Falling in Reverse frontman Ronnie Radke threatened music critic Anthony Fantano with a lawsuit after he made seemingly libelous statements about Radke's legal troubles in a series of YouTube videos.
Radke and Fantano previously sparred on social media in 2023 after the music critic referred to Falling in Reverse's "Watch the World Burn" as a "really bad rap-metal song" that appeared to mimic rapper Tom MacDonald's style "without the racism."
In response, the Falling in Reverse frontman called Fantano the "Perez Hilton of music critics" in a now-deleted post on X, then-Twitter. The two then engaged in a back-and-forth as both insulted each other's appearance and relevance.
In a Monday video posted to X, Radke said a fan brought his attention to several YouTube videos shared by Fantano over the last year in which the music critic appeared to imply Radke was a "rapist," "racist," "woman beater," and "transphobe" when discussing the musician's prior legal troubles. Radke has previously been accused of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and assaulting audience members during a performance, though the matters have been resolved and charges were later dropped.
Radke said he had not previously seen Fantano's videos, adding he otherwise would have responded "a long time ago."
"Anthony Fantano is what's wrong with our music scene," Radke captioned his video, accusing the music critic of "[perpetuating] a political agenda and biased opinion on music if he thinks you are opposing his views."
"He's a failed musician that uses people’s hard work and success to negatively (if not negative) arrogantly give his baseless and unprofessional opinions on music and intentionally trashes people based on what he thinks the type a person they are and gets paid to do it," Radke wrote. "He knows that when he’s negative it gets more views therefore more money, ironic coming from a communist."
In August 2023, Fantano posted a video titled "This Guy Sucks" and referred to Radke as "quite possibly the biggest living piece of trash in the world of rock music," while also suggested the Falling in Reverse frontman parroted "right-wing" talking points and garnered a Republican fan base.
"It's just so weird that he keeps getting away with being a totally unrepentant, abusive, mean, manipulative, take-advantage-of-you-in-any-way-that-he-can piece of s---," Fantano said of Radke's legal troubles at the time, though added a brief "allegedly" text caption to his statement.
In his Monday video, Radke reiterated his aforementioned charges had been dropped, adding he had later sued and won his case against Katelynd Boswell, who accused him of sexual assault.
"The audacity of you, with such a wide platform, to try and imply that I'm using my platform to silence people," Radke said. "I'm actually using my platform to stand up for false allegations, because there's a lot of men out there that have false allegations that are afraid to stand up because they're gonna get attacked by people like you."
Radke insisted Fantano's remarks made in the August 2023 video would be found libelous in court: "I will sue the ever-living beep out of your a--."
"This man has made a whole career off of his arrogance and narcissism, thinking that anybody actually cares about your opinion other than Andrew Tate fans," Radke said of Fantano. "That's who I picture being your fans in your comments. Incels that don't get girlfriends commenting the most negative crap."
The Falling in Reverse frontman then labeled Fantano "the most negative human human being on this planet."
Radke countered Fantano's remarks about his fan base, saying his audience spanned the political spectrum.
"Implying that I sexually assaulted someone on your video that's still up ... [with] it not being true with DNA factual evidence is insane, brother," Radke said, adding: "I will take everything you have."
"Also, implying that you know that my charges for domestic violence were dismissed, because it wasn't true, but saying, 'But I don't know'—that makes you libel, homie," he continued. "You can have an opinion, but you can't imply something like that serious."
Radke then countered Fantano's claims of transphobia by noting the inclusion of two transgender individuals, including YouTuber Blaire White, in Falling in Reverse's latest music video for "All My Life."
"You're gonna have to take that video down," Radke directed to Fantano, calling the music critic a "sellout."
"You're trying to make it seem like I'm this awful person with all these not true things," he continued.
In another post to X, Radke told Fantano to "Lawyer up."
The Falling in Reverse frontman continued his response to Fantano in a series of X posts.
"[Anthony Fantano], you have taken something as extremely traumatic as me being falsely accused and made people think I was actually guilty of it, uploaded it and made money off it," Radke wrote. "I have had ptsd from this everyday since it happened. I think about it everyday. and you took that and used it to make money."
"The old me would send some outlaws to speak to you but the new me has to take you to court, so crazy that you as a vegan can’t hop of my meat for 1 second. You’re about to get cooked," he continued.
"Like I get people have opinions, but the second I realized [Fantano] was a poser was when I noticed the way he tried describing music and sounds," Radke continued in another post. "Life long musicians have a certain way of speaking. Like I can call a random musician that’s been a life long musician right now I’ve never spoken to in my life and we can both talk in a specific musical way that sounds like a foreign language to non musicians and we will both understand exactly what one another are saying."
"So when Anthony was describing the reasons he didn’t like Sleep Token and tried sounding like a real actual musician I immediately knew he’s got these people subscribed to him fooled," Radke said, referencing Fantano's criticism of Sleep Token. "He is a POSER people I promise you."
Fantano has not responded to Radke's lawsuit threat as of Tuesday evening.
