Understanding Histrionic Personality Disorder and Its Role in False Sexual Assault Allegations: Insights from a Military Defense Lawyer

My name is Mike Waddington, and I’m a criminal defense lawyer. This video is about histrionic personality disorder and its role in false allegations against men in criminal cases and domestic violence and divorce type cases. I’ve been cross-examining witnesses for over 20 years. I’ve been a lawyer for over 20 years. I’ve cross-examined thousands of witnesses. I’ve cross-examined false victims and people with personality disorders. I myself in cross-examining, exposing lies on the witness stand.

My wife and I have also written textbooks for lawyers on cross-examination, so not only do we practice it, we also teach other people how to effectively cross-examine and destroy lying witnesses on the witness stand. This video is not based on just my personal experience. It’s based on working with people who are experts in psychology who sit with me and help me cross-examine and prepare for my case. I also use the actual textbooks that doctors use, so I’m going to be reading from the DSM-5. This book is put out by the American Psychiatric Association. It is the book that doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists use to diagnose people with mental diseases and disorders.

Now, I want to make this clear: histrionic personality disorder is a mental disease. It is a mental illness. It isn’t something that you have one day and not the next. It’s something that you can diagnose a person with, and it’s something that usually stays with them for life. This video is one of a series about Cluster B personality disorders, that’s histrionic, borderline, antisocial, narcissistic, and I’m going to focus in on men that are being falsely accused by women with histrionic personality disorder.

A false allegation is one that is false in part or in whole or is grossly exaggerated, where you’re taking something that’s not criminal and turning it into something criminal for whatever reason. I don’t care if the person truly believes that it happened. If it didn’t happen, and the truth is it didn’t happen, then it’s a false allegation, regardless of what your feelings are. Tired of hearing this about, “Oh, it’s their feelings that matter.” No, the truth is what matters. Law is what matters, and the facts are what matters, not how you feel. You can feel a certain way, that’s great, but it doesn’t mean that you were a victim of a crime.

It’s a very dangerous world out there for a man to be getting involved with a person with a personality disorder, and histrionic is one of the easiest ones to spot and also one of the easiest ones to expose and to cross-examine. Now let’s get into into the definitions. Histrionic personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts. It’s indicated by five or more of the following criteria.

Now, I’m going to read you the criteria, but let’s go back to the definition. You all know, and I know, plenty of people that probably have this disorder. Excessive emotionality and attention seeking, yeah, that’s half of Instagram and the OnlyFans. So let’s talk about why you should avoid people like that and how to spot people with this personality disorder. Now, I’m not diagnosing anyone. I’m not a psychologist, I’m a lawyer. In order to be diagnosed with this by a doctor, you need five or more of these criteria.

Number one is uncomfortable in situations in which she or he is not the center of attention. If they’re not the center of attention, they’re not the star of the show. Yeah, try everyone in Hollywood. Uncomfortable, meaning they feel anxious, they feel upset. Always got to be the star of the show, always have to be getting likes, and people are posting nothing but booty shots all over the Instagram and all over TikTok, and if they don’t get 50 million likes by a bunch of dudes, then they’re not getting the admiration that they deserve when they’re just flaunting their body. So if you’re dating someone like that that has to take 300 selfie photos at the beach of their body, that is a huge red flag.

Number two, interaction with others is often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior. I mean, you just go to the airport, you could probably pick these people out. They come to the airport, and I know, “Stop, how dare you say about what a woman wears.” People can wear whatever they want, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not telegraphing a potential personality disorder. You can wear whatever you want. Fine, I don’t care if you wear a thong through the airport. But when your interactions with others are often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior, if you come through there wearing a thong with a bikini the three size is too small, and you’re making a huge scene and trying to get attention from everyone, talking really loud and wanting everyone to stare at you as you take selfies, that might meet this criteria.

And these people often tend to sexualize everything. Like, their main way of getting attention is sex, aka some of these sites like OnlyFans, where there’s no content to it but a woman jumping around with no bra in a see-through shirt, and guys will watch that all day and night. They do. But the problem is when you start dating someone like that, it’s a red flag. If you’re working with someone like that, don’t be a fool, guys. There are plenty of those people in the military, in law enforcement. They will target guys that they think are gullible and basically try to seduce them, straight up.

Number three, displays rapidly shifting or shallow expression of emotions. I don’t even need to give you examples. Turn on any reality TV show that involves dating, and you’re going to have a bunch of histrionics on there and a bunch of other personality disorders. Those dating Love Island shows, the whole show is histrionic and borderlines, and with a bunch of narcissistic dudes.

Number four, consistently use his physical appearance to draw attention to themselves. Guys go to these types of people that have this disorder, and the women that have this mental illness know that. It’s amazing to me. Guys know better, but if it’s flashy and it’s sexy, it could be flashing “I’m going to entrap you, steal your money and then falsely accuse you,” a million men will go for that. Don’t be one of them. So again, use his physical appearance to draw attention consistently, like they can’t just act normal without being the star of the show.

