MANHATTAN (CN) - A federal appeals panel affirmed Wednesday the dismissal of a self-represented defamation suit against music magazine Rolling Stone brought by Caleb McGillvary, better known online from a 2013 viral news clip as "Kai the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker."
McGillvary, who shot to internet fame in the early 2010s as a homeless surfer who enthusiastically recalled on local news how he thwarted a racially motivated attack in Fresno, California, claimed in a 2023 pro se complaint that Rolling Stone defamed him in an article titled "A Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker Went Viral. Then He Killed Someone."
The Rolling Stone article, itself a preview of a then-upcoming Netflix true crime documentary that chronicles McGillvary's viral fame from the initial Fresno incident to his 2019 conviction for the unrelated killing of a lawyer in New Jersey - which he claimed was in self-defense.
U.S. District Judge Dale Ho threw out the defamation complaint in 2025, concluding the statements were either protected expressions of opinion or, in one case, actually backed up by McGillvary's own telling of the underlying events.
The Joe Biden appointee also found that McGillvary failed to plead actual malice as required by a limited-purpose public figure.
McGillvary, currently serving out his 57-year murder sentence in the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, argued on appeal that the Rolling Stone article contained four libelous statements, but the Second Circuit panel concluded Wednesday that the statements were not defamatory because they were either nonactionable expressions of opinion or lacked a sufficient showing of actual malice in Rolling Stone's reporting.
"In any event, the larger context of the article belies a finding that Rolling Stone acted with actual malice," the panel wrote in its unsigned summary order, referring to the legal requirement imposed upon public officials or public figures when they file suit for libel.
McGillvary claimed Rolling Stone defamed him in characterizations of him as someone described by people who knew him well as "prone to fits of rage" and separately for stating he once "tried to start a fire in the family home and was subsequently sent into foster care at the age of 13."
He also claimed Rolling Stone defamed him with references to having smoked a "laced joint" with Jett Simmons McBride, the driver who picked him up while a hitchhiker and drove with him to Fresno, and reportedly later told McBride that they were both "ghosts" and encouraged him to drive his truck into a crowd of people "right now" since "nobody could see us."
McGillvary argued the "ghosts" statement and the "laced joint" reference, appearing in the same section of the Rolling Stone article, implied he bore fault for McBride's driving into a group of bystanders with his truck.
The Second Circuit rejected that pair of defamation claims for lacking a showing of actual malice, finding instead that Rolling Stone reported the "evidence relevant to the allegation without drawing a conclusion."
"In other words, the reasonable reader would conclude that Rolling Stone reported on the content of the documentary, without endorsing the statement," the panel wrote in the summary order.
The three-judge panel was comprised of U.S. Circuit Judges Richard Sullivan and Steven Menashi, both Donald Trump appointees, along with U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Wesley, a George W. Bush appointee.
McGillvary has spent the last several years suing content creators and filmmakers alike who have mentioned him.
In September 2024, he sued comedian and podcaster Theo Von, claiming defamation and copyright infringement, after Von uploaded a version of McGillvary's 2013 TV interview with Von's face deepfaked over McGillvary's. The case was voluntarily dismissed last year.
Earlier, McGillvary sued video streaming service Netflix in February 2023 over a litany of claims, including defamation, after the platform released "The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker," a documentary about McGillvary's life. A federal judge in California dismissed the claims in October 2024; McGillvary promptly appealed.
A Georgia federal judge dismissed similar claims in September 2025 brought by McGillvary against a group of YouTubers known as "The Behavior Panel" over an attempt to psychoanalyze him in a video.
McGillvary stated in court that the killing of Galfy in his own home was in self-defense after Galfy attempted to drug and rape him; a jury disagreed, finding him guilty of first-degree murder in April 2019.
Representatives for Rolling Stone did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Source: Courthouse News Service
