Legal
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Don Henley and his longtime manager Irving Azoff are being sued by one of the men who was criminally charged — and later vindicated — for allegedly attempting to sell handwritten lyrics connected to the Eagles‘ 1976 album Hotel California, claiming they and their attorneys engaged in a “malicious prosecution” that harmed his reputation and caused him financial losses and emotional distress.
The complaint, filed in New York state court on Thursday (Feb. 6), was filed against Henley, Azoff and the firms that represented them in their case: Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and Loeb & Loeb. In it, Horowitz claims the parties falsely alleged that he and his two co-defendants in the criminal case “knew or had reason to believe” that the lyric sheets “had been unlawfully obtained” and nonetheless attempted to profit off of them via an online auction. However, Horowitz claims the men and their attorneys knew all along that the notes had been acquired through legal means in the first place.
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Horowitz, a rare book dealer, and his co-defendants — Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi and memorabilia auctioneer Edward Kosinski — were criminally charged in 2022 over an alleged conspiracy to resell the lyrics that had been handwritten by Henley while working on the Eagles’ iconic Hotel California album. At the time, prosecutors had accused the three men of hiding the fact that the documents had been stolen from Henley’s home by Ed Sanders, a journalist hired by Henley and Azoff to write a never-published book on the Eagles in the late 1970s.
But in a stunning turnaround in March 2024, Manhattan prosecutors dropped the case after Henley produced new evidence previously withheld under attorney-client privilege that cast doubt on his and Azoff’s allegations. The judge in the case subsequently dismissed the charges and chastised Henley, Azoff and their attorneys for “obfuscat[ing] and hid[ing] information that they believed would be damaging to their position that the lyric sheets were stolen.”
According to Horowitz’s attorney Caitlin Robin, the evidence cited by prosecutors and the judge in dropping the charges — a series of emails between Henley, Azoff and their attorneys — proves they were aware that Sanders had legally obtained the lyric sheets in the course of writing the never-published Eagles book. Nonetheless, she alleges they “purposefully withheld any disclosure thereof because they knew it would exculpate Plaintiff GLENN HOROWITZ and essentially destroy the fraudulent allegations they made about him.”
As a result of his “unjust prosecution,” Horowitz claims he “was deprived of his liberty and suffered humiliation, defamation, media harassment, diminished reputation, loss of business and/or loss of wages amounting in more than ten million dollars ($10,000,000.00), in addition to mental anguish, indignity, frustration and financial loss.” The complaint further alleges that Horowitz’s wife Tracey (who is listed as a co-plaintiff) also “suffered humiliation, defamation, media harassment, diminished reputation, and mental and emotional anguish” as a result of her husband’s prosecution.
In a statement sent to Billboard, Henley and Azoff’s attorney Dan Petrocelli said, “Don Henley was a witness and a victim in a criminal trial brought by the Manhattan District Attorney after a formal indictment of Glenn Horowitz by a New York grand jury. The indictment highlighted the dark underbelly of the memorabilia business that exploited the brazen, unauthorized taking and selling of Mr. Henley’s handwritten lyrics. The only malicious prosecution involved here is the filing of this case by Mr. Horowitz.”
The Horowitzes are asking for damages “in excess of the jurisdictional limits of all the lower Courts of the State of New York.”
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and Loeb & Loeb did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment.
Do you know what the initials “AWGE” stand for? Don’t feel too bad because only a few people know the answer to that, and apparently it’s a big secret. AWGE is the name of A$AP Rocky‘s creative agency and record label, and the meaning of what the letters stand for has never been made clear. […]
Ozzy Osbourne is facing a copyright lawsuit over alleged social media posts featuring unlicensed photos of a famous rock star: Ozzy Osbourne.
The case, filed Monday in Los Angeles federal court, claims the Black Sabbath frontman illegally posted multiple images — of himself – that were snapped by prolific rock photographer Neil Zlozower.
The photographer’s attorneys say Ozzy posted the images to his massive followings on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) without seeking permission or paying Zlozower a licensing fee.
“The accounts are key components of defendant’s popular and lucrative commercial enterprise,” the lawsuit says. “Defendant has over 12 million followers on [Facebook], and over 6 million followers on [Instagram], and over 5 million followers on [X] — all of which are monetized and provide significant financial benefits to defendant.”
