BOOM: Judge rules in favor of young Chiefs fan falsely accused of sporting ‘blackface’ at game

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From Fox News: A Delaware judge ruled Monday that the Armenta family’s lawsuit against Deadspin for accusing their son of wearing “blackface” at a Chiefs game last year can proceed.

In 2023, Deadspin writer Carron Phillips wrote an article using an image of nine-year-old Holden Armenta sporting black and red Kansas City Chiefs face paint at a game, showing only the black half of his face. Phillips accused Holden of finding a way to “hate Black people and the Native Americans at the same time” and accused his parents of teaching him “hatred.”

Holden’s parents Raul Jr. and Shannon later filed a lawsuit in February accusing the sports blog of maliciously attacking Holden by selectively posting only one half of his face and accusing them of racism. 

On Monday, Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg denied Deadspin’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, agreeing that the blog posted “provable false assertions” as facts rather than opinion.

In an indication of where this lawsuit could end up, the judge wrote, “Deadspin published an image of a child displaying his passionate fandom as a backdrop for its critique of the NFL’s diversity efforts and, in its description of the child, crossed the fine line protecting its speech from defamation claims.”

“It takes a lot to disrespect two groups of people at once. But on Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas, a Kansas City Chiefs fan found a way to hate Black people and the Native American at the same time,” Deadspin raged in their original report on November 27, 2023.

“This is what happens when you ban books, stand against Critical Race Theory, and try to erase centuries of hate. You give future generations the ammunition they need to evolve and recreate racism better than before,” the writer, Carron Phillips, bizarrely claimed.

In reality, the child was NOT wearing ‘blackface,’ but had painted half his face black and the other half red in support of his favorite NFL team’s colors.

Deadspin faced massive backlash over the defamatory article against the child, and now they’ve got a lawsuit on their hands, which has just received the green light from a judge.

Deadspin later deleted their social media posts about the article, changed the title of the story from “The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress” to “The NFL Must Ban Native Headdress And Culturally Insensitive Face Paint in the Stands.”

Deadspin has also revised their article, and added an editor’s note which reads:

On Nov. 27, Deadspin published an opinion piece criticizing the NFL for allowing a young fan to attend the Kansas City Chiefs game against the Las Vegas Raiders on Nov. 26 wearing a traditional Native American headdress and, based upon the available photo, what appeared to be black face paint.

Unfortunately the article drew attention to the fan, though our intended focus was on the NFL and its checkered history on race, an issue which our writer has covered extensively for Deadspin. Three years ago, the Chiefs banned fans from wearing headdresses in Arrowhead Stadium, as well as face painting that “appropriates American Indian cultures and traditions.” The story’s intended focus was the NFL and its failure to extend those rules to the entire league.

We regret any suggestion that we were attacking the fan or his family. To that end, our story was updated on Dec. 7 to remove any photos, tweets, links, or otherwise identifying information about the fan. We have also revised the headline to better reflect the substance of the story.

In March, Deadspin was sold to a European start-up and the entire staff was reportedly fired.

The writer of the original report, Carron Phillips, has locked up his X/Twitter account, so his posts are hidden from the public.

On Nov. 28, 2023, journalist Collin Rugg shared a video from the moment that Deadspin based their original, defamatory article on, along with the following commentary:

The young boy who was labeled as wearing ‘blackface’ by Deadspin is Holden Armenta. His mother, Shannon Armenta confirmed that her son was the one at the middle of the controversy on her Facebook page.

It gets even better: Chiefs players saw Holden during the game and decided to join him with his tomahawk chop. Black players were so ‘offended’ by the “blackface” that they copied Holden’s chop.

What an embarrassment for Deadspin.

CJ Pearson wrote, “The media is trying to cancel and accuse a child (who is literally Native American) of racism for wearing face paint at a Chiefs game. What’s even crazier is that black football players spotted him at the game and cheered him on 😂 Journalism is dead.”

In February, the little boy triumphantly attended the Super Bowl, wearing his face paint and headdress in a show of support for his favorite team, the Kansas City Chiefs.

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