Independent profile — not affiliated with Lipstick Alley
Lipstick Alley
Lipstick Alley (lipstickalley.com) is a large, long-running online discussion forum focused on Black entertainment, celebrity news, and gossip, with domain registration and BBB business-start records both dating to September 30, 2000. As of August 2026 the site reports roughly 542,000 members and over 116 million posts across 5.1 million threads.
The forum is administered under a pseudonymous handle rather than a named public spokesperson, but the entity behind it is not a total mystery: a 2011 New York Supreme Court case (Hall v. Lipstickalley.com) identified Christine Charity as President of Verve Hosting, Inc., described as the company that owns Lipstick Alley, and the live federal trademark registration for "LIPSTICK ALLEY" (USPTO Reg. No. 4,374,354, renewed as recently as 2023) currently lists Verve Hosting, Inc., a Michigan corporation, as owner of the mark. That does not by itself confirm who runs day-to-day moderation in 2026, and BBB separately carries two different, unverified business listings for "Lipstick Alley" (Ogden, UT and Detroit, MI) that are not confirmed to be the same operator. Consumer reviews on Trustpilot, ComplaintsBoard, PissedConsumer, and SmartCustomer are heavily negative and center on account bans and inconsistent moderation, and allegations of doxxing or harassment enabled by anonymous posting — not on billing or product complaints, since the forum is free to use.
The site has twice drawn cease-and-desist demand letters from attorneys representing public figures — then-Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed in 2012 and actor Jared Leto in 2015 — over anonymous forum posts; in both cases the site kept the posts up, no lawsuit was ever filed, and Public Citizen attorney Paul Alan Levy publicly called both demands legally unfounded. One complaint referencing the site is confirmed on USAComplaints.com, describing a ban for expressing an opinion in a thread.
Complaints & Reviews on USAComplaints
USAComplaints currently maintains 1 historical complaint about Lipstick Alley, published in 2011. No approved complaints have been published on this site during the last three years. For a current reputation snapshot, see the independent sources below.
Complaint Themes
Independent Sources
Shown for context — not merged with USAComplaints' own numbers.
Contacts
- Website: https://www.lipstickalley.com/
- Email: [email protected]
What Is Lipstick Alley?
Lipstick Alley is a free, publicly-registered online discussion forum built around Black celebrity news, entertainment gossip, and general discussion. Its domain, lipstickalley.com, was registered on September 30, 2000 through registrar eNom, LLC, and the Better Business Bureau's file on "Lipstickalley.com" separately lists the same September 30, 2000 start date under the category "Online Publications" — two independent records that agree on how long the site has operated.
As of August 2026, the forum's own statistics page reports roughly 542,000 registered members, over 116.7 million posted messages, and more than 5.1 million discussion threads, making it a long-running Black-audience discussion community with a large, active user base.
The site is free to use; it does not sell products or process consumer payments, so what people complain about differs from a typical retailer — it centers on account moderation and community conduct rather than billing or shipping.
Is Lipstick Alley Legitimate?
Lipstick Alley shows no evidence in the sources reviewed of being a payment or billing scam — it does not charge for access and has no store, subscription, or checkout a reader needs to verify. The legitimacy questions raised in complaints are different: who actually runs the site, whether moderation is applied fairly, and whether anonymous posting creates real harassment or privacy risk for the people discussed on it.
The site's current, day-to-day legal operator is not publicly confirmed, and the forum is administered under a pseudonymous handle rather than a named, publicly disclosed individual. But the entity behind the brand is better documented than a simple "unknown": a 2011 New York Supreme Court proceeding, Hall v. Lipstickalley.com (2011 NY Slip Op 33764[U], dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction), identified Christine Charity as President of Verve Hosting, Inc., described in that case as the company that owns Lipstick Alley. The live U.S. Patent and Trademark Office registration for the service mark "LIPSTICK ALLEY" (Reg. No. 4,374,354, first registered 2013, status "renewed" as of April 2023) currently lists the owner as Verve Hosting, Inc., a Michigan corporation at 1584 Club House Ct, Pontiac, MI — the same Christine Charity/Verve Hosting name from the 2011 case, still current 15 years later. This is solid evidence for who holds the brand, though it does not by itself prove Verve Hosting still handles daily moderation in 2026.
