A former Navy SEAL, Robert O’Neill, who is known for killing Osama Bin Laden, has taken legal action against two podcasters who have made controversial claims about his actions.
O’Neill was part of the elite SEAL Team Six and was involved in the mission on May 2, 2011, that led to the death of the al-Qaeda leader responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
The mission was authorized by then-President Barack Obama, and the news quickly spread through various outlets, including a tweet by Dwayne Johnson.
Despite being celebrated for his role in the operation, podcasters Tyler Hoover and Brent Tucker, from the Antihero Broadcast, have propagated conspiracy theories about the incident.
A lawsuit was filed in Westchester County Supreme Court on November 10, in which O’Neill accuses the podcasters of falsely claiming he lied about killing Bin Laden, describing their actions as an unfair attack on his reputation.
The podcasters, who are also military veterans from Florida, began their campaign in 2023, allegedly to boost their YouTube channel’s audience, as per the lawsuit.
In an episode aired on August 9 of that year, Tucker remarked: “Besides the Rob O’Neill who didn’t kill bin Laden,” suggesting it was a widely known secret within special operations.
Tucker added, “I am not going to say, ‘Oh, yeah, I was on the mission.’ I’d be as big a liar as Rob O’Neill.”
He continued, “I worked with a lot of those guys, still friends with some of them,” and claimed that none would vouch for O’Neill as Bin Laden’s killer.
The former Delta Force veteran expressed a desire for more public discourse within the military community on the matter.
An additional episode titled “Rob O’Neill: The Web of Lies,” was published on their channel, which currently has a following of 121,000 subscribers.
In April 2024, Hoover accused O’Neill of altering his story regarding the fatal shots fired at Bin Laden.
He claimed O’Neill shifted from asserting he alone killed Bin Laden to stating it was a team effort, but he was the one to fire the decisive shots.
Tucker added, “You [O’Neill] were just the last guy to put a round in Bin Laden.”
The lawsuit asserts that O’Neill’s account is supported by retired Admiral William H. McRaven, who led Operation Neptune Spear.
O’Neill told The New York Post, “The story that I’ve been truthful with the entire time is that I had one [other] guy [on the mission] in front of me.”
“He went one direction at the top of the stairs to confront what he thought was a suicide bomber. I turned the other way, and Osama bin Laden was standing there, and so I shot him three times.
“I killed Osama bin Laden.”
He ended by stating that the allegations made by Tucker and Hoover are completely untrue.
The lawsuit alleges that the podcasters’ actions have caused O’Neill ‘psychological and physiological harm’ and that they ‘failed to perform even basic due diligence’.
O’Neill also expressed his disappointment over their targeting a fellow veteran.
“The vet-on-vet thing has gotten a little bit out of control, and I would like to have it stop,” O’Neill stated.
Meanwhile, Tucker commented, “The lawsuit will go nowhere. It’s just for show.”