Between a rumored relationship with a woman who he says he’s never met, potentially facing a multimillion, if not a billion-dollar lawsuit, and getting permanently booted off of Twitter following promotion of conspiracy theories, Mike Lindell’s 2021 is not off to a great start.
The MyPillow CEO and staunch Donald Trump supporter got his account on the social media platform shut down in perpetuity on Monday. A spokesperson for Twitter confirmed, “This account was suspended for repeated violations of our civic integrity policy,” later confirming that the removal was a permanent one. Lindell’s Twitter ban comes shortly after the platform also banned Trump over his role in inciting violence and proliferating conspiracy theories about the election, particularly during the Capitol riots.
While it’s not immediately clear exactly which tweets got Lindell’s account banned, the pillow entrepreneur regularly traffics in conspiracy theories encouraging Trump to declare martial law and claiming that voting machine companies, specifically Dominion Voting Systems, participated in rigging the election. That last claim prompted Dominion to sue Rudy Giuliani over for $1.3 billion. Dominion has also threatened to sue Lindell, but he told The New York Times, he has no intention of backing down. “I would really welcome them to sue me because I have all the evidence against them,” he said. Lindell is also considering a run for governor of Minnesota once he cracks this whole election-fraud thing.
But facing down the threat of an enormously costly court case and getting his Twitter account taken away are only the beginning of Lindell’s legal woes. The MyPillow CEO is now also suing the Daily Mail for defamation and libel after the outlet reported that he had been carrying on a months-long secret relationship with actor Jane Krakowski, even after both told the Mail that they had never met. In the filing obtained by Vanity Fair, Lindell claims the story caused “personal harm and emotional distress,” specifically because of the claims he sent Krakowski alcohol. The lawsuit states, “As a recovering addict and alcoholic, who frequently writes and speaks about his spiritual triumphs over substance abuse, Mr. Lindell is horrified by the defendants’ fabricated and very public accusations,” going on to point out that this is also damaging to the substance abuse recovery system he created, the Lindell Recovery Network.
When news of this alleged romance first made headlines, a representative for Krakowski told Vanity Fair, “Jane has never met Mr. Lindell. She is not and has never been in any relationship with him, romantic or otherwise. She is, however, in full-fledged fantasy relationships with Brad Pitt, Regé-Jean Page, and Kermit the Frog and welcomes any and all coverage on those.” As for Lindell, he told the Daily Mail, “I have never even heard of Jane Krakowski???”
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