New York City sued Jordan McGraw and his production company this week over the unaired NYPD reality series “Behind the Badge,” and obtained a court order blocking them, at least temporarily, from selling or disseminating footage from the unfinished program.
The lawsuit seeks to enforce a contract clause that gives the city control over what it considers “Non-Usable Content,” with restrictions that include inaccurate or confidential material and footage that could compromise public safety or public trust. It also alleges that the show, at times, portrayed the nation’s largest police department negatively in a way the city said violated the agreement.
“Behind the Badge” was set up as a documentary-style series intended to spotlight the NYPD’s work, with “Dr. Phil” McGraw hosting and interviewing officials as he visited crime scenes. Episodes were slated for MeritTV cable and streaming channels, where McGraw had previously done segments featuring the police department.
According to the city’s lawsuit, episode “rough cuts” provided to the city by McGraw’s company, McGraw Media, were mostly “unedited footage” dumps. The filing says the materials included content the city says was not allowed under the production agreement, including discussions of sensitive operations and the identities of undercover officers, crime victims and witnesses.
The dispute surfaced after the city abandoned the project late last year, hours before then-Mayor Eric Adams ceded City Hall to Zohran Mamdani. In the run-up to that decision, the lawsuit narrative described concerns raised by City Hall about the documentary-style show’s quality and content.
After the city said it was no longer able to fulfill its obligations and laid out concerns about the production process, McGraw and his team asked for editorial control, according to the lawsuit. It says they disavowed their obligations and attempted to wrest editorial control over the project, with the city arguing that doing so could cause immediate and irreparable harm.
Jordan McGraw’s lawyers said the filing surprised them. Chip Babcock, a lawyer for McGraw and McGraw Media, said the lawsuit came as a surprise “as publication of any programming was not imminent,” and he said the company had worked with the city to address edits requested and is willing to continue doing so. Babcock said the company would seek to remove the court order as soon as possible, calling it a presumptively unconstitutional prior restraint.
On Thursday, McGraw’s lawyers filed to move the case from New York state court to federal court.
The contract disputes trace back to a three-year agreement signed in April, according to the report. The city reserved rights that included an opt-out deadline of Dec. 31, 2025, and a letter from Camille Joseph Varlack said the city was “no longer able to fulfill its obligations” to the project. Varlack outlined concerns that included shoddy editing and the inclusion of content the city said was objectionable in the rough cuts.
The lawsuit describes specific disputed footage as well, including an officer inputting a security code at a police station entrance, discussions of encrypted police communications, and unblurred faces of people who had been arrested but not yet tried or convicted. The filing says Varlack warned McGraw that releasing such footage would violate the contract, and it alleges McGraw Media indicated it would not accept the city’s edits and intended to distribute the flagged material while seeking a buyer to air the show.
Adams, who said he was proud of the work, defended Jordan McGraw’s “Behind the Badge” efforts in a Wednesday social media post. In the post, Adams wrote that McGraw “brought exceptional talent in revealing the inside story of the dangers NYPD officers face every day” and that he and his team “meticulously addressed every concern raised by City Hall.” Adams also wrote, “I’m proud that the work they did tells the real story of our brave police officers,” and “Heroes don’t wear capes, they wear blue uniforms.”
Adams wrote that he “understood” the approach and “hope[s] America will get to see that too.”