In August 2024, backstage actress Ava Grace May stood at what could have been a pivotal crossroads in her entertainment career. Selected from a wide field of applicants for a co-hosting role on a breakout YouTube channel with 119,000 subscribers, she texted her excitement to creator Levi Trumbull: “AHHHH THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! This is so exciting.” Sixteen months later, Ava May faces a $30,000 defamation lawsuit in Baltimore County Circuit Court, her opportunity lost, and a legal judgment that may follow her for years to come.

 

The case raises profound questions about decision-making, emotional regulation, and the long-term consequences of impulsive choices made in moments of frustration. More than a legal dispute, it represents a cautionary tale about how a series of bad decisions, can compound into life-altering outcomes.

 

Court documents filed December 8, 2025, detail a timeline that began with promise and devolved through missed opportunities, unreturned communications, contradictory statements, and ultimately, allegations that May falsely accused Trumbull of criminal conduct on Instagram. The lawsuit characterizes her September 15, 2025, posts accusing Trumbull of “stalking” and “harassing” her as defamation per se under Maryland law—meaning the statements are so inherently harmful that damages are presumed.

 

What makes this case particularly striking is not just the legal jeopardy May now faces, but the sheer number of opportunities she had to prevent this from happening in the first place. At each decision point, she chose a path that escalated rather than resolved the situation. Understanding this pattern offers insights into how emotional decision-making can override rational self-interest, sometimes with devastating results.

 

The first critical decision came on August 21, 2024, at a Starbucks in Frederick, Maryland. May had been selected for the role and arrived early, excited about the opportunity. When presented with standard industry contracts and $100 as a travel expense courtesy, she became anxious. The complaint describes her as appearing to have “difficulty reading, and understanding” the documents and becoming “overcome with anxiety.”

 

Requesting time to review contracts is entirely reasonable. What happened next was not. According to the lawsuit, May took both the unsigned contracts and the cash, promising “I’m going to sign them no matter what” and “you’ll get them back.” She never did either. She never signed the documents. She never returned them. She never returned the money. She simply ghosted the opportunity entirely after allegedly having an anxiety attack over legal paperwork.

 

This decision is difficult to understand from a rational perspective.

 

If May decided not to proceed with the role—which was absolutely her right—why not return the materials and money she’d promised to return? The failure to do so transformed what could have been a simple “this wasn’t the right fit” situation into a dispute over unreturned property. It was the first domino.

 

By late August 2024, Trumbull had moved on entirely, selecting another candidate who went on to appear in fourteen videos for his channel. That could have been Ava May building her resume, gaining experience, and developing her on-camera presence. Instead, she had nothing to show for the opportunity except unreturned property that would become the foundation of further conflict.

 

In September 2024, Trumbull sent formal requests for return of his documents and money, offering multiple convenient options. May never responded. This second decision to ignore communication when simple action could have resolved everything is harder still to rationalize. Why not just return what wasn’t hers? The continued silence only deepened the dispute.

 

After May failed to return the advance and business materials Trumbull sued her in small claims court.

 

For nearly a year, the matter sat dormant. Then in September 2025, May released “Astral Stalking,” a song with lyrics about someone watching her “through your astral eyes”. YouTuber Levi Trumbull claims he received communications informing him that May was trying to take aim at him for his past efforts to get his materials back, it prompted Trumbull to send an email on September 13, 2025, titled “The High Road.”

 

This email, quoted extensively in court filings, represents yet another opportunity May didn’t take. Trumbull explicitly offered private resolution: “I am more than willing to meet you at the field you choose, whether it’s the field of reconciliation and moving past this, or the field of vengeance.” He gave her 48 hours to respond.

 

May’s decision here is perhaps the most consequential. She could have responded. She could have proposed a meeting. She could have simply said “let’s move on.” Instead, she chose silence. And that silence led directly to what came next.

 

When Trumbull published a YouTube video on September 15, 2025, addressing the situation and criticizing May’s public content using terms she herself uses to describe her work, May responded within hours. But not with communication to Trumbull—with public accusations on Instagram to her 1,500 followers: “THIS GUY HAS BEEN STALKING ME” and “And then harassed me and my family for months.”

