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Tinder Settles Lawsuit After Former Exec Said She Was Terrorized & Sexually Harassed By Co-Founder
(Left to right) Justin Mateen, Jonathan Badeen, Sean Rad and Whitney Wolfe of Tinder (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images for Glamour)
Tinder settled a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit filed by a former Tinder exec. However, the mobile dating app company doesn't admit to any wrongdoing.
Although 24-year-old Whitney Wolfe did not disclose how much money she received in the settlement, BuzzFeed reported that Los Angeles County Superior Court documents showed she dropped the case today.
"Whitney’s lawsuit against Tinder has been resolved (without admission of wrongdoing)," Wolfe's attorney, John Mullan of Rudy, Exelrod, Zieff & Lowe, LLP, told BuzzFeed. "She is proud of her role as a co-founder of Tinder and of the role she played in the app’s success. She is now pleased to be able to focus her energy, talents, and ideas on exciting new opportunities."
Wolfe, the co-founder of the company and former marketing vice president, filed her lawsuit against Tinder on June 30. She claimed that co-founder and marketing chief Justin Mateen and CEO Sean Rad subjected her to sexist, racist and homophobic comments. This included Mateen allegedly calling her a "whore" at a company event and Rad saying she was “annoying” and “dramatic" when she complained about the way she was being treated by Mateen.
Wolfe said Mateen sent her a series of inappropriate and threatening text messages that she screenshot and used as part of her exhibit A in her lawsuit. She said that when she complained to Rad about Mateen's harassment, this eventually led to Rad firing her. In addition, she believed her firing was also caused by the fact that the Tinder execs felt that having a 24-year-old woman as a co-founder of Tinder made the company "seem like a joke."
Soon after Wolfe had filed the lawsuit, Tinder's parent company IAC put Mateen on leave. According to the lawsuit, Wolfe felt that the execs represented "the worst of the misogynist, alpha-male stereotype too often associated with technology startups."
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