Separately, BBB carries two different, unaccredited business listings under the "Lipstick Alley" name that are not confirmed to be the same entity as each other or as Verve Hosting: one in Ogden, Utah (category "Online Publications," file opened 2020) and one in Detroit, Michigan (7660 Dix St, category "Social Media Consultant," file opened 2023) — not, as earlier reporting on this page assumed, a generic "contact directory" address.
In October 2012, an attorney representing then-Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed sent Lipstick Alley's web host a cease-and-desist letter demanding removal of anonymous posts alleging extramarital relationships, threatening a defamation suit if they stayed up past October 18, 2012. The host briefly took the site offline before reinstating it; Lipstick Alley declined to remove the posts and moved to a different host instead. No lawsuit was ever actually filed in court, and the posts reportedly remained online. A similar episode played out in August 2015, when attorney Allison Hart of Lavely & Singer sent a cease-and-desist letter on behalf of actor Jared Leto over forum comments; Public Citizen's Paul Alan Levy again publicly called the demand baseless (the underlying comments were already outside California's one-year defamation statute of limitations, and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields the forum from liability for user posts), and no lawsuit was filed there either. Two documented episodes show the site has repeatedly resisted public figures' takedown demands rather than automatically complying — but they also illustrate that getting content removed from Lipstick Alley without a court order can be difficult, which matters for anyone with a privacy complaint about a specific thread.
How to Dispute a Ban or Report Content on Lipstick Alley
If you want to dispute a ban, report harassment, or ask that a specific post about you be reviewed:
- Use the forum's own "Terms and rules" and per-thread "Report" tools linked from lipstickalley.com — these are the routes the site itself provides for flagging content.
- A support address, [email protected], is listed by third-party contact directories as sourced from the company's own channels; USAComplaints.com could not independently confirm this by loading Lipstick Alley's own contact page, which returned "page not found" when checked directly — treat it as unverified until you confirm it resolves.
- Based on the 2012 and 2015 demand-letter disputes described below, the site has historically not treated an informal cease-and-desist letter alone as sufficient reason to remove anonymous user posts; a more formal legal process may be needed for contested content, though a single pair of past episodes from 2012 and 2015 does not guarantee how the current moderation team will respond to a new request in 2026.
- Lipstick Alley is not a bank, lender, or debt collector, so financial regulators such as the CFPB have no jurisdiction over forum-moderation disputes, and there is no industry-specific licensing body to appeal to for this type of business.
What People Complain About
USAComplaints.com has one confirmed complaint naming Lipstick Alley directly: a December 2011 submission describing an account ban after the user "voic[ed] my estimation to a different poster," and alleging — without independent verification here — that the site had "been prosecuted twice for defamation of personality."
Beyond this site, ComplaintsBoard's aggregate page for Lipstick Alley showed a 1.0-star rating from 21 reviews and 12 complaints with a 0% resolution rate as of August 22, 2026; individual complaints there include allegations of inconsistent ban enforcement, administrators allegedly accessing private information, and harassment following forum participation. SmartCustomer's snapshot (2026) showed a 1.2/5 rating across 101 reviews, and PissedConsumer showed 1.3/5 across 7 reviews (checked August 2026). Trustpilot's currently unclaimed profile for lipstickalley.com shows a 1.6-star rating from 43 reviews, with 91% rated one star and 17 of the 43 posted in the past 12 months — the single largest review count of any third-party platform covering this site, and, like the others, focused on toxicity, moderation, and privacy complaints rather than billing. These are the external platforms' own review counts, not part of USAComplaints.com's own complaint total, and are reported here only as separate, provider-labeled data points.