A rep for Ozzy did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations.
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While it might sound unfair to a celebrity, the copyrights to a photo are almost always retained by the person who took it. Simply appearing in an image does not give a celebrity co-ownership of it, nor does it give them a right to repost it for free. To understand why, read Billboard‘s explainer here.
Ozzy is hardly the first celebrity to get sued over that legal reality. Over the last few years, Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Emily Ratajkowski, LeBron James, Katy Perry and others have faced copyright cases after they re-used photos of themselves snapped by someone else.
And in allegedly using photographs snapped by Zlozower, Ozzy picked the wrong guy to test. Since 2016, court records show the litigious photographer has filed nearly 60 copyright cases against a range of defendants over images of Elvis Costello, Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe and more.
In Monday’s lawsuit, Zlozower’s attorneys say Ozzy used several different photos. Five are staged portraits of the rocker standing alongside Zakk Wylde, the lead guitarist for Osbourne’s backing band since 1987; another features Osbourne onstage embracing Randy Rhoads, who served as guitarist on Osbourne’s first two solo albums before dying suddenly in a 1982 plane crash.
Zlozower says his team reached out to Ozzy about the allegedly infringing social posts in June – and then again in August and September. But he says the star “failed to respond,” meaning he was “forced to seek judicial intervention for defendant’s infringing activity.”
Megan Thee Stallion can proceed with a defamation lawsuit accusing social media personality Milagro Gramz of waging a “campaign of harassment” against the star on behalf of Tory Lanez, a federal judge says.
The rapper sued Gramz (Milagro Cooper) last year, claiming the YouTuber had been “churning out falsehoods” about the high-profile criminal case against Lanez, in which he was convicted of shooting Megan in the foot during a 2020 dispute in the Hollywood Hills.
In a 25-page decision on Friday (Feb. 7), Judge Cecilia Altonaga denied a request by Gramz to dismiss the case, saying Megan had made a “compelling case” that the blogger had defamed her by claiming the star lied during Lanez’s trial and that she was “mentally retarded.”
“Plaintiff’s claims extend far beyond mere negligence — they paint a picture of an intentional campaign to destroy her reputation,” the judge wrote. “That is more than enough to [deny the motion to dismiss].”
The judge also refused to dismiss Megan’s other claims against Gramz, including that Gramz had violated a Florida state law by sharing a pornographic “deepfake” of the rapper. Defense attorneys had argued that Gramz had not actually shared the clip merely by “liking” it on X, but Judge Altonaga noted Friday that she’d allegedly done more than that.
“By ‘liking’ an X.com post that featured the deepfake video, the video was exhibited on defendant’s X.com account’s ‘Likes’ page,” the judge wrote. “Defendant also brought the video ‘before the public’ when she allegedly directed viewers of her post to click on her ‘Likes’ page where the video had been archived.”
The judge did dismiss one claim — Megan’s accusation of cyberstalking — but allowed her to refile the case this month to try to fix the error.
In a statement to Billboard, Gramz’s attorney Michael A. Pancier stressed that the decision was an early-stage ruling subject only to a “more lenient legal standard” and that “many of these issues will be revisited at a later stage following the completion of the discovery process.”
“This decision does not reflect a determination on the merits of the case,” Pancier said. “The plaintiff must now substantiate her claims with credible and admissible evidence.”
A rep for Megan declined to comment on the ruling.
Lanez (Daystar Peterson) was convicted in December 2022 on three felony counts over the violent 2020 incident, in which he shot at the feet of Megan 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. He has filed an appeal, which remains pending.
In an October lawsuit, Megan’s attorneys accused Gramz of repeatedly spreading falsehoods about that criminal case, including questioning whether Megan was even shot and claiming she was “caught trying to deceive the courts.” More recently, they said Gramz had pushed the “outlandish claim” that the gun Lanez used in the shooting had gone missing from evidence.
The lawsuit claimed the blogger made those claims because she was serving as a “mouthpiece and puppet” for Lanez as the singer sat behind bars. In an updated version of the lawsuit filed in December, Megan’s attorneys said prison call logs suggested that Lanez and his father had arranged to pay Gramz.
