Despite building a career out playing criminals, lowlifes, unpleasant people, and unpleasant criminal lowlifes, make no mistake: James Woods will sue you for damaging his reputation. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the veteran actor is suing “Abe List” for $10 million, all because of a tweet accusing Woods of being addicted to cocaine. According to the legal complaint, the defendant tweeted “cocaine addict James Woods still sniffing and spouting.” The case asserts that the tweet was false, stating “AL’s outrageous claim is the culmination of a malicious online campaign by AL to discredit and damage Woods’ reputation, a campaign which began as early as December 2014.” Twitter has disabled Abe List’s account, but a search for cached tweets returns some of the evidence in question.
Apparently the trolling began last December, when Woods celebrated the birth of Christ by implying that President Obama was secretly a Muslim. “Abe List” responded with the type of civil, well-reasoned response that one would expect to encounter in any social media discussion about politics:
Weeks later, “Abe List” ventured a possible reason behind Woods’ spirited political commentary:
In a week where Twitter made the news by asserting that its content should be legally protected from comedy bandits like Conan O’Brien, the social media service may soon learn if users can also be held accountable for trolling famous people who can’t figure out how to block them.
The case will require Woods’ lawyers’ ability to identify the actual person behind the Twitter account, but a ruling in favor of Woods could have a chilling effect on libelous insults made on social media. It would also net Woods enough money to score a considerable amount of uncut cocaine, if he were inclined to do that. Which of course, he wouldn’t.