Fact Check: Did Riley Gaines win a $8 million lawsuit against Whoopi Goldberg? Viral tweet debunked 

Recently, a claim surfaced on social media that Riley Gaines, a former competitive swimmer, sued actor-comedian Whoopi Goldberg and won $8 million in defamation charges.

An X user with the handle @akafacehots captioned their post “Thoughts?” and shared a screenshot featuring both the former NCAA athlete and the Color Purple star’s images, with the text “Riley Gaines Wins $8 million defamation suit against Whoopi Goldberg” written below it. On the upper right corner, the “America’s Last Line of Defense” logo was also inscribed.

However, the claim can originally be traced back to a satire article published by the website SpaceXMania on October 9, 2023, where the alleged news was the same and only the amount of money differed. Here’s what the title read:.

“Breaking: Riley Gaines Wins $10 Million ‘Defamation Lawsuit’ Against Whoopi Golberg.”

According to Snopes, the rumor is false and was made for chuckles. The duo has never been involved in any mutual legal troubles.

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Riley Gaines has never sued Whoopi Goldberg

On Friday, February 23, a rumor surfaced on X that Riley Gaines won an $8 million defamation lawsuit against Whoopi Goldberg. However, a similar claim was first published in October last year, where it said that the former sued the latter and won $10 million.

The news has since been proven to be fake. In fact, SpaceXMania, the website where it was first published, was labeled as part of the “Satire” category above its headline. Here’s how satire writer Alex Bruno began the article.

“In a narrative that has threaded its way through courts, television studios, and the ever-buzzing hive of social media, Riley Gaines, a name now synonymous with legal victory, has ascended the proverbial podium once again."

It further continued,

"This time, she is not just basking in the ethereal glow of athletic accomplishment but is swathed in the vindication that comes from a triumph of a different sort—a whopping $10 million defamation lawsuit win against Whoopi Goldberg.”

The crux of the satire article was that Gaines sued Goldberg because the latter allegedly portrayed the former in a bad light on her daytime talk show The View, entering the lines of defamation.

Following this, the SpaceXMania article claimed that the Tennessee swimmer demanded a public apology and retraction of her alleged remarks. However, when that did not lead anywhere, she reportedly filed a lawsuit against the EGOT winner.

At the time of its publication, both Yahoo! and Snopes debunked the article as satire, claiming it was not meant to be taken seriously and was completely made up. Not only that, but none of the major media outlets ever reported the news, further making it inaccurate.

Regardless, SpaceXMania’s piece went viral, with other websites, including freerepublic.com, popularnews71.net/, newsc5.com, newsbina.fun, faithhopel.info, and lifestory25.com publishing it word for word. YouTuber Neha Xeon also posted the fake article on her channel. It also went viral on Facebook.

Notably, as Ground News reported, Riley Gaines responded to the false claim in October 2023 and cleared the air via X saying,

“As much as I would love for this to be true, it’s simply not. Who makes this stuff up?”

She also thanked her fans for their messages regarding the same.

As per Snopes, earlier, Gaines and Goldberg’s names were involved when rumors arose that the former joined hands with conservative commentator Candance Owens to “destroy” the Ghost actress for her alleged toxic nature. This satire article was also first published by SpaceXMania.