Reggie Bush Ordered To Pay $1.4M In Defamation Case

Reggie Bush must pay $1.4 million to San Diego businessman Lloyd Lake, who had ties to the USC football program during its mid-2000s glory years when Bush won the Heisman Trophy, for defamation.

According to Sports Illustrated, Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Eric Harmon supported an earlier decision by Jeffery G. Benz, who ruled in arbitration proceedings that Bush owed Lake $500,000 in damages and over $800,000 in attorney’s fees and legal costs. Bush’s attorneys appealed that decision, arguing that Benz didn’t have the authority to make such a determination.

The ruling, according to The Los Angeles Times, stems from comments Bush made in 2022 on the “I Am An Athlete” podcast as well as social media comments that painted Lake as a deplorable person. These comments allegedly led to the home of Lake’s parents, Roy and Barbara Gunner, being vandalized with graffiti messages, one of which read “Help Reggie Bush Get His Trophy Back F— Crook,” and another which read “187,” the California penal code for murder.

Bush’s comments, which accused Lake of blackmail and characterized his criminal record as being “as long as the Cheesecake Factory menu,” were supplemented months later by a tweet that falsely accused Lake of being a convicted rapist.

All of these comments violated a previous non-disparagement agreement that Bush and his parents as well as Lake and his parents signed in 2010 as part of the settlement of a contentious improper benefits lawsuit that led to the Trojans vacating their 2004 National Championship and Bush forfeiting his Heisman Trophy.

According to that agreement, all parties agreed “not make any statements or representations to any person that may cast another Party to this Agreement in an unfavorable light, that are offensive to or disparage them, or that could adversely affect their name and reputation.”

Bush’s legal team did succeed in their petition to have the judge seal away the majority of their case, which they might see as a small victory in one of the most infamous college football scandals of the last 25 years.

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