In seeking to dismiss the case, defense attorneys argued that Megan could not meet the difficult requirement of showing that Gramz had acted with “actual malice” — that she had either intentionally lied about Megan or had acted with a reckless disregard for the truth.
But in Friday’s ruling, Judge Altonaga said that the rapper’s claims, if later proven with evidence, would likely be enough to win a defamation case.
“The [lawsuit] makes a compelling case that defendant acted with reckless disregard for the truth,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiff asserts that readily available information contradicted defendant’s statements at the time of publication [and that] defendant knowingly spread these falsehoods at Peterson’s direction, fully aware they were fabricated to harm plaintiff.”
“Finally, defendant seemingly profited from the defamation — gaining a larger social media following, online notoriety, and lucrative sponsorship opportunities,” the judge added.
MTV owner Viacom has filed a lawsuit claiming that Nick Cannon’s new comedy battle rap game show — called Bad vs. Wild — is a “flagrant” copycat of his long-running series Wild ’N Out.
In a case filed Monday (Feb. 7) against the streaming service Zeus Network, the cable giant claimed that the new show “goes far beyond mere imitation” and instead steals “each and every” element of Wild ’N Out, a popular hip-hop comedy show that’s aired for more than 20 seasons on MTV and VH1.
The lawsuit doesn’t name Cannon as a defendant but instead accuses Zeus of essentially poaching him. It says the new show is “cosplaying” as a Wild ‘N Out “successor,” profiting from Viacom’s years-long investment “without having to do the work of creating original content itself.”
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“In an era where original content is at a premium, Zeus has chosen the path of least resistance: stealing the fruits of Viacom’s goodwill and decades of labor and innovation, and pawning it off as its own original idea for its own financial gain,” Viacom’s lawyers wrote.
Worse yet, the lawsuit says, episodes of Bad vs. Wild (which debuted in March) have repeatedly featured “offensive and inappropriate content that glorifies violence, objectifies women, and perpetuates insidious stereotypes,” threatening to tarnish the legacy of Wild ‘N Out.
“The potential damage to Viacom and Wild ‘N Out cannot be overstated,” the company’s lawyers continued. “This blatant copying and association with offensive content threaten to erode two decades of Viacom’s carefully built reputation and goodwill. It is an attack not just on Viacom’s intellectual property, but on its very brand identity.”
The lawsuit accuses Zeus of infringing both Viacom’s copyrights to the show and also its trademarks, saying that consumers have been duped into thinking the two shows are somehow connected. The filing cites a press release that explicitly referred to the show as “Wild ‘N Out on steroids.”
Wild ’N Out, which debuted on MTV in 2005, features teams of comedy and hip-hop stars battling in a series of competitions, capped off by a freestyle battle and then a musical performance. Over the years — the show has run for 21 seasons — it has boasted guests including Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, A$AP Rocky and Lil Wayne.
In this week’s lawsuit, Viacom claimed that Zeus had stolen almost all of the show’s core elements when it created Bad v. Wild. The two names are “extremely similar”; the new logo “copies the look, typeface, and arrangement”; the format and stage design of the two shows are “nearly identical”; and, of course, they feature the same host.
“Zeus enlists Mr. Cannon as host of a show that maliciously infringes upon the intellectual property of Wild ‘N Out … and has tainted Mr. Cannon’s image as on-camera talent for Wild ‘N Out,” Viacom’s lawyers wrote.
Though it doesn’t name him as defendant, the lawsuit does accuse Cannon of wrongdoing.
Viacom’s lawyers say he’s currently subject to his contract from Wild, which prohibits him from doing anything that that would “tarnish” his image as the show’s host and bans him from using “any characters or materials” from the show in other projects. By producing and hosting Bad v. Wild, the lawsuit says Cannon has violated that agreement.
But rather than sue Cannon directly for that alleged breach of contract, the lawsuit instead pins the legal blame entirely on Zeus — accusing the network of “intentional interference” with Viacom’s deal with Cannon by “inducing” him to break it. And the company claims it’s not the first time.
