Madison Square Garden Entertainment has filed a defamation lawsuit against WIRED magazine over a July article alleging the venue keeps a secret watchlist of celebrities. The 40-page lawsuit accuses WIRED of using stolen data to invent a false narrative that MSG maintains an internal blacklist targeting LGBTQ celebrities.

The article, titled "Madison Square Garden Kept a List of Gay Celebrities," claims MSG used internal databases to track characteristics of VIP guests, including race, sexual orientation, and gender identity, while assigning "risk scores" to famous fans. MSG claims WIRED obtained data stolen by the Shiny Hunters hacking group and cherry-picked fragments to manufacture a discriminatory narrative, ignoring mundane fields like addresses and dietary restrictions that prove the system was for "relationship management purposes."

WIRED stands by its reporting, vowing to fight the "baseless" lawsuit. The database allegedly contains nearly 40,000 names, with roughly 400 assigned "risk scores" ranging from low risk to "DO NOT HOST." Comedian Adam Pally was labeled "not to be hosted," while Lil Jon, Da Baby, and Morgan Wallen were categorized as high or medium risk. Close to 100 names were labeled "LGBTQIA," including Ricky Martin and Phoebe Bridgers.

The data was exposed after Shiny Hunters breached MSG's systems and dumped 45 gigabytes of files online after James Dolan refused to pay an extortion ransom. Dolan's venues, including the Las Vegas Sphere and Radio City Music Hall, use facial recognition to scan entrants, previously drawing scrutiny for banning lawyers associated with lawsuits against his company.