 

This is where May’s decision-making crossed from questionable into potentially devastating. Under Maryland law, stalking is a criminal offense punishable by up to five years imprisonment. By accusing Trumbull of this crime publicly, May wasn’t expressing an opinion—she was making a factual allegation that could be proven true or false. And according to the lawsuit, it was demonstrably false.

 

Even more damaging, less than twelve hours later, May posted contradictory statements to Instagram saying Trumbull’s video “did not hurt” her and was “f*cking hilariously bad” and “gives me recognition.” These admissions, preserved in court filings, undermine any claim that she genuinely believed Trumbull’s conduct constituted criminal stalking or caused her genuine harm.

 

The contradiction is stark: if someone is truly stalking and harassing you in a manner causing fear, you don’t post the next morning that their conduct didn’t hurt you and was actually beneficial to your career. These statements are irreconcilable, and they create evidence that will be extraordinarily difficult to overcome.

 

May then received a cease-and-desist letter on September 16, 2025, explaining why her statements constituted defamation and giving her until September 25 to retract. She didn’t respond. She received a comprehensive demand letter on November 19, 2025, offering complete resolution if she’d simply post a retraction and apology. She didn’t respond. She was personally served with the lawsuit on December 10, 2025. She didn’t respond and is currently in Default.

 

This pattern of non-response is remarkable. At every turn, May had options. She could have engaged. She could have defended her statements. She could have negotiated. Instead, she chose silence, resulting in a default order on January 20, 2026.

 

The cultural parallel to Amber Heard’s defamation case is unavoidable. Heard also made public accusations that a jury found to be false, resulting in a verdict that has dramatically impacted her career and public image. The internet has a long memory, and defamation judgments create permanent public records that follow individuals indefinitely.

 

For someone like May, whose career depends on public image and the willingness of others to work with her, a defamation judgment is particularly damaging. Casting directors, producers, and collaborators conduct background searches. A documented finding that someone made false accusations of serious crimes raises obvious concerns about reliability and judgment.

 

The tragedy is how avoidable this was. Imagine an alternate timeline: May signs the contracts in August 2024, or politely declines and returns the materials. She appears in videos, builds her resume, gains experience. Maybe the collaboration works wonderfully. Maybe it doesn’t, but they part professionally. Either way, she has experience and connections rather than a lawsuit.

 

Or imagine she responds to the “High Road” email in September 2025. They have a conversation, clear the air, move forward. No accusations, no lawsuit, no judgment.

 

Or imagine she responds to the cease-and-desist letter, recognizes her statements were problematic, posts a retraction. The matter resolves without litigation.

 

At each point, rational self-interest suggested engagement and resolution. At each point, May chose differently. The question is why. What drives someone to make a series of decisions that are so clearly contrary to their own interests?

 

The complaint suggests anxiety during the contract review, possible mental health challenges, and impulsive posting. These are understandable human struggles. But they don’t change the legal consequences of false accusations, and they don’t restore the opportunity that’s now lost.

May is 21 years old. Her adult life is just beginning. But this judgment may define her public image for years or decades to come. Every future employer who searches her name will find this case. Every potential collaboration will be colored by it. The internet doesn’t forget, and defamation judgments don’t expire.

 

The lesson here transcends May’s specific situation. In the age of social media, our words create permanent records. Accusations made in anger or frustration don’t disappear—they become evidence. Opportunities to resolve conflicts privately should be taken seriously, because public litigation creates public records that last forever.

 

Ava Grace May had an opportunity in August 2024 that could have launched her career. Instead, she faces a legal judgment that may haunt it. The difference between those outcomes was a series of decisions—small in the moment, devastating in aggregate. It’s a cautionary tale about the long-term cost of short-term emotional choices, and a reminder that in our digital age, today’s impulse can become tomorrow’s permanent record.

 

*AI image used for dramatization purposes

 

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