Samantha Tavel drops sexual assault lawsuit against Matt Riddle

Samantha Tavel, who goes by the name of Candy Cartwright on the independents, has dropped her lawsuit against Matt Riddle, a lawsuit filed following the #SpeakingOut campaign last year.

Tavel’s original lawsuit for $10 million also included WWE and Gabe Sapolsky but a judge ruled that WWE and Sapolsky should be dropped as co-defendants. In September, Riddle filed a civil suit against Tavel “for her continued false and defamatory statements.”

TMZ.COM now reports that Tavel filed to dismiss the lawsuit completely on Monday and there’s no information if there was an out-of-court settlement. Her attorney said that both parties have put this in their past and are focused on their future.

In mid June 2020, Tavel shared a story of how she, along with Riddle and a few other stars were in a van and when the others fell asleep, Matt asked her to “hop on his dick.” When she refused, Tavel said that Riddle grabbed her by the throat, choked her and said “what if I just made you?”

Tavel said she eventually agreed to perform oral sex on Riddle “to get out of having intercourse with him,” describing the situation as “incredibly humiliating.”

Riddle first denied everything but later admitted that he had an affair with Tavel and in the process he cheated on his wife but he said that never in his life he sexually assaulted or abused anyone. He also accused Tavel of stalking him.

After countless hate mail, she then uploaded a photo of the two kissing each other on the lips in a car with the date on the iPhone clearly marked May 19, 2019. “If I’ve been ‘stalking for years’ then why is this from 2019? This was also taken after I went to see him on an NXT loop and he got me tickets to two shows,” Tavel wrote in a tweet.