Bachelor sues fifty women for £2m after they said he was ‘ bad date’
A BACHELOR is attempting to sue 50 women after they started a Facebook group to warn others about him being a ‘bad date’.
Stewart Lucas Murrey had complained about his treatment in the viral group called ‘Are We Dating The Same Guy?’ in which women made unflattering comments about him.
The posts left him suffering from ‘emotional distress’, PTSD and ‘mortification’, according to his complaint and he was seeking $2.6 million (£2 million) in compensatory and punitive damages.
But the Yale-educated academic’s first case in Los Angeles against Vanessa Valdes has been dismissed after she denied defaming him.
The lawsuits relate to an initial post by Kelly Gibbons, one of the women who has been sued, in the Facebook group.
She had met Mr Murrey on a dating app then chatted on the phone with him before deciding not to meet him in person.
His behaviour alarmed her so much she warned other women about him, saying that ‘I wouldn’t want my friend going out with someone like that’.
At the time the Los Angeles chapter of the group had 10,000 members and other women began chiming in with their interactions with Mr Murrey, including screenshots of messages and in-person dates.
After Mr Murrey became aware of the posts, he sued around 50 women last June for defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
In his complaint, Mr Murrey said that the women in the group claimed he was involved in the ‘murder case of his ex-wife’ and was ‘suspected of murder’. ‘All of these statements are false,’ he said.
The women rejected his claim and said he was trying to intimidate them and stamp on their right to free speech. Miss Valdes was the first to file a motion to dismiss the case under laws which are designed to stop nuisance lawsuits.
After a hearing in Los Angeles on Monday, the judge dismissed the case after ‘considering the moving papers, all documents relating to the motion, and oral arguments’. Miss Valdes says that she exchanged messages with Mr Murrey but never actually went on a date with him due to his offensive messages.
She says he called her a ‘moron’ and sent her the menacing message: ‘It’s fun watching you burn’.
Other women who he is suing claim he called them ‘criminals’, ‘losers’ and ‘psychotic women’.
Mr Murrey is representing himself in the lawsuit and did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement on his website, he wrote that the women’s actions were ‘hate-fueled and relentless’.
He likened the women to ‘femcels’, a play on incels, the term for men who consider themselves ‘involuntarily celibate’ because they cannot find a partner.
‘The glue of their group is their hatred of men,’ Mr Murrey wrote. He has also taken issue with the aim of the Facebook group, which organisers say offers ‘a place for women to protect, support, and empower other women’.
They can post pictures of men they have dated, or are planning to date, and members ‘can warn other women about liars, cheaters, abusers, or anyone who exhibits any type of toxic or dangerous behaviour’.
On a fundraising page, Mr Murrey wrote: ‘ These women exploited the concept of a safe space to gossip, defame and cyberbully anyone at whim’.
‘It’s fun watching you burn’