nikolas Scores Legal Win in Defamation Battle Against Hollywood Attorney Bryan Freedman appeared first on TheWrap.
