State Champ Radio Lawsuit
Trending on Billboard
A federal judge has held Tory Lanez in contempt of court on the eve of trial in a civil lawsuit filed by Megan Thee Stallion – a move that came after the singer said: “I’m a millionaire. I don’t care.”
In a ruling Sunday evening, the judge said that Lanez (Daystar Peterson) – currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for shooting Megan in 2020 – had behaved so poorly during three different depositions that he must now pay a $20,000 fine.
Related
According to U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid, that’s an outcome Tory already shrugged off during the most recent debacle: “When told his behavior could result in contempt of court and sanctions consisting of fines and additional jail time, Mr. Peterson then said, ‘whatever the fines are, I’ll pay them. I’m a millionaire. I don’t care’.”
The ruling came a day before the start of a jury trial in a civil lawsuit Megan filed last year against social media personality Milagro Gramz (Milagro Cooper). The star claims Gramz waged a “coordinated campaign” with Lanez to “defame and delegitimize” her in the wake of the shooting.
In addition to the monetary fine, the judge also said that jurors in that trial should be told about Lanez’s refusal to answer questions about whether he ever communicated with Gramz – an unwelcome development for her defense attorneys.
Lanez was convicted in December 2022 on three felony counts for shooting Megan in the foot in July 2020 during an argument following a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s house in the Hollywood Hills. In August 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. His appeal of the verdict and sentence was denied last week.
Related
Last year, Megan filed her civil lawsuit against Gramz, calling her a “mouthpiece and puppet” for Lanez who had been “churning out falsehoods” about the criminal case on his behalf: “Enough is enough,” her lawyers wrote at the time.
Unsurprisingly, Lanez is a key witness in that lawsuit, and Megan’s lawyers have repeatedly tried to depose him from prison. But each time, the singer has disrupted the proceedings and refused to answer questions; Megan’s lawyers have said he’s “made a mockery of the proceedings.”
In her ruling on Sunday, Judge Reid echoed those claims. She said Megan’s lawyers had been “unable to ask more than two questions before Mr. Peterson stormed out of the room.” The judge said Tory later made “derogatory comments” and hurled “multiple expletives” toward Megan’s lawyers and never answered any questions.
Lanez’s attorney, Crystal Morgan, also drew the judge’s ire. Judge Reid said she had objected to questions that were “clearly relevant” during the brief deposition, and had engaged in “coaching the witness.” The judge ordered her to pay $5,000 as her fine.
Related
Trending on Billboard
C.J. Wallace, son of The Notorious B.I.G., has countersued for defamation after a Florida music producer and publicist accused him of participating in a sexual assault with Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Jonathan Hay filed a lawsuit this summer claiming that while working on a remix project with the Biggie estate in 2020, Wallace and an associate brought him to a house where Combs forced him to perform oral sex. The case also alleged multiple other instances of sexual misconduct by Combs, who’s faced a barrage of civil assault lawsuits since being criminally charged last year.
Related
Wallace is now hitting back at Hay with a countersuit in which he calls the allegations a “calculated smear campaign.” The federal court complaint, filed Wednesday (Nov. 12), alleges Hay fabricated these claims because he was upset about their remix project falling through.
The countersuit alleges the estate decided to shelve the project — a house remix of Biggie’s 1994 album Ready to Die, called Ready to Dance — after the first single (a remix of “Big Poppa”) flopped in August 2020. Wallace says Hay was “irate” at this decision and later came up with a phony story about the alleged Combs assault.
“The statements constitute defamation,” writes Wallace’s attorney, Jeremiah Reynolds of Eisner LLP. “As a direct and proximate result, Wallace has suffered general and special damages, including loss of professional opportunities, humiliation and mental anguish.”
Wallace’s defamation claims don’t actually target Hay’s sexual assault lawsuit, since legal filings are broadly shielded from slander liability under a principle known as the litigation privilege. Instead, Wallace’s case focuses on an October YouTube video in which Hay repeated and described his claims in detail.
Related
While Hay’s assault lawsuit was filed anonymously, he revealed his identity in this video, titled “Jonathan Hay Details EXACTLY What Happen When Diddy A$$AULTED Him, Forced to S*CK D*CK & VlOLATED!”