Court & Public Records
| Case | Authority | Dates | Type | Outcome | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Threatened defamation action by then-Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed (cease-and-desist, October 2012) | N/A -- no lawsuit filed; demand letter sent by Atlanta-based counsel (McKenna Long & Aldridge) | — | Allegation | Allegation only — no filing confirmed On October 8, 2012, attorney Randy Evans of McKenna Long & Aldridge, representing then-Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, sent Lipstick Alley's web host a demand letter alleging that anonymous forum posts describing extramarital relationships were "categorically false" and defamatory, and threatening legal action if the posts were not removed by October 18, 2012. The host, Phoenix NAP, briefly took Lipstick Alley offline before reinstating it pending a possible compromise. Lipstick Alley declined to remove the posts and moved to a different host instead. Attorney Paul Alan Levy (Public Citizen), responding on the forum's behalf, called the demand legally unfounded. According to contemporaneous reporting, no lawsuit was ever actually filed in court, and the disputed posts remained online. This is reported here as an allegation and demand letter, not a filed case or a court finding — it never proceeded past a pre-suit legal threat. | Source |
| Hall v. Lipstickalley.com | Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County | — | Dismissed | Dismissed Hall v. Lipstickalley.com (2011 NY Slip Op 33764[U]) was a pre-action discovery petition brought in New York Supreme Court seeking to unmask an anonymous Lipstick Alley poster. The court's decision, dated May 2, 2011, identified Christine Charity as President of Verve Hosting, Inc. ('Verve'), described as the company that owns Lipstick Alley. The proceeding was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction — the court did not rule on whether the underlying anonymous posts were defamatory, and this case should not be read as a finding of defamation against anyone. The case is notable here mainly for what it documents about ownership: it is the earliest independently-verifiable public record naming Verve Hosting, Inc. and Christine Charity in connection with Lipstick Alley, a connection that still appears current — 15 years later — in the live USPTO trademark registration for "LIPSTICK ALLEY." | Source |
| Threatened defamation action on behalf of actor Jared Leto (cease-and-desist, August 2015) | N/A -- no lawsuit filed; demand letter sent by Los Angeles-based counsel (Lavely & Singer) | — | Allegation | Allegation only — no filing confirmed In August 2015, attorney Allison Hart of the entertainment law firm Lavely & Singer sent Lipstick Alley a cease-and-desist letter on behalf of actor and musician Jared Leto, demanding removal of forum comments about him and threatening legal action. Public Citizen attorney Paul Alan Levy publicly criticized the letter as legally baseless on two grounds: the underlying comments dated to 2013, already outside California's one-year statute of limitations for defamation, and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields the forum from liability for content posted by its users rather than by the site itself. As with the 2012 Kasim Reed episode, no lawsuit was ever filed in court over this demand. This is reported here as a demand letter and public dispute, not a filed case or a court finding. | Source |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Lipstick Alley a legitimate website, or a scam?
Lipstick Alley is a real, free discussion forum that has operated continuously since its domain was registered in September 2000, corroborated separately by a Better Business Bureau record listing the same start date. It is not a retailer or payment site, so "scam" complaints about billing or products do not apply. The real concerns raised in reviews are about account moderation, bans, and alleged harassment or privacy issues enabled by anonymous posting — not financial fraud.
Who owns or runs Lipstick Alley?
Nobody officially confirms running day-to-day moderation under their own name, but the entity behind the brand is better documented than "unknown": a 2011 New York Supreme Court case (Hall v. Lipstickalley.com) identified Christine Charity as President of Verve Hosting, Inc., described as the company that owns Lipstick Alley, and the live USPTO trademark registration for "LIPSTICK ALLEY" (Reg. No. 4,374,354, renewed 2023) currently lists Verve Hosting, Inc., a Michigan corporation, as the mark's owner — the same name, still current 15 years after the 2011 case. That is solid evidence for who holds the brand, though it doesn't independently confirm who handles daily moderation in 2026. Separately, BBB carries two different, unaccredited listings under the "Lipstick Alley" name (Ogden, UT and Detroit, MI) that are not confirmed to be the same entity as each other or as Verve Hosting.
How do I get a post about me removed from Lipstick Alley, or dispute a ban?
Start with the forum's own "Terms and rules" and the "Report" option on the specific thread or post. A support email, [email protected], is listed by third-party directories but was not independently confirmed on the site's own contact page this session. Based on documented 2012 and 2015 episodes, the site has previously declined to remove anonymous user posts in response to an informal demand letter alone, so a formal legal process may be needed for genuinely disputed content rather than an informal request.
Does Lipstick Alley have a doxxing or harassment problem?
Multiple independent complaint sources allege this: reviewers on ComplaintsBoard, SmartCustomer, and a public petition describe cyberbullying, doxxing, and stalking connected to forum participation, and allege that moderators sometimes participate in disputes rather than resolve them. These are user allegations reported across separate platforms, not incidents USAComplaints.com has independently verified — treat them as a documented pattern of complaints, not a confirmed finding.