“Zeus — having previously violated exclusivity provisions when working with Viacom talent, and having knowledge of industry custom and practice — was aware that Mr. Cannon is under contract,” the company’s lawyers wrote. “The damage caused by Zeus’s interference with Mr. Cannon’s contract is magnified by the wave of negative publicity which emanated from Zeus’s unoriginal content and colorist and sizeist stereotyping.”
Reps for both Zeus and Cannon did not immediately return requests for comment.
Read the entire complaint here:
A long-running legal battle over the rights to Jimi Hendrix’s music is going to trial after a U.K. appeals court rejected Sony Music’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit filed by his former bandmates.
The estates of bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell say they own a share of the rights to three albums created by the trio’s Jimi Hendrix Experience, and they’ve been battling in court with Sony and Experience Hendrix LLC for more than three years to prove it.
In a ruling Thursday, the U.K.’s Court of Appeal upheld a decision issued last year that said the dispute must be decided at trial, rejecting Sony’s request to overturn that ruling and dismiss the case: “In my judgment the judge was correct,” Lord Justice Richard Arnold wrote in the new ruling, obtained by Billboard.
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In a statement celebrating that ruling, a rep for Redding and Mitchell’s heirs say that their case is now scheduled to proceed to trial in December – more than four years after they first sued.
“Noel and Mitch first issued their complaint in November 2021 and after the latest delaying tactic of Sony to deny them justice the case now moves to a full trial,” said Edward Adams, a director for the heirs. “We retain our faith in the justice system that they and [Experience Hendrix] will be finally held fully to account at that time.”
A spokesperson for Sony did not immediately return a request for comment on the ruling.
Hendrix teamed up with Redding and Mitchell in 1966 to form the Experience, and the trio went on to release a number of now-iconic songs including “All Along The Watchtower,” which spent nine weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968 and peaked at No. 20. The group split up in 1969, a little over a year before Hendrix died suddenly at the age of 27 from an accidental drug overdose.
The current fight kicked off in 2021, when Redding and Mitchell’s heirs sent a letter in the U.K. claiming they own a stake in Hendrix’s music and arguing that they’re owed millions in royalties.
Experience Hendrix, a company that owns his intellectual property, and Sony, which distributes his music under a licensing deal, responded a month later by preemptively suing in New York federal court, aiming to disprove those allegations. Redding and Mitchell’s heirs then filed their own case against Sony in British court, seeking control of the records and accusing the label of copyright infringement.
After months of jockeying, a U.S. federal judge ruled in 2023 that the English litigation could take precedence.
Seeking to end that lawsuit, Sony argued that Redding and Mitchell both signed away their rights shortly after Hendrix died. In a 1973 legal settlement cited by Sony, the two men purportedly agreed not to sue Jimi’s estate and any record companies distributing his music in return for one-time payments — $100,000 paid to Redding and $247,500 to Mitchell.
But last year, a judge on London’s High Court ruled that the dispute – over “arguably the greatest rock guitarist ever” — was close enough that it would need to be decided at trial.
“My overall conclusion is that the claims in respect of copyright and performers’ property rights survive and should go to trial,” Justice Michael Green wrote at the time. The judge wrote that Redding and Mitchell’s heirs had “a real prospect of succeeding” on their argument that the decades-old releases “do not provide a complete defence” for Sony.
Sony appealed that ruling, setting the stage for Thursday’s decision. In doing so, the company didn’t actually challenge judge’s ruling on the core issue of the 1973 settlement; instead, Sony’s lawyers argued that Redding and Mitchell’s heirs were ineligible to file their case under various U.K. statutes.
Joined by two other appellate judges on the panel, Lord Justice Arnold rejected those arguments on Thursday, ruling that the heirs’ claims were fair game under the statutes cited by Sony.
It’s unclear if Sony will file further appeals, or whether such additional challenges might delay the trial beyond December. Such rulings can typically be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the country’s highest appeals court; but like the U.S. Supreme Court, the British top court only accepts a limited number of cases, based on whether they raise big and important legal questions.
If the case does proceed to trial, attorneys for the Redding and Mitchell estates said Thursday that they were looking forward to the showdown. In the statement, they compared their late clients to the Freddie Mercury’s bandmates in Queen.
