(Ken Silva, Headline USA) “The Benny Show,” hosted by conservative grifter Benny Johnson, is being sued for allegedly cribbing someone’s video of flooding in Black Mountain, North Carolina from Hurricane Helene last year.
The plaintiff, Virginia resident Billy Bowling, said in his lawsuit that he published his video of the flooding on Sept. 28, 2024. Two days later, Johnson’s show took the video and published it on his YouTube, Facebook and Rumble channels, according to the lawsuit, filed Monday in North Carolina federal court.
Bowling said he first noticed the infringements on Oct. 7. Later that month, the video was registered by the U.S. Copyrights Office.
Benny Johnson’s show is being sued for allegedly stealing someone’s workhttps://t.co/2aTx3nuhyh
— Seamus Hughes (@SeamusHughes) August 13, 2025
In April, Bowling sent a letter to Johnson’s show about the alleged theft. A month later, he sent another letter to “avoid litigation.” However, Johnson still has the videos on his channels.
“[Johnson’s] reproduction of the Video and display of the Video constitutes willful copyright infringement,” Bowling’s lawsuit states.
Bowling seeks monetary compensation, and for Johnson to disgorge the profits he made from the content.
Johnson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit was first reported by Seamus Hughes.
Johnson has a long history of unethical journalism. In July 2014, Johnson was fired from Buzzfeed after that site reportedly found 41 instances of “sentences or phrases copied word for word from other sites” among the 500 stories he had written.
To the writers who were not properly attributed and anyone who ever read my byline, I am sincerely sorry. http://t.co/WpkZIi4g9k
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 26, 2014
More recently, last year the Justice Department revealed that Johnson, Tim Pool and Dave Rubin had all been secretly funded by Russia. All three men claimed that they were unaware of receiving Russian money. Johnson said he had been asked to provide content to a “media startup.” He said his lawyers negotiated a “standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated.”
Johnson has also taken material from this reporter without attribution. Earlier this year, Headline USA broke the story that alleged would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh attempted to buy a rocket launcher from a purported Ukrainian. This reporter was the first to publish court records about the matter, and Johnson took those records and posted them on his Twitter/X account without attribution.
Benny, did you just take my screenshot and scribble some highlights on it? I paid for that document on PACER.
And do you know what "BREAKING" means? https://t.co/H5Tz1APSEX pic.twitter.com/NP4sFjcPpM— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) April 8, 2025
Along with his unethical behavior, Johnson has also made egregious reporting errors. For instance, in a documentary about the July 13, 2024, Trump assassination attempt, he falsely reported that Secret Service counter-snipers returned fire and missed the alleged shooter.
Benny's doc doesn't even get the shot sequence right. Was this made with Russian money? 🤣 https://t.co/OAXan1iL4m pic.twitter.com/vi2z2lNEVE
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) November 6, 2024
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
