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The former Navy SEAL who fatally shot terror chief Osama bin Laden is suing two podcasters for $25 million for repeatedly claiming he lied about assassinating the al-Qaeda leader, according to new court papers.
Robert O’Neill, a highly decorated ex-member of the ultra-elite military unit, claims Antihero Broadcast podcasters Tyler Hoover and Brent Tucker began their unfair on-air crusade against him in 2023 and have since continued to falsely claim he lied about his heroic 2012 act, according to the Westchester County Supreme Court lawsuit filed Monday — the eve of Veteran’s Day.
Hoover, 37, and Tucker, 45, both Florida residents and military veterans themselves, first launched their smear campaign against O’Neill to get clicks and bring attention to their YouTube channel, the suit alleged.
“Besides the Rob O’Neill who didn’t kill bin Laden,” Tucker said at one point during the pair’s Aug. 9, 2023, episode on Antihero, which currently has 120,000 subscribers.
“No, he didn’t kill Biden Laden! … It is the worst-kept secret in all of special ops,’’ Tucker claimed. “I am not going to say, ‘Oh, yeah, I was on the mission.’ I’d be as big a liar as Rob O’Neill.”
Tucker claimed he is friends with some of the other men who were on the mission and that while they are too professional to contradict O’Neill’s account, they also haven’t said, “ ‘Oh, yeah, he’s a great guy. He killed Osama bin Laden.’
“They won’t do it,” Tucker said.
O’Neill, 49, was on SEAL Team Six for its famous May 2, 2011, Operation Neptune’s Spear and was personally responsible for landing the shots that killed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist plotter, the suit said.
That fact was corroborated by the mission’s leader, retired Admr. William H. McRaven, the lawsuit said.
“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,” O’Neill told The Post in an exclusive interview.
“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.”
“What [Tucker and Hoover] are saying is not true at all,” O’Neill said.
On Oct. 23, 2025, on Tucker’s new podcast “Tier1,” Tucker claimed that the fact he hadn’t not been sued yet by O’Neill was further proof that Tucker had been right all along about O’Neill’s alleged lies, the suit said.
Tucker and Hoover “had a parting of ways” by that time, the document said.
“Never get a lawsuit,’’ Tucker said during the episode. “They’d sue me in a heartbeat. Never. … You can guess why they don’t have a lawsuit against me.’’
O’Neill fired back to The Post that if suing them is “what it takes to stop it, than this is what I’m doing.”
He said the duo “mention me all the time, on all their episodes. … It’s not stopping.”
The podcasters “failed to perform even basic due diligence” before slandering O’Neill, the suit said.
O’Neill — who doesn’t know the podcasters personally — said it is particularly troubling to him they have targeted a fellow veteran.
O’Neill said if they have problems with other vets, they should approach them privately — especially considering the harm of calling people out publicly who often struggle with post traumatic stress disorder.
“The vet-on-vet thing has gotten a little bit out of control, and I would like to have it stop,” O’Neill said.
“I would like to set a precedent. We shouldn’t be doing this to each other publicly. We should be doing it privately.”
O’Neill — a Westchester County resident — retired from the military in 2012 after 16 years of service and has since built a career on public speaking and recently started a business teaching people how to be successful leaders.
He also launched a business selling his own brand of pot.
But O’Neill — who is married with a daughter and is expecting another child — had his “life abruptly interrupted” when the podcasts continued false commentary about him, his suit claimed.
“The defendants’ unfounded and defamatory claims that O’Neill is a liar and a fraud have damaged his reputation and career,” the filing charged.
O’Neill now has fewer speaking engagement opportunities, and his career has generally suffered, the suit claimed.
The defamation has also caused him “psychological and physiological harm, in addition to embarrassment,” the court papers alleged.
O’Neill said any financial gains from his lawsuit will be donated to help veterans with PTSD receive treatment.
Tucker and Hoover both did not return Post messages seeking comment.
English (US)