Attorneys for Nolan Wells’ Friends Slam Sunny Hostin’s ‘Toxic’ Comments, Threaten to Sue

The View cohost Sunny Hostin is on the receiving end of a defamation threat after lawyers representing three of Nolan Wells‘ friends accused her of spreading false claims about his death.

The New York Post reported on Thursday, September 17, that attorneys representing Warren Hudson, Jax Pitalo, and Morgan Seymour sent Hostin, 57, a letter on Wednesday, September 16, demanding she retract, delete, and apologize for remarks they describe as defamatory, or face a lawsuit.

“Your brand of ‘journalism’ is no Sunny Delight: rather, your ‘brand’ is toxic, moronic, and daft,” attorneys Edward Andrew Paltzik and J. Tyler Cox wrote in the letter, obtained by the outlet.

The letter addressed comments Hostin allegedly made on The View‘s Behind the Table podcast on July 13 and during a segment on the show the following day, including a claim that there were “some racial undertones” to the case since Wells “was the only Black kid on an island full of kids that were white.”

She also reportedly said three friends who were with Wells had “kept his phone and didn’t give it to his parents.”

Paltzik and Cox pushed back on that claim, saying their clients never had “actual possession” of the phone, which they said the wider friend group brought back to shore and kept in another friend’s truck.

The lawyers said the phone was returned to a family friend “without incident or delay” by a female friend, and that at no point did their clients “alter, delete, modify, or erase any data or information” on the device.

As Globe previously reported, Wells went missing during a July 4 boating trip near Horn Island off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast and was found dead on the shoreline two days later. He was 18 years old.

Authorities have said they believe he drowned, per ABC News, and do not suspect foul play. However, autopsy results remain unreleased more than two months later.