14 DAY TRIAL // A little over a year ago, when Bristol Palin first started shooting her critically panned reality show “Life’s a Tripp,” she was involved in an incident with a bar heckler. The incident was captured on camera and made the object of a lawsuit that has just been tossed by a judge.
As we also informed you at the time, the man first confronted Palin at a bar in California, where she was out with friends.
He called her and her mother Sarah Palin names, and then suggested that she responded to him the way she did because she assumed he was gay.
The heckler took matters to court by filing a defamation lawsuit, but a judge found no evidence to back up his case, ABC News reports.
“A defamation lawsuit filed by a man who made headlines for heckling Bristol Palin in a California bar has been tossed out, her attorney John Tiemessen told ABC News,” the media outlet notes.
“Stephen Hanks’ lawsuit noted that Palin suggested he is [gay] during their exchange, which occurred while she was shooting a segment for her Lifetime series, “Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp.” Hanks claims he’s been featured in ads for the show despite the fact that he never signed a waiver,” ABC further says.
“Hanks also states that Palin falsely claimed to a magazine that the incident was the reason why she moved from Los Angeles back to her native Alaska. He argues that Palin bought a home in Alaska two months before the incident,” ABC adds.
He failed to provide the court with evidence to sustain any of his claims.
The judge has ordered Hanks to pay Palin’s attorney fees, after he dismissed the case.
The irony is that, after word of the incident got out in the press, rumors were saying that the whole thing had been staged by producers of Palin’s reality show who, this way, hoped to boost ratings by creating some artificial drama.
Whether that was true or not, the bottom line is that the show failed to strike a chord either with critics or the people at home.