Social posts about Kyle Rittenhouse registering a lien against Whoopi Goldberg started as satire

Social media posts say Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of all charges in a fatal 2020 shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, submitted a claim to have legal possession over television and movie star Whoopi Goldberg’s home. 

A Nov. 18 Facebook post said, "Kyle Rittenhouse registers a lien against Whoopi Goldberg’s Malibu home for $22 million."

Other Facebook and Threads posts also shared the same claim.

But the claim in the posts that show Rittenhouse and Goldberg, a co-host of ABC’s "The View" talk show, originated as satire. 

(Screenshot from Facebook post.)

The posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

In the year since Rittenhouse’s acquittal, multiple false claims have surfaced saying he has sued some talk shows and hosts for defamation. One  — fictitious lawsuit he was said to have filed was against "The View," Goldberg and co-host Joy Behar in 2021. 

Now the claims have gone a bit farther, saying that because he won a lawsuit against Goldberg and she didn’t pay Rittenhouse for the supposed settlement, he has put a lien against her Malibu, California, home. 

We found that although Goldberg once owned a home in Malibu, she sold it in 2002. She bought a home in New Jersey.

A lien is a legal right to a debtor’s property that is typically used as a collateral when the debtor doesn’t pay a settlement or loan. If the person doesn’t pay, the creditor can seize the property. Liens can also be established through court judgments as a result of a lawsuit and by government entities, according to Investopedia. 

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The claim originated in Dunning-Kruger Times.com, a subsidiary of the "America’s Last Line of Defense" network of parody and satire, according to its website. The story, published in July 2023, has the same headline as the picture on the Facebook post and jokes about how a made-up reporter went to check the neighborhood where the home is listed, but that it doesn’t exist.

The satirical article also supposedly quotes Rittenhouse’s attorney Joe Barron about the lien, but his attorney is Mark Richards. In 2023, Richards, Rittenhouse’s defense attorney, told Reuters the claim Rittenhouse put a lien on Goldberg’s home is "not true."

PolitiFact contacted Richards to confirm that the claim continues to be inaccurate in 2024, but did not receive a reply by publication. However, we found no official announcements from Rittenhouse, public documents or credible sources in the Nexis news database that show he sued Goldberg.

The claim that Rittenhouse registered a lien against Goldberg’s Malibu home started as satire, so we rate this claim False.