MediaTakeOut Founder Responds To Kardashian Libel Lawsuit

The founder of the website, MediaTakeOut, has responded to the lawsuit filed by Kim Kardashian West, after the website reported that the reality TV star “staged” her own robbery.

What was the incident?

On October 3, 2016, Kim Kardashian West was robbed at her hotel in Paris. Kardashian West told police that she was tied up, threatened with a gun, and robbed of millions of dollars worth of jewelry. French police are still investigating the robbery.

Following the robbery, with millions of people following the story online and through social media platforms, the celebrity gossip site MediaTakeOut.com published articles suggesting that Kardashian West and her mother, Kris Jenner, may have staged her own robbery.

Kardashian West filed a lawsuit in federal court against MediaTakeOut.com alleging libel.

What was the response?

Fred Mwangaguhunga, founder of MediaTakeOut, gave an interview to CNN in which he acknowledged that the site’s reporting had “gone too far.” He further stated, “Our number one goal is to produce the most accurate information as quickly as possible, and we did that. But now, looking back at it, you have a chance often times to look back and reflect on what it is that happened. It’s now clear that she was robbed. It’s clear that the reporting that we did hurt her, and we certainly don’t want that to be what we do.”

The three stories published on MediaTakeOut that suggested that Kardashian West staged her robbery have been removed from the site.

Mwangaguhunga commented, “It’s a bigger issue than just someone telling you to take it down. Sometimes you take it down because there’s something on there that’s not right and your readers are being misled by the information on it.” He also stated, “Kim Kardashian is not just a celebrity, she is a human being. She is a mother, she is a wife, and she was a victim of a violent crime. She definitely did not deserve it, and she deserved to be believed.”

Were there any related lawsuits?

Kardashian West is also initiating legal action against the celebrity gossip website Radar Online, that published a video from inside her apartment in Paris right after she was robbed. The video showed Kardashian West in her hotel room on FaceTime while the police investigated the premises. The site described Kardashian West as, “sitting cozily on a couch, bundled up in a blanket, calmly video-chatting on a cell phone — and far from hysterical as she’s been publicly painted.”

Radar Online also expressed its suspicions over Kardashian West’s story because she had reported that her phone was stolen during the robbery and the video did not show signs of bruising from being tied up or evidence of a break-in.

Following a threat of legal action from Kardashian West, Radar Online removed the video from its original story and included the following statement.

“The video accompanying this article has been removed because of a legal threat from Kim Kardashian, and the article revised accordingly. We do not believe, however, that either the video or the article accuse Ms. Kardashian of “faking” the Paris robbery, as her attorneys have claimed, and which we did not intend. Rather, they raise legitimate questions about the events at issue, questions which many media outlets and many other people have also raised. We apologize to Ms. Kardashian for any implication otherwise.”

Photo Credit: Kim and Khloe Kardashian, by Eva Rinaldi, CC BY-SA 2.0.