When is a Man’s Penis Size a “Matter of Legitimate Public Concern”?–Kalil v. Kalil

This is an unusual line to see in a court opinion: “Haley’s remarks about the size of Matt’s penis and its impact on her health and marriage were remarks about a matter of legitimate public concern.”

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Matthew Kalil 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.

Haley Kalil 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.

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.

In 2025, Haley did a Twitch livestream interview (posted to YouTube) with another prominent influencer, Marlon. In the interview, Haley and Marlon discuss the reasons for Haley’s divorce. During their conversation, Haley texted Marlon (i.e., so her remarks weren’t seen or heard by the viewing audience) with details about “the biggest factor” in the divorce. The court summarizes the discussion that ensued:

it quickly became obvious that Haley was referring to the size of Matt’s penis. “[H]e’s like 0.01 percent of the population, okay,” Haley said, adding that “[w]e tried everything … you’re going to be in tears type of shit.”…

Haley acknowledged that a certain aspect of Matt’s penis was “[t]otally fine” and “like, average,” but she then said (moving her hands along a horizontal plane) that “he was just … like two [C]oke cans stacked on top each other. Maybe even a third ….”

The court says these disclosures are highly offensive to a reasonable person. However, the court dismisses the lawsuit because “Haley’s remarks about the size of Matt’s penis and its impact on her health and marriage were remarks about a matter of legitimate public concern.”

The court explains:

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—Suetonius’s The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, written in 121—is a notoriously gossipy collection of biographies of 12 leaders of ancient Rome that includes many details about their sex lives.

I don’t think anyone disagrees that public figures’ sex lives are of public interest, but that doesn’t really address the issues in this lawsuit. The real question is: when are details about a public figure’s sex lives still considered legally private, or do public figures have no intimate privacy at all?

The court acknowledges that “public curiosity does not necessarily equate to legitimate public concern.” Still, the court thinks the celebrity status of both Matt and Haley essentially creates a privacy-free zone:

Matt and Haley were indisputably celebrities during the time of their marriage and remain so today…

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—even being named to the Pro Bowl. Second, Matt is also a celebrity because he met Haley—specifically, 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….

[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?]

If the only source of Matt’s celebrity was his career as a football player—and if Haley was just a random social-media maven who passed on gossip about the size of Matt’s penis to get a laugh or to attract attention—then the Court would readily find that Haley’s comments were not of legitimate public concern. But that was not what happened….

Her comments—including her comments about Matt—were about her life, her marriage, and her divorce, all of which are topics about which her millions of followers have a legitimate interest….

Haley’s comment about “Coke cans” was certainly crude. But all of her comments about Matt’s penis size were in the context of describing the “trauma” she suffered during her marriage, the couple’s seeking help from doctors and therapists, and ultimately the couple’s decision to divorce. In short, Haley was discussing her life, not Matt’s, and the law generally protects a person’s speech about herself, even though such speech inevitably reveals details about others.

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.

However, the court treats all of Haley’s disclosures as equally permissible, a conclusion that isn’t obvious to me.

Consider the following list of hypothetical statements Haley might have made. Which ones cross the tort line?

• [a] “We were sexually incompatible”
• [b] “Matt and I went to doctors to see if we could find a way to make sex not painful, but they couldn’t help”
• [c] “Matt’s penis was so large that sex was painful”
• [d] “Matt’s penis was so large that sex was painful” (accompanied by illustrative hand gestures)
• [e] “Matt’s penis is 10 inches long and 8 inches in circumference, and this made sex painful.” (Note: A Coca-Cola can is 4.83 inches high and 8.17 inches in circumference, so this is essentially what Haley was implying).

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’s 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’t necessarily required to tell Haley’s story, but I would still lean towards permitting the disclosure.

Statements [d] and [e] seem qualitatively different to me, because they provide more specific and concrete details that are sensitive and aren’t needed to explain Haley’s life story. I think the court could have distintinguished Haley’s disclosures of the hand gestures and the Coca-Cola can analogy from the other disclosures.

From my perspective, the litigants’ 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’t 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’s repeated discussions about his penis size). That’s not the circumstance here.

If anything, the court could have treated Matt’s celebrity status as a reason to evaluate Haley’s statements more closely. In our celebrity-obsessed culture, the audiences have an insatiable demand for, and focus on, specific details. For that reason, Haley’s 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.

Although his lawsuit had some doctrinal support, I am a little confused about Matt’s decision to sue. How could a successful lawsuit be a win for Matt? (I’m assuming Matt is not playing a 4D chess game).

Divorced couples routinely look for ways to tweak each other, but the court opinion doesn’t 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.

Worse, this case is a textbook example of the Streisand Effect. Haley’s initial disclosures produced a news cycle, with some residual publicity over time. Matt’s lawsuit ensures that Haley’s disclosures will generate more news cycles–the lawsuit filing, the initial decision, any further proceedings. To that point, Matt has already promised an appeal, which ensures additional coverage cycles that continue to amplify Haley’s initial disclosures.

I also struggle to see any meaningful remedies. Haley’s 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.

As for damages, I’m skeptical that the lawsuit is about money given Matt’s lifetime earnings. Also, I’m not sure how a court would set damages from Haley’s disclosures. The opinion didn’t suggest Matt lost any economic opportunities, and it’s tough to put a meaningful price tag on a plaintiff’s embarrassment or emotional distress.

Case Citation: Kalil v. Kalil, 2026 WL 2754923 (D. Minn. Sept. 17, 2026).

If you’ve seen the movie, this clip from Blazing Saddles was probably on your mind too: