 In May 2017, Simmons sued the "National Enquirer", Radar Online and American Media, Inc. for libel and false claims that he was undergoing gender reassignment.In September 2017, Simmons lost the lawsuit, and was ordered to pay the defendants' attorney's fees.The judge ruled that "because courts have long held that a misidentification of certain immutable characteristics do not naturally tend to injure one's reputation, even if there is sizeable portion of the population who hold prejudices against those characteristics, misidentification of a person as transgender is not actionable defamation absent special damages."