Hay declined to comment on the countersuit when reached by Billboard on Friday (Nov. 14), but noted that he’s filed a police report in addition to the pending civil lawsuit against Combs and Wallace.
Combs’ reps did not immediately return a request for comment on the matter. The disgraced rap mogul is serving a prison sentence for arranging drug-fueled sex marathons between his girlfriends and male escorts, though he was acquitted of more serious sex-trafficking and racketeering charges at a blockbuster trial this summer.
Trending on Billboard
ABKCO, a music company that owns The Rolling Stones‘ early catalog, has brought a lawsuit against Behr Paint over an Instagram advertisement that allegedly used an unlicensed version of the band’s “Paint It, Black,” which ABKCO calls “one of the most valuable copyrights in the history of popular music.”
The copyright infringement case, filed on Wednesday (Nov. 12) in federal court, centers on a 2022 Instagram ad for Behr that showed a person spray-painting furniture while “Paint It, Black” played in the background. ABKCO claims Behr didn’t pay for the track.
Related
While individual social media users can soundtrack their videos for free with songs covered by blanket licenses, companies are required to buy so-called sync licenses for music in commercial advertisements. ABKCO’s lawsuit says it regularly sells sync licenses for “Paint It, Black” — and collects fees ranging from the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for the song, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966.
“Behr’s commercial use of the ABKCO recording has forced a business association upon ABKCO that has harmed its ability to license the ABKCO recording to Behr’s competitors that would pay for the use of the ABKCO recording,” writes lawyer Benjamin Akley of Pryor Cashman. “Clearly, the ABKCO recording is not only iconic, it has unique and particular value to a paint company seeking to promote its paint products.”
According to the lawsuit, ABKCO didn’t learn about the 2022 ad until this past summer. ABKCO’s attorneys allegedly notified Behr, leading the paint company to take down the video, though the company “was unwilling to engage in further dialogue concerning its unauthorized use,” the lawsuit claims.
Related
ABKCO claims Behr is a “sophisticated, multi-billion-dollar corporation” that knows the rules around sync licenses, yet it “inexplicably” chose not to follow those rules here. Now, the lawsuit is seeking financial penalties for Behr’s alleged copyright infringement.
“As a result of the aforementioned acts of infringement, ABKCO has suffered significant damages,” reads the complaint.
Reps for Behr did not immediately return a request for comment on the lawsuit on Thursday (Nov. 13).
Trending on Billboard
Ray J is bringing a bombshell countersuit against Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner, accusing them of intentionally releasing the infamous sex tape with him that launched Kim’s career — and then “peddling the false story” that it was leaked.
A month after the mother and daughter pair sued the singer for defamation over his allegation that they were facing a criminal racketeering investigation, Ray J hit back hard — claiming to reveal the true backstory behind his and Kardashian’s legendary sex tape.
Related
“Mother and daughter have spent two decades peddling the false story that the sex tape that Kardashian filmed [Ray J] was leaked against her will,” writes Ray J’s attorney, Howard King, in a countersuit submitted in Los Angeles court Thursday (Nov. 13) and obtained by Billboard. “They are furious that Norwood no longer wants to play along with their tall tale.”
The reality, Ray J claims, is that Kardashian and Jenner arranged the entire thing, doing so after seeing how the non-consensual release of Paris Hilton’s sextape had led to “meteoric international attention” for her. “Kardashian aspired to even greater fame,” Ray J says.
In a statement to Billboard, Kardashian and Jenner’s attorney, Alex Spiro, fired back at Ray J’s claims: “After realizing he is losing the case and losing his way, this disjointed rambling distraction is not intimidating anyone. Ray J will lose this frivolous case too.”
According to the lawsuit, after signing a deal with the porn company Vivid Entertainment, Jenner and Kardashian agreed with the studio that they would file “a bogus lawsuit” against Vivid claiming the leak was non-consensual “to create buzz ahead of the tape’s release.” The case was actually filed and later settled, but he says it was all a ruse.
Related
“These were lies,” Ray J’s lawyers write. “Vivid and Kardashian ‘leaked’ to TMZ that they ‘settled’ for $5 million. There was no such settlement.”
Such allegations have been made in the past, including by journalist Ian Halperin in his 2016 book Kardashian Dynasty, in which he claimed that the family had been involved in the leak. But Jenner and Kardashian have steadfastly denied the allegation ever since.
Ray J’s case comes in the form of a breach of contract lawsuit — claiming that Jenner and Kardashian violated a settlement deal they struck with him in 2021 over statements about the sex tape.
During a 2021 episode of The Kardashians, the mother and daughter “falsely accused” him of “sexually assaulting Kardashian while she was asleep, releasing revenge porn, and extortion,” the lawsuit says. After Ray J “initiated legal proceedings” over those statements, the Kardashians allegedly agreed to a settlement that would pay him $6 million and ban any further mention of the tape on the show.
But then the Kardashians violated the deal “almost immediately,” repeatedly discussing the tape during the following season of The Kardashians, the lawsuit reads. When Ray J’s lawyers raised the issue, he says they told him that the settlement only covered the earlier season of the show.
Related
With the two sides headed for a dispute in private arbitration, Ray J says Kardashian and Jenner instead chose to file their “meritless lawsuit” to “exact retribution” on him. “Norwood will not allow Kardashian and Jenner to weaponize the judicial system, shirk their contractual obligations, and sacrifice him on the altar of fame,” the lawsuit reads.
The original lawsuit, filed last month, came a week after Ray J claimed on a social media livestream that federal authorities were investigating the Kardashian clan under the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act — the same charges filed against Sean “Diddy” Combs. “The feds is coming,” he said at one point, before adding: “It’s worse than Diddy.”
“Ray J’s public statements are blatantly false,” Spiro wrote in the Oct. 1 lawsuit. “No such federal investigation exists; no law enforcement agency has initiated any criminal proceedings or investigations related to racketeering charges against Ms. Kardashian or Ms. Jenner; and no credible evidence whatsoever supports these inflammatory allegations.”
The lawsuit claimed that Ray J’s comments were just “the latest salvo in a deliberate and malicious campaign of harassment and defamation intended to defame plaintiffs while reviving his own fading notoriety.”
Trending on Billboard
A new lawsuit claims Drake’s ”What Did I Miss?” music video ripped off the work of an Italian photographer — and, in a strange twist, that the rapper was intentionally trying to connect his feud with Kendrick Lamar to a controversial Balenciaga campaign.
The copyright infringement complaint, filed against Drake (Aubrey Graham) on Wednesday (Nov. 12) in federal court, alleges a key sequence in the “What Did I Miss?” video lifts from a photograph in Gabriele Galimberti’s 2020 book The Ameriguns. Both Galimberti’s photo and the scene in question show men standing outside houses, surrounded by firearms laid out in parallel around swimming pools.
Related
Galimberti is a photographer with National Geographic, though he is perhaps best known for shooting a notorious 2022 Balenciaga campaign that portrayed children with sexually explicit objects. The campaign drew a huge backlash, with consumers accusing the fashion house and Galimberti of glorifying pedophilia.
Wednesday’s lawsuit draws a direct line between the Balenciaga controversy and “What Did I Miss?,” in which Drake addressed the aftermath of his rap battle with Lamar. That feud ended with Lamar calling Drake a “certified pedophile” on the chart-topping diss track “Not Like Us,” leading Drake to sue Universal Music Group (UMG) for defamation.
“Plaintiff was ultimately publicly vindicated in a defamation lawsuit abroad related to the false accusations arising from the Balenciaga advertisement,” writes Galimberti’s attorney. “Given Kendrick Lamar’s lyrics…calling defendant Graham a pedophile and defendant Graham’s now dismissed defamation lawsuit, on information and belief, defendant Graham sought to imply that he, like plaintiff, would be publicly exonerated.”
Related
Drake’s defamation lawsuit was dismissed last month, with a federal judge ruling that lyrics in rap battles are hyperbole and not meant to imply facts. Drake is now appealing to revive the case against UMG, which owns both Lamar’s label Interscope Records and his label, Republic Records.
Republic and UMG are both defendants in Galimberti’s lawsuit as well, along with Drake and his company OVO Sounds. Galimberti is seeking financial damages for what he describes as “both an egregious violation of federal law and an affront to plaintiff, his livelihood, his legacy and to photographers everywhere.”
“Plaintiff is a serious professional, addressing serious themes,” reads the complaint. “His work hangs in galleries, museums, graces serious print literature, and his career depends upon the respect and admiration of dealers, collectors and critics of contemporary and documentary art. By the forced and unauthorized association of his work with the infringing video, the integrity of his work and his reputation as a photographer has been damaged.”
Reps for Drake and UMG did not immediately return requests for comment on the lawsuit.
“What Did I Miss?” debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July, and hit No. 1 on both Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Rhythmic Airplay, extending multiple Billboard chart records for the rapper.
Trending on Billboard
In the wake of Calvin Harris’ bombshell fraud claims against business manager Thomas St. John, fellow star DJ Eric Prydz has brought a lawsuit alleging the financial adviser stole $269,000 from his accounts.
St. John, the head of beleaguered entertainment industry accounting firm Thomas St. John Group, was accused in arbitration this summer of secretly funneling $22 million from Harris’ accounts into a real estate side venture. St. John denies the claims, maintaining that the Scottish DJ was an informed and willing investor in the project.
Related
Now, Prydz — another titan of the EDM industry — says St. John exploited his account access to steal money. The Swedish DJ, who has been a client of St. John’s since 2012, claims in an Oct. 28 breach of contract and fraud lawsuit that St. John paid himself $269,000 in commissions for services Prydz says he never asked for or authorized.
“Thomas St. John is a professional financial advisor who is supposed to be trustworthy and reliable, and who should be acting in the best interests of his client,” wrote Prydz’s attorney, Carla Wirtschafter of Reed Smith. “TSJ, however, proved to be none of those things. Instead, he is a fraud who not only abuses the trust of his clients, he takes money from them without their knowledge or authorization for his personal use and benefit.”
The lawsuit claims Prydz decided to fire St. John in September after discovering that the manager had taken $219,000 in unearned commissions on top of his regular 5% fee. St. John allegedly agreed to stay on through the end of October to finish a tax return for Prydz, though this process quickly turned contentious.
Prydz claims St. John tried to “extort” an additional $150,000 out of him and refused to complete the tax return otherwise, which Prydz says he refused. But according to the lawsuit, St. John unilaterally took another $50,000 out of Prydz’s accounts to cover part of this improper fee.
Related
The legal complaint alleges that after all this, St. John never filed the tax return as promised — and that he’s now refusing to turn over the necessary documentation to Prydz’s new financial advisers.
“As a direct result of TSJ’s malicious conduct to hold Prydz’s financial documents hostage, Prydz has been unable to complete and file the now past due tax forms,” the lawsuit reads.
Prydz is seeking a court order for St. John to release his financial records and return the allegedly stolen commissions. The DJ also wants additional monetary damages recouping St. John’s 5% fee, claiming the adviser did “little or no work” to earn those payments.
Reps for St. John did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday (Nov. 12).
Prydz’s lawsuit is just the latest legal woe for St. John, whose U.S. business arm has been in bankruptcy since March. The manager’s real estate project, a Hollywood development called CMNTY Culture Campus, is the subject of claims from both Harris and songwriter Philip Lawrence.
Related
A deep dive by Billboard last month reported that CMNTY Culture — originally envisioned as a recording studio and creative office complex — was born out of the St. John-advised, $90 million sale in 2020 of Lawrence’s catalog of Bruno Mars writing credits.
Following that deal, Lawrence opted to park some of the proceeds in a real estate venture to lessen his taxes on the sale and brought on St. John as a partner. But Lawrence’s finances soon dried up, and St. John ended up buying out the songwriter and helming the project himself.
It was at this point that St. John took on outside investors, including Harris. But while St. John claims Harris wanted in on CMNTY Culture, Harris alleges in his arbitration that the manager fooled him into signing investment documents without knowing what they were.
Harris now claims that his money has disappeared and that CMNTY Culture is a “complete boondoggle.” Indeed, St. John is no longer developing a recording studio and has yet to break ground on any construction, though he maintains that the project is still on track for success under reworked plans for a residential apartment complex.
The Harris action is still pending before a private arbitrator. Meanwhile, Lawrence has declared bankruptcy, while his estate trustee recently accused St. John in court papers of violating their fiduciary relationship during the CMNTY Culture partnership.
Trending on Billboard
There’s a new front in the nasty legal war between hip-hop producer Madlib and his longtime manager Eothen “Egon” Alapatt: The many songs recorded during their decade-long partnership.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday (Nov. 11) against Madlib (Otis Lee Jackson Jr.), Egon asked a federal judge to decide who owns the rights to the masters created over the years at their Madicine Show label — tracks that feature Madlib’s beats under vocals by Mac Miller, Freddie Gibbs, Four Tet and others.
Related
“Jackson now claims those works as his personal property and seeks to withdraw them entirely from Madicine Show’s catalog,” writes Egon’s attorney Kenneth Freundlich. “That is not how the law works.”
In a statement to Billboard, Madlib responded to Egon’s new claims: “I trusted someone who didn’t value the art the way I do. This is a reminder that not everyone who stands beside you is standing for you. When you move with truth, you don’t have to defend yourself. Time and integrity do the talking.”
Madlib, a critically-acclaimed producer known for his work with Kanye West (now Ye) and the late MF Doom, went to court first in 2024 — accusing Egon of “rank self-dealing” and “pervasive mismanagement.” The case, filed in California state court, claimed the manager had abused his power over Madicine Show to profit at Madlib’s expense.
Egon hit back in May, filing a countersuit blasting Madlib for “having the audacity to bring this mean-spirited personal action.” In one notable claim, Egon said Madlib’s new label was interfering with music projects that legally belong to Madicine Show, including the release of a years-old recording of the late Miller that has long been rumored to be in the works.
Related
In the new case on Tuesday, Egon said he needed “immediate federal intervention” in that legal battle because of a key new development in the earlier lawsuit.
Last month, a Los Angeles judge sided with Madlib and ruled that a court-appointed receiver should oversee the corporate dissolution of Madicine Show. The ruling came over objections from Egon, who said he himself should oversee the company’s wind-down. “Defendant is not the appropriate person to oversee the dissolution process,” the judge said at the time. “The court will appoint a receiver.”
But now, weeks later, Egon says in his new lawsuit that the breakup process cannot move ahead until it’s clear who owns the company’s “most valuable assets”: its catalog of recorded music. And since copyright law is handled exclusively by federal courts, he says that decision must be made by a U.S. district judge.
“The recordings at issue were created and exploited pursuant to a licensing relationship between Jackson and Madicine Show,” Egon writes. “They remain company assets, and their ownership must be determined under the Copyright Act.”
Related
According to the lawsuit, the tracks recorded by Miller and others over Madlib’s beats were “facilitated, supervised, and produced” by Egon under a longstanding arrangement in which the company controlled them. The producer’s recent claim that “he alone owns all copyrights” is “mystifying” and legally incorrect, the suit says.
“This position ignores the parties’ mutual understanding and Alapatt’s creative, financial, and managerial contributions,” Egon’s lawyers write. “After benefiting from that arrangement, Jackson cannot revoke or withdraw those rights or claim exclusive ownership of works that were created, produced, and marketed under Madicine Show’s direction.”
Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on the new case.
Months after a judge told A$AP Relli that he was better off letting go of his civil lawsuit against A$AP Rocky for allegedly shooting him in 2021, he finally took heed and will be dropping his lawsuit.
According to Billboard, Relli is officially moving on from the 2021 incident as he will no longer be seeking compensation from Rocky. Relli’s lawyer, Aaron Morris, has informed Billboard that his client will be “focusing on rebuilding his life” instead of going through with the lawsuit.
The surprising development comes months after Los Angeles County Judge Randolph M. Hammock told Relli that he would be better off coming to some kind of terms with Rocky’s legal team instead of once again going through the motions of a trial and not only taking another “L” but also being left with hefty legal fees that he’d have a problem paying off.
Love Hip-Hop Wired? Get more! Join the Hip-Hop Wired Newsletter
We care about your data. See our privacy policy.