“No one is denying that Jimi Hendrix was one of the greatest guitarists of all time, just as Freddie Mercury was a great singer. But neither of them made their recordings alone,” said Lawrence Abramson of the law firm Keystone Law. “It has never been suggested that Brian May, John Deacon nor Roger Taylor should not have participated in Queen’s success so why should Noel and Mitch lose out from the success of the Jimi Hendrix Experience?”
It’s been nearly five years since Pop Smoke (Bashar Jackson) was killed in California’s Hidden Hills — and now, the only adult defendant in the murder trial has reached a plea deal. According to Rolling Stone, Corey Walker, 24, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and home invasion robbery charges in Los Angeles court on Wednesday […]
The estate of legendary rapper Notorious B.I.G. is suing Target, Home Depot and others over allegations that they sold unauthorized canvas prints of the famed “King of New York” photo that was snapped just days before his death.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court, Notorious BIG LLC claims the retailers sold prints illegally created by iCanvas – a small firm that the estate says showed a “complete disregard for celebrities’ personality rights, lack of respect for artists’ efforts, and disdain for intellectual property law.”
“Defendants specifically chose to use Mr. Wallace’s persona, name, image, likeness … in an attempt to capitalize on their fame and extraordinary financial value,” Biggie’s estate writes, referring to his legal name, Christopher George Latore Wallace.
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The image at issue in the new lawsuit is “The King Of New York” – a portrait of Biggie wearing a gold crown in front of a red backdrop, snapped in March 1997 only three days before the rapper was killed in a Los Angeles shooting.
The photos — taken by photographer Barron Claiborne, who is also named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit — are some of the most well-known images of the late rapper. One is featured in a huge mural in his Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, and the plastic crown featured in the image sold at auction in 2020 for a whopping $594,750.
In their Tuesday lawsuit, the estate and Claiborne say that iCanvas sold canvas prints of the images for more than eight years without permission. In addition to selling them directly, the lawsuit claims the prints were also sold by Bed Bath & Beyond, Home Depot, Nordstrom and Target – each of which is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
When contacted about the problem in 2023, Home Depot, Nordstrom and Target removed the offending products, the lawsuit says, but iCanvas and Bed Bath & Beyond allegedly continue to sell them.
The case claims that the sale of the images not only infringed Claiborne’s copyrights to the King images, but also breached federal trademark law and violated the rapper’s likeness rights.
“Mr. Wallace’s fan base has continued to expand since his passing,” the estate’s lawyers write. “Mr. Wallace’s persona, name, image, likeness, and artistic works are so well known that they are almost universally and instantly recognizable, even by those born after he died.”
The case could portend bigger problems for iCanvas. The lawyers for Biggie’s estate say they’re only a few of the “victims” of a “multi-year unlawful campaign” by the company to sell unauthorized prints of famous people and images, including musicians Beyonce, Prince, Jay-Z, Snoop Dog and LL Cool J.
None of the defendants immediately returned requests for comment on Wednesday.
It’s not the first time the Notorious B.I.G. estate has sued over photographs. In 2019, the estate sued hip-hop photographer Chi Modu over his famed 1996 image of Biggie standing in front of the World Trade Center. Though Modu owns the copyrights to the image, the estate claimed he was violating the rapper’s likeness rights by using it on merchandise.
That case settled last year on undisclosed terms – a deal that came with a warning from the estate’s attorneys about the use of his image: “Pictures of Christopher cannot be commercially exploited without a license from our client.”
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Experts weigh whether Kendrick Lamar can play “Not Like Us” during his Super Bowl halftime show amid Drake’s defamation lawsuit; Spotify wins a ruling dismissing a lawsuit over streaming royalties; federal prosecutors file a superseding indictment against Sean “Diddy” Combs; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Can Kendrick Play ‘Not Like Us’ At The Super Bowl?
Under normal circumstances, it’s silly to even ask the question. Obviously a Super Bowl halftime performer will play their chart-topping banger — a track that just swept record and song of the year at the Grammys and was arguably music’s most significant song of the past year.
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But these are very much not normal circumstances. Last month, Drake sued Universal Music Group over Kendrick Lamar‘s “Not Like Us,” claiming the label spread the song’s “malicious narrative” — namely, that Drake is a pedