Derek Chadwick, the model and actor who became the public face of the gay dating app Goose, has walked away from the company he co-founded just two months after its splashy launch.
What Chadwick Said
Goose launched in late June, pitched as an "anti-algorithm" alternative to Grindr built around lasting connection rather than hookups. Instead of matches, the app uses a "wave" mechanic: if two people wave at each other, they're connected. Chadwick's star power, backed by roughly 1.7 million Instagram followers, helped the app spike to number four on Apple's free Lifestyle charts shortly after launch.
That momentum makes his exit sting more. In his statement, posted last week, Chadwick called the decision difficult but necessary. "When my name and my face are on something, I want to be able to stand behind all of it, fully," he wrote. "As that stopped being true, staying didn't feel right."
Where I landed is that my vision for where this should go and the direction the company is going aren't the same thing anymore.
Derek Chadwick
He thanked the users who joined in the app's early weeks, saying "tens of thousands of you showed up," and hinted he isn't finished building for the community, teasing "more soon." Goose, co-founded with former BeReal community manager David Aliagas, has not commented publicly on his departure.
The AI Controversy Looming Over the Split
Chadwick's statement never mentions it directly, but his exit comes about six weeks after Wired reported that Goose's marketing relied on more than two dozen Instagram accounts determined with over 90 percent confidence to be AI-generated. Those accounts allegedly messaged gay men with near-identical invitations, telling them they were "exactly the type of person" Goose was built for, alongside an invite code.
The same reporting found a co-founder's account advertising paid "ambassador" positions and offering money for "finstas," fake Instagram accounts used to promote the app. An advertising attorney told Wired that manufacturing fake accounts for marketing likely runs afoul of FTC guidelines. When Queerty asked Chadwick about the allegations in July, his response defended the app's vetting of real users but never actually addressed the claim that AI bots, not people, were driving traffic to it.
Worth Considering
Dating apps built for gay men have a long history of promising something more human than the grid of faces on Grindr, and Goose leaned hard into that pitch: hand-picked members, no algorithm, real friendships over hookups. That's exactly why the AI bot allegations landed so badly. If the invitations luring people in were synthetic, the
Sources: Queerty, them., Attitude, PinkNews, Gay Times, The Advocate, Out
Cover photo: cottonbro studio / Pexels
