This is an unusual line to see in a court opinion: \u201cHaley\u2019s remarks about the size of Matt\u2019s penis and its impact on her health and marriage were remarks about a matter of legitimate public concern.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Matthew Kalil<\/a> was an NFL offensive lineman from 2012-2019. He was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings as the fourth overall pick in the 2o12 NFL draft. He made the Pro Bowl and later signed a $55M contract with the Carolina Panthers.<\/p>\n Haley Kalil<\/a> was a beauty queen who married Matt and became an NFL wife. She also has become a major social media influencer under the alias Haley Baylee. In 2026, she had 15.9 million TikTok followers, 9.3 million Instagram followers, 8.07 million YouTube subscribers, 1.6 million Snapchat followers, and 1.3 million Threads followers.<\/p>\n Matt and Haley married in 2015 and divorced in 2022. In this lawsuit, Matt is suing Haley for public disclosure of private facts for a post-marriage disclosure.<\/p>\n Created with ChatGPT Sept. 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In 2025, Haley did a Twitch livestream interview (posted to YouTube) with another prominent influencer, Marlon<\/a>. In the interview, Haley and Marlon discuss the reasons for Haley\u2019s divorce. During their conversation, Haley texted Marlon (i.e., so her remarks weren\u2019t seen or heard by the viewing audience) with details about \u201cthe biggest factor\u201d in the divorce. The court summarizes the discussion that ensued:<\/p>\n it quickly became obvious that Haley was referring to the size of Matt\u2019s penis. \u201c[H]e\u2019s like 0.01 percent of the population, okay,\u201d Haley said, adding that \u201c[w]e tried everything \u2026 you\u2019re going to be in tears type of shit.\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n Haley acknowledged that a certain aspect of Matt\u2019s penis was \u201c[t]otally fine\u201d and \u201clike, average,\u201d but she then said (moving her hands along a horizontal plane) that \u201che was just \u2026 like two [C]oke cans stacked on top each other. Maybe even a third \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The court says these disclosures are highly offensive to a reasonable person. However, the court dismisses the lawsuit because \u201cHaley\u2019s remarks about the size of Matt\u2019s penis and its impact on her health and marriage were remarks about a matter of legitimate public concern.\u201d<\/p>\n The court explains:<\/p>\n for at least two millennia, the private lives of public figures have been of legitimate interest to members of the public. One of the most famous works of history\u2014Suetonius\u2019s The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, written in 121\u2014is a notoriously gossipy collection of biographies of 12 leaders of ancient Rome that includes many details about their sex lives.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I don\u2019t think anyone disagrees that public figures\u2019 sex lives are of public interest, but that doesn\u2019t really address the issues in this lawsuit. The real question is: when are details about a public figure\u2019s sex lives still considered legally private, or do public figures have no intimate privacy at all?<\/p>\n The court acknowledges that \u201cpublic curiosity does not necessarily equate to legitimate public concern.\u201d Still, the court thinks the celebrity status of both Matt and Haley essentially creates a privacy-free zone:<\/p>\n Matt and Haley were indisputably celebrities during the time of their marriage and remain so today\u2026<\/p>\n Matt would be a celebrity even if he had never met Haley. He was not just a guy who was on the roster of an NFL team. Instead, he was the fourth overall pick in the 2012 NFL draft, and he played in the NFL for several years. He was paid tens of millions of dollars to play football, and he had considerable success\u2014even being named to the Pro Bowl. Second, Matt is also a celebrity because he met Haley\u2014specifically, because he was married to Haley, who was a celebrity in her own right during their marriage, and whose fame has only grown since their divorce\u2026.<\/p>\n [I note that this is a Minnesota judge talking about a Minnesota NFL player. I wonder if the celebrity assessment would have been different in a jurisdiction where Matt never played?]<\/p>\n If the only source of Matt\u2019s celebrity was his career as a football player\u2014and if Haley was just a random social-media maven who passed on gossip about the size of Matt\u2019s penis to get a laugh or to attract attention\u2014then the Court would readily find that Haley\u2019s comments were not of legitimate public concern. But that was not what happened\u2026.<\/p>\n Her comments\u2014including her comments about Matt\u2014were about her life, her marriage, and her divorce, all of which are topics about which her millions of followers have a legitimate interest\u2026.<\/p>\n Haley\u2019s comment about \u201cCoke cans\u201d was certainly crude. But all of her comments about Matt\u2019s penis size were in the context of describing the \u201ctrauma\u201d she suffered during her marriage, the couple\u2019s seeking help from doctors and therapists, and ultimately the couple\u2019s decision to divorce. In short, Haley was discussing her life, not Matt\u2019s, and the law generally protects a person\u2019s speech about herself, even though such speech inevitably reveals details about others.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The court is 100% correct that a person cannot tell their life story without also simultaneously telling the story of those they interact with. This is one of the classic tensions between privacy law and free speech. When privacy law and free speech collide, we generally cannot let privacy law override our truth and our histories.<\/p>\n However, the court treats all of Haley\u2019s disclosures as equally permissible, a conclusion that isn\u2019t obvious to me.<\/p>\n Consider the following list of hypothetical statements Haley might have made. Which ones cross the tort line?<\/p>\n Statements [a] and [b] never should be tortious disclosures of private facts for the reason identified by the court, i.e., they are part of Haley\u2019s life story that she is free to share. The extra detail in statement [c] reveals more information that may be private to Matt and isn\u2019t necessarily required to tell Haley\u2019s story, but I would still lean towards permitting the disclosure.<\/p>\n Statements [d] and [e] seem qualitatively different to me, because they provide more specific and concrete details that are sensitive, aren\u2019t needed to explain Haley\u2019s life story, and thus couldn\u2019t qualify as matters of \u201clegitimate public concern.\u201d I think the court could have distintinguished Haley\u2019s disclosures of the hand gestures and the Coca-Cola can analogy from the other disclosures.<\/p>\n From my perspective, the litigants\u2019 celebrity status is irrelevant to this analysis. I think private individuals should be equally free to disclose statements [a]-[c] as part of telling their life stories, regardless of the celebrity status of anyone involved, and I don\u2019t think the detailed disclosures in statements [d] or [e] should be fair game only because the described person is a celebrity. I might feel differently if the celebrity had put their genital size into the public discourse (e.g., Trump\u2019s repeated discussions<\/a> about his penis size). That\u2019s not the circumstance here.<\/p>\n If anything, the court could have treated Matt\u2019s celebrity status as a reason to evaluate Haley\u2019s statements more closely. In our celebrity-obsessed culture, the audiences have an insatiable demand for, and focus on, specific details. For that reason, Haley\u2019s disclosures of specific details was guaranteed to garner additional attention. Knowing this, we might want people to tread more cautiously when disclosing specific details about their private interactions with celebrities.<\/p>\n Although his lawsuit had some doctrinal support, I am a little confused about Matt\u2019s decision to sue. How could a successful lawsuit be a win for Matt? (I\u2019m assuming Matt is not playing a 4D chess game).<\/p>\n Divorced couples routinely look for ways to tweak each other, but the court opinion doesn\u2019t suggest that Matt and Haley had that kind of post-marriage dynamic. (Of course, who knows what was taking place out of the public eye). Certainly this lawsuit is likely to further sour whatever post-marriage relationship they had.<\/p>\n Worse, this case is a textbook example of the Streisand Effect. Haley\u2019s initial disclosures produced a news cycle, with some residual publicity over time. Matt\u2019s lawsuit ensures that Haley\u2019s disclosures will generate more news cycles\u2013the lawsuit filing, the initial decision, any further proceedings. To that point, Matt has already promised an appeal<\/a>, which ensures additional coverage cycles that continue to amplify Haley\u2019s initial disclosures.<\/p>\n I also struggle to see any meaningful remedies. Haley\u2019s past disclosures cannot be enjoined. An injunction against further disclosures (or the threat of a future lawsuit) might prevent new details from emerging, but perhaps that could have been negotiated or secured through non-judicial means.<\/p>\n As for damages, I\u2019m skeptical that the lawsuit is about money given Matt\u2019s lifetime earnings. Also, I\u2019m not sure how a court would set damages from Haley\u2019s disclosures. The opinion didn\u2019t suggest Matt lost any economic opportunities, and it\u2019s tough to put a meaningful price tag on a plaintiff\u2019s embarrassment or emotional distress.<\/p>\n Case Citation<\/em>: Kalil v. Kalil<\/a>, 2026 WL 2754923 (D. Minn. Sept. 17, 2026).<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve seen the movie, this clip from Blazing Saddles was probably on your mind too:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.ericgoldman.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ChatGPT-Image-Sep-18-2026-09_58_34-PM-200x300.jpg\")
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