Seemingly taking heed of the level-headed advice from Judge Hammock, Relli is taking the offramp in this ordeal as his lawyer said, “The ordeal has been a nightmare for him, and the statements calling him a ‘liar’ and worse effectively eliminated his chances of a career in the industry.”
Still, though this brings an end to the civil case that Relli brought to Rocky, Relli will continue with his defamation lawsuit in which he stated that both Rocky and his lawyer, Joe Tacopina, called his lawsuit an “extortion” attempt and a “get-rich-quick-scheme.”
According to Morris, he feels his client has more stable legal grounds to stand in this particular lawsuit, saying, “He’s going to litigate the defamation action because of the damages it caused, but as to the shooting, he’s thankful he wasn’t hurt worse and is focusing on rebuilding his life.”
We’ll just have to wait and see if a jury feels the same way in his defamation case when it’s all said and done.
What do y’all think about A$AP Relli dropping one lawsuit but continuing with the other? Do you think he has a chance in his defamation case or nah? Let us know in the comments section below.
—
Photo: Getty
Brenay Kennard, a popular social media figure who amassed millions of followers, was ordered to pay $1.75 million to the ex-wife of her manager, who was married to the woman before his involvement with Kennard. Known as @lifeofbrenay across her socials, Brenay Kennard was accused of splitting up the marriage of her marriage by the ex-wife, citing criminal conversation and alienation of affection.
Raleigh outlet WRAL reports that Akira Montague, the ex-wife of Brenay Kennard’s current manager, Tim Montague, accused Kennard of seducing her husband and ending their seven-year union. Under North Carolina’s “alienation of affection” law, a spouse has the legal right to sue an individual they believe led to the end of a marriage. Ms. Montague said that the affair caused her mental anguish and took her husband away from their children.
Kennard defiantly fired back at Ms. Montague, saying that the marriage was essentially over and that the ex-wife gave her blessing for them to move forward. It was also rumored online that Kennard was married to another man during the affair.
Love Hip-Hop Wired? Get more! Join the Hip-Hop Wired Newsletter
We care about your data. See our privacy policy.
Trending on Billboard
A$AP Relli has abandoned plans to retread his shooting claims against A$AP Rocky at a second trial early next year, telling Billboard through a lawyer that he’s instead “focusing on rebuilding his life.”
Rocky (Rakim Mayers) was acquitted at a criminal trial this past February of shooting Relli (Terrell Ephron), his childhood friend and onetime A$AP Mob collaborator, in 2021. Relli brought an assault lawsuit in 2022 seeking financial damages from the star rapper over the same alleged incident.
Related
The civil case was scheduled to go to trial in January, with Relli facing a lower burden of proof than the one prosecutors failed to meet in their criminal case against Rocky. But an attorney for Relli, Aaron Morris, tells Billboard on Tuesday (Nov. 11) that his client has decided to drop the assault claims.
“At this point, he’s ready to simply move on from the shooting,” Morris said. “The ordeal has been a nightmare for him, and the statements calling him a ‘liar’ and worse effectively eliminated his chances of a career in the industry.”
Morris said his team will file court papers officially dismissing the assault lawsuit later this week. Relli is still pursuing a separate defamation lawsuit against both Rocky and his lawyer, Joe Tacopina, over press interviews in which they called the shooting claims “extortion” and a “get-rich-quick-scheme.” Relli alleges these statements harmed his reputation and career as an artist manager.
“He’s going to litigate the defamation action because of the damages it caused, but as to the shooting, he’s thankful he wasn’t hurt worse and is focusing on rebuilding his life,” says Morris.
Rocky’s reps did not immediately return a request for comment.
Rocky and Relli were involved in a now-infamous altercation near a Hollywood hotel in November 2021. Relli alleges Rocky fired a handgun at him twice during the argument, while the rapper maintains it was a prop gun filled with blanks.
Prosecutors charged Rocky with two felony assault counts in 2022. The Grammy-nominated Harlem rapper rejected a plea offer from prosecutors and went to trial, risking a maximum of 24 years in prison if convicted. Rocky’s bet ultimately paid off, with a Los Angeles jury fully acquitting him of both counts.
