Deadspin has, once again, updated its widely panned story that accused a young fan of the Kansas City Chiefs of sporting “blackface,” a discredited claim that prompted threats of litigation.
On Thursday, Deadspin removed the header photo of the 9-year-old Chiefs fan that only showed the right half of his face, which was painted black, and not the left side, which was painted red.
“Unfortunately the article drew attention to the fan, though our intended focus was on the NFL and its checkered history on race, an issue which our writer has covered extensively for Deadspin,” reads an editor’s note now attached to the story.
“We regret any suggestion that we were attacking the fan. To that end, our story was updated on Dec. 7 to remove any photos, tweets, links, or otherwise identifying information about the fan. We have also revised the headline to better reflect the substance of the story.”
The current story appears under a photo of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The headline was also updated to remove the reference to blackface, as was the body of the article itself.
Late last month, the little boy’s mom, Shannon Armenta, penned an angry Facebook post, accusing Deadspin of choosing a photo with just half his face to “create division.” She said Holden was actually Native American, an assertion confirmed by the Canadian news magazine The Post Millennial.
The Deadspin article was previously updated to include a statement from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, but had kept the blackface claim for over a week after it had been debunked.
“The image of a Chiefs fan in Black face wearing a Native headdress during a road game leads to so many unanswered questions,” the initial article read.
Even after the revelation that the child was not in fact sporting blackface the article’s author, Carron J. Phillips, doubled down.
“For the idiots in my mentions who are treating this as some harmless act because the other side of his face was painted red, I could make the argument that it makes it even worse,” Phillips wrote in a since-deleted tweet.
The child’s parents have threatened to sue Deadline, accusing the outlet of defamation.
