“Tinder Founders Call Out Hulu’s Whitney Wolfe Herd Biopic Swiped as ‘All Lies’ — Inside the Explosive Backlash Over Her ‘Co-Founder’ Title”
The release of Hulu’s new biopic Swiped—a glossy dramatization of Whitney Wolfe Herd’s rise from Tinder team member to billionaire founder of Bumble—was meant to inspire viewers with a tale of resilience, innovation, and female empowerment. Instead, it has sparked a heated firestorm, with several members of the original Tinder team publicly blasting the film as a distortion of history.
Starring Lily James as Wolfe Herd, Swiped traces her early years at Tinder, her high-profile sexual harassment lawsuit against fellow co-founders, and her eventual pivot to create Bumble, which became a multibillion-dollar brand. But according to original insiders, the movie exaggerates Wolfe Herd’s importance at Tinder while sidelining the contributions of others who were central to the app’s creation.
Jonathan Badeen, one of Tinder’s widely recognized co-founders, has been blunt. In an interview, he warned audiences to “expect a lot of lies” from the Hulu production, insisting Wolfe Herd was not a true co-founder in the same sense as himself, Sean Rad, or Justin Mateen. Others who were there at the company’s launch have echoed the sentiment, dismissing her role as “intern-level” and claiming she had little say in leadership or business strategy.
At the heart of the backlash is Wolfe Herd’s “co-founder” title, which remains a contentious subject. Insiders argue she pushed for the label in press interviews despite not holding the authority or responsibilities the term typically implies. One former team member even alleged that she sought public recognition more than she contributed to the startup’s major breakthroughs. To them, Hulu’s framing of her as a central architect of Tinder is an unjust rewriting of Silicon Valley history.
For her part, Wolfe Herd has distanced herself from the project entirely. She has admitted she did not participate in its production and even tried to block it from being made. “I asked my lawyer two years ago, ‘I don’t want a movie about me. Shut it down!’” she told People. But as a public figure, she learned she had little legal ground to stop it. The billionaire entrepreneur now describes the experience of watching herself fictionalized onscreen as “too weird” and “terrifying,” confessing she hasn’t even made it through the trailer.
The timing is notable. Wolfe Herd stepped down as Bumble’s CEO in 2023 but remains on the board, and her story is often held up as an example of female empowerment in the male-dominated tech industry. Swiped, produced without her blessing, leans into that narrative—presenting her as the courageous disruptor who took on a toxic boys’ club and built an empire.
Whether the film is inspirational myth-making or a distortion of reality depends on who you ask. For viewers, it’s a polished drama with a message of resilience. For the people who built Tinder, it’s revisionist history that sidelines their work. And for Wolfe Herd herself? It’s a surreal, unwanted reminder that once you become a public figure, you lose control over how your story is told.
As Swiped streams to millions, the debate over credit, legacy, and truth in tech storytelling has only just begun.