Number number five, has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail. Just turn on, again, reality TV. The people are like, “Oh my God, yeah, this guy, he’s like such a creep, he’s like on, man, like…” What do you mean the guy hit on you? He said hello and smiled. They tend to exaggerate things like that, and they call everyone a creep, or “He’s like a predator, man,” it’s like, “Yeah, that guy’s kind of rapey.” Women can spot the histrionics a mile away. Women are excellent at it. Why? Cuz they see the histrionic as a threat. That is the type of woman that’s going to wreck your marriage, take your job by sex, seducing the boss, but guys often don’t see it.

Number six, they’re self-dramatic, they’re theatrical, and they have exaggerated expressions of emotion. These are the people that will cry on command. Just turn on any of the dating shows, the women who literally met the Bachelor for 5 seconds, and they’re now like crying in the back room having a mental breakdown because he didn’t look at her and he looked at Chrissy, and they’re now having a panic attack. That’s excessive theatrics, excessive emotionality, like over the top and inappropriate. Again, histrionics, turn on a dating show.

Number seven, is easily suggestible, meaning that they’re easily influenced by others or circumstances. These people are on the internet, and whatever they think the growing trend is, if they see somebody cutting their face up and doing a bunch of plastic surgeries or doing other things that they think someone else thinks are cool, they will do it. They’re followers. They’re kind of like a rudderless ship, and they’re just doing whatever they think is cool, and they’re easily influenced by what others think and what others say. We’re talking to Hollywood crowd here, but there’s a ton of these just lurking around in every town and every base, every bar. So you need to be on the lookout for these types, like the lady that’s on the table surrounded by a bunch of dudes with no female friends, trying to get hit on and get free drinks at a bar. Don’t get involved with her, guys, unless you want to be calling me to defend you.

Number eight, considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are. This is the type of person who may be hooked up with someone a few times, and they’re talking about, “Oh my God, we’re in, like, this deep relationship, ship. Oh my God, she’s my best friend, and he’s my best friend, that girl’s my best friend.” And I literally had a case like this the other day at Fort Bragg before Liberty. I said, “Your best friend? I mean, when did you meet this person?” “I met them like 3 weeks ago.” I’m like, “Three weeks ago? How?” “Oh, we met through a friend of a friend, we were at a party.” I’m like, “Well, how many hours have you spent with this person?” “Oh, it was like, you know, I met her on like the weekend, and then we hung out once.” I’m like, okay. This is how a 27-year-old woman who was false accusing my client, who was acquitted, defined close friendship.

She did that to my client. She came over to hook up with him on Tinder. They hooked up, and then he basically told her to leave, and she’s like, “What do you mean?” You know, like… And the funny thing is, this woman’s claim to fame online, guess what it is, guys? She is a TikTok influencer. Her whole claim to fame is she’s this sexy girl that just keeps getting abused by all these men. All body shots, all sexual shots, nothing of any substance. She comes to my guy’s house at 3 in the morning, in the middle of the night, immediately gets into bed with the guy, they start hooking up, and then when he tells her it’s time to go, she flips out.

What do you do if you’re an influencer whose whole shtick is “I’m this cute little sexy southern victim, oh, men are trash”? Well, you got to make a TikTok video about it. And what does the Army do? They see this video this woman makes after she goes, “Oh my God, he like raped me.” They’re like, “Oh my God, this woman made a video about it, it makes the Army look bad, she’s got to be telling the truth.” They took the guy to a court-martial. That one was pretty easily exposed once we cross-examine her, but we went all the way to a court-martial at Fort Liberty, all the way to a jury verdict. But because of this foolishness that my client got involved in, he brought someone to his house and had sex with them and then, you know, didn’t, quote, treat him right.

So guys, listen, these are all red flags and clues. They’re for you to do with what you wish. This is informational, for you to go out there and just keep your eyes open when you’re dealing with people and trying to pick partners, finding women on dating apps and screening people. Because if you want your life to be forever altered or ruined, then get involved with a person with a personality disorder. There is no good way out once you get in. You either going to have a messy bad breakup, or they’re going to probably try to end up ruining your life.

And you know who loves ruining people’s lives? Military law enforcement, military prosecutors. They love taking these cases, they love taking them to court, and they bring them to court all the time. I defend these types of things all the time: a false allegation where the woman’s actually intentionally lying to try to get you convicted for whatever reason, and then the government is doing whatever they can to put you in jail and make you a sex offender for the rest of your life. And a lot of dudes are like, “Oh yeah, the system work out in the end.” Uh, really? Not only do they have a person that’s lying to try to convict you, they pick the jury. The prosecutors will do whatever it takes to convict you, and then you might end up with a lawyer that’s tried one case in their life and it is afraid to question witnesses because they don’t know how to do it.

If you want to roll the dice, do it. The best way to avoid having to hire me and avoid the situation is from the beginning to avoid people that have personality disorders and avoid bringing them in to your intimate personal life.