{"id":447833,"date":"2026-02-04T04:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T04:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/447833\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T04:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T04:07:09","slug":"ryan-kennedy-files-100-million-lawsuit-against-dk-metcalf-shannon-sharpe-chad-johnson-and-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/447833\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Kennedy files $100 million lawsuit against DK Metcalf, Shannon Sharpe, Chad Johnson, and others"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the moment Lions fan Ryan Kennedy hired counsel in the aftermath of his in-game altercation with Steelers receiver DK Metcalf, it was obvious this was coming.<\/p>\n

Kennedy has sued Metcalf and various others<\/a>, via Christian Romo of USA Today. The lawsuit focused on the alleged assault \u2014 and on the statements made about Kennedy following the December 21 incident.<\/p>\n

The civil action, filed on Tuesday, targets Metcalf, the Steelers, and Ford Field management in connection with the assault. Metcalf, Shannon Sharpe, Chad Johnson, and Shay Shay Media were sued for defamation.<\/p>\n

Johnson said during an episode of the Nightcap podcast that Kennedy provoked Metcalf by using a racial slur, and by using a misogynistic term in reference to Metcalf\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe statements were false and reckless,\u201d the lawsuit alleges. \u201cPlaintiff Kennedy did not call Defendant Metcalf the \u2018N-word’; did not call Defendant Metcalf mother a \u2018c—‘; and did not ever use any racial slurs or hate speech whatsoever. . . . Defendant Metcalf provided false information to Defendant Johnson about what Plaintiff Kennedy allegedly said, thereby instigating and authorizing the publication of the defamatory and reckless statements which were intended to harm Plaintiff Kennedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy seeks $100 million in damages, along with a \u201cfull public retraction and correction of defamatory statements\u201d from Johnson and Sharpe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the moment Lions fan Ryan Kennedy hired counsel in the aftermath of his in-game altercation with Steelers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-447833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}