Is Chris Hansen taking legal action against A24 over the movie that uses his name?

Chris Hansen said his lawyers are reviewing the film and he is not ruling out legal action, but he will not decide until he has seen it. He acknowledged that as a public figure he faces a very high bar for defamation, and said possible routes include intellectual property or treating the use of his name for profit as a form of identity theft. He argued A24 used his real name because his 45-year brand has commercial value, and said industry lawyers suspect the studio would welcome a cease and desist as publicity.

• Hansen bought 30-second ads to run on 3,500 screens before the film, showing him telling audiences to have a seat and pointing to True Blue.
• Hansen said he told the story of the screening on Jesse Watters's Fox News show, and Variety picked it up by midnight.
• Hansen noted A24 had announced no donation of proceeds to child-protection groups such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

▸In their words

“You use it because it's of commercial value, because it's a brand” Chris Hansen · at 1:33:36 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Shawn Ryan Show (2026-10-26). Read the whole episode summary →

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