Rockstar Energy Drink Disavows Michael Savage, Donates $100K To LGBT Causes

After threatening to sue gay blog site The Bilerico Project for publishing a story linking the company to the anti-gay rantings of its founder's father, radio blowhard Michael Savage, Rockstar Energy Drink has issued a statement disavowing Savage and pledging $100K to LGBT causes.

ROCKSTAR Energy Drink CEO Russell Weiner announced today that the beverage company will expand its LGBT corporate policies and make $100,000 in donations, shared among several prominent LGBT organizations. The donations represent a significant contribution given ROCKSTAR's relatively small staff of 120 employees. The contribution will be shared among the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), and The Trevor Project, and ROCKSTAR Energy Drink will also financially sponsor the National LGBT Bloggers Initiative. The donations and affirmation of LGBT-friendly corporate policies mark steps by ROCKSTAR to demonstrate support for the LGBT community.

"It has recently come to ROCKSTAR's attention that there might be a misconception about our company's policy and my personal support for LGBT rights," said Weiner. "We apologize for that misunderstanding, and want to make clear today that our company fully supports our LGBT employees and our LGBT customers. Some have erroneously associated our company with offensive language directed at LGBT people, specifically statements coming from Michael Savage, who is not and has never been a shareholder or officer of ROCKSTAR Energy Drink. On behalf of our company and directors, including myself and CFO Janet Weiner, I would like to take this opportunity to disavow any offensive statements directed toward LGBT people, including statements from Michael Savage. ROCKSTAR assures our customers and the general public that our brand will never be associated with any language that does not affirm the essential dignity of every person in our diverse national community."

Read the complete statement on The Bilerico Project.

Rockstar Energy Drink Threatens To Sue LGBT Blog Bilerico.com

Rockstar Energy Drink, the company owned by the son of viciously anti-gay radio host Michael Savage, has threatened the operators of Bilerico.com with a lawsuit for a post made calling for a boycott of the company. The post contends that Savage benefits financially from the profits of his son's company. Bilerico editor Bil Browning:

In April, guest blogger Michael Jones reported on Rockstar energy drink's connections with well-known homophobic radio host Michael Savage (real name: Michael Weiner). About a week ago, Rockstar's lawyers came calling and threatened legal action if we didn't immediately remove the offending post for "factual inaccuracies." The beverage company took issue with two sentences from our guest blogger's post. It claims they are untrue and should cause the post to be removed from the archives. Rockstar threatened several other bloggers and Facebook users with legal action - including Michael for his crosspost on Change.org. The company's legal team also contacted alternet.com, wiqaable.com, gaywired.com, gaysocialites.com, and So Cal Voice. Facebook closed the groups Rockstar complained about and, in some cases, deleted the user's account entirely. Change.org and other bloggers have removed their posts to avoid litigation. Our Terms of Service gives us the copyright for the version of Michael's post we published. We have offered Rockstar's lawyers a correction to the post, but we've refused to remove it. The guest post is currently the most popular article on the site.

Rockstar contends that contrary to the Bilerico story, Michael Savage "only advised" his son on the creation of the company and is not its cofounder nor does he benefit from its profits. Bil Browning points out that Savage's wife, however, IS the company's only listed officer other than her son. Browning says his site will not remove the post despite the threat of a lawsuit. An anti-Rockstar group has been resurrected on Facebook here.