GETTING WEIRD

Kash’s Girlfriend Called Out Over Baffling Booze Claim

Alexis Wilkins claims she was portrayed as a “habitual heavy drinker” in an MS Now article that never mentioned her drinking habits.

FBI Director Kash Patel’s country singer girlfriend has been called out in court over a head-scratching claim about her drinking habits.

The claim came as part of a defamation lawsuit that Alexis Wilkins filed against MS Now back in May, alleging she was falsely smeared in an article that claimed Patel had ordered an FBI security detail to drive one of her friends home.

Wilkins, in arguing against the network’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claimed that the reporters knowingly defamed her in what she described as a “hit piece.”

Her lawyers claim the article implied that Wilkins, who they describe as a “sober young woman who does not partake in the excess drinking culture and party scene that is typical for musicians,” was portrayed as a “habitual heavy drinker” by MS Now—despite the network making no mention of the 27-year-old country singer ever consuming alcohol in the piece.

Wilkins’ team claims that MS Now implied she was drinking in part because she was in a “party town” like Nashville. Her lawyers suggested that writing about nights out in Nashville is a “more serious accusation” than writing about a night out in a city like Columbus, Ohio.

Lawyers for Wilkins go on to claim that the “implication” by MS Now was “clear.”

According to the article, “Wilkins was present during these ‘night[s] of partying.’ She was there with her friend. She was the one who asked the agents to act,” Wilkins’ lawyers write. “The article does not need to spell out that Ms. Wilkins was also partying and drinking—the framing of the article communicates it.”

They later add, “The article’s framing portrays her as ‘a heavy drinker, who regularly parties late at night in Nashville, Tennessee.’”

MS Now responded in a Tuesday filing, saying Wilkins’ claims are “unreasonable.”

The Dec. 5 report that is central to Wilkins’ defamation suit never says that she was drinking on her nights out with friends.

“Wilkins concedes the article says nothing about whether she drank alcohol on those nights or whether she ever drinks alcohol,” the filing from MS Now’s lawyers reads. “Wilkins also does not contest that she goes out with friends in Nashville, some friends drink alcohol, and she ‘may have an occasional alcoholic drink,’ too.”

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The filing added, “Nothing in the article could be read to suggest ‘habitual’ drinking, as it mentions only ‘at least two’ incidents between ‘spring’ and December.”

MS Now’s lawyers have called on a federal judge in Tennessee to toss the suit—or at least move it from the federal court in Nashville to the District of Columbia.

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Wilkins’ team, unsurprisingly, disagrees.

“The statements are more than capable of defamatory meaning—and of casting Ms. Wilkins in a highly offensive false light—by portraying her as misusing federal agents as a personal car service and as a habitual late-night partier,” they wrote in a filing last week. “Accordingly, the motion to dismiss or transfer should be denied in full.”

MS Now says it does not comment on ongoing legal matters. However, its president, Rebecca Kutler, said in a statement this summer: “We stand firmly behind MS NOW’s reporting.”

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