FBI Director Kash Patel’s country singer girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, is taking legal action over a report that claimed she used FBI agents as designated drivers for a friend on more than one occasion.
The 27-year-old is suing MS NOW and its parent company, Versant, over an article that accused her of misusing FBI resources to give her friends rides home.
Patel’s girlfriend of more than three years, who is based in Nashville, was provided with an FBI protective detail toward the end of 2025 because she had been receiving threats due to her relationship with the FBI boss.
In an article published by MS NOW on Dec. 5, 2025, journalists Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian, who are both also named in the suit, cited anonymous sources who said Wilkins had asked her FBI security detail to drive her drunk friend home “after a night of partying” on more than one occasion.
The suit alleges that one implication of the reporting is that Wilkins is a partier and drinker.
“They falsely portrayed Ms. Wilkins as being intoxicated even knowing that she does not drink. Defendants presumed they could get away with this fiction by citing to ‘anonymous sources,’ disingenuously claiming ‘nonpublic’ and ‘inside’ knowledge. This was hogwash and they knew it.”
The suit quotes the article:
“FBI Director Kash Patel has—on more than one occasion—ordered that the security detail protecting his girlfriend escort one of her allegedly inebriated friends home after a night of partying in Nashville, according to three people with knowledge of the incidents.
“Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, asked FBI agents on her security team at least two times, including once this spring, to drive her friend home, and agents objected to diverting from their assignment, said the sources, who were granted anonymity to discuss nonpublic matters. But Patel insisted they do as Wilkins requested and in one case called the leader of Wilkins’ security detail and yelled at him to do so.”
Wilkins’ legal team alleges that the journalists who wrote the story knew it was false and had obtained specific denials from the FBI but printed it anyway. They also claim it caused “Ms. Wilkins to suffer actual damages to her reputation, standing in the community, and personal humiliation.”
When asked about the allegations in the suit, MS NOW president Rebecca Kutler told the Daily Beast they stand by their reporting.
“We stand firmly behind MS NOW’s reporting. As a general matter of practice, we don’t comment on ongoing legal matters,” she said.
“This is entirely false. Director Patel has never ordered any FBI agent or member of Ms. Wilkins’ security detail to escort any of Ms. Wilkins’ friends home—inebriated or otherwise—nor did Ms. Wilkins ask any of them to do so," the suit claims.
“Not only did these supposed demands/orders never take place, but the entire scenario is fabricated,” it continues. “No FBI agents have ever escorted any of Ms. Wilkins’ friends home.”
It goes on to assert that Dilanian and Leonnig withheld a key detail from the FBI when seeking comment on the story in an attempt to manipulate the agency’s response.
“Defendant Dilanian reached out to FBI spokesman, Ben Williamson, to obtain comment on the accusation that Ms. Wilkins’ detail had been diverted to escort her friends home. Defendants grossly misrepresented and diminished the FBI’s response in the Article,” the suit alleges.
It goes on to say that the article has since been “stealth-edited” to amend the FBI’s denial, but that the change was not noted as a correction.
Crucially, the suit claims that the detail that the alleged events occurred in spring 2025 was never provided to Williamson.
“Had Dilanian provided the Spring timeframe for the allegation, the FBI could, and would have even more conclusively refuted the story by pointing out that Ms. Wilkins had no security detail at that time,” it says.
Patel has faced scrutiny over his relationship with Wilkins, as he has regularly been accused of mixing business with pleasure by using FBI resources to protect and accommodate Wilkins.
In May, the 46-year-old was accused of using the bureau’s Gulfstream V jet to attend a country music concert last year, where the couple reportedly sat in a $50,000 suite.
He has also come under fire for assigning a full-time SWAT team comprising four agents and two cars to Wilkins. Partners of the FBI’s directors do not typically receive their own personal security detail, especially if they are living in different cities.
The singer’s suit claims MS NOW intended the article “as a hit piece, as are many other of Defendants’ publications, using Ms. Wilkins as a vehicle to attack Director Patel.”
Wilkins is seeking damages in excess of $75,000 and “such other and further relief as the Court deems just and appropriate to protect Plaintiff’s rights and interests.”
