Burning ManTrue crime YouTubers Robert and Emma Forney, the father-daughter duo behind the Explore With Us channel, are suing Burning Man organizers after claiming they were threatened and prevented from filming at the iconic Nevada festival.
The pair, who have over 7 million subscribers, filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Nevada alleging that organizers unlawfully blocked them from documenting the 2024 cleanup effort at the Black Rock Desert site.
According to the complaint, obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Forneys say local deputies and Bureau of Land Management officers issued them a trespass warning while “acting at the direction of Burning Man organizers.” They claim this violated their free speech rights.
The lawsuit also claims they were “aggressively accosted and threatened” by individuals tied to the festival.
Burning Man responds to YouTubers’ lawsuit
The cleanup is a critical part of Burning Man’s image, with the event branding itself as the world’s largest “leave no trace” gathering.
In August, the Forneys posted a nearly two-hour documentary titled What Burning Man Doesn’t Want You to See, which highlighted leftover trash and debris. The film has pulled in over 150,000 views on YouTube. Another video from June 2025, containing 2022 body footage, pulled in 4M views.
Explore With Us claimed that some were “threatening false copyright reports” in an effort to take the video down. “Misusing copyright law to silence coverage doesn’t just fail, it exposes exactly what they don’t want the public to see,” they said.
“EWU Media is suing to vindicate its right to access and film on public land and report on the impact of Burning Man,” their attorney Maggie McLetchie said in a statement.
“A private group should not be in charge of who can access information about that group’s use of land that belongs to all of us. And law enforcement should not take orders from the ‘Black Rock Rangers’, Burning Man’s imaginary law enforcement agency.”
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Meanwhile, festival organizers have dismissed the lawsuit as baseless.
“Burning Man views the complaint as frivolous, without legal or substantive merit, and will vigorously defend the claims against it and take all appropriate legal action against EWU Media LLC in response,” spokesperson Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley said.
The case adds another controversial chapter to the 2025 edition of the festival, which also made headlines after reports of deaths, poker pros getting married, and even a surprise birth when a woman claimed she didn’t know she was pregnant before delivering a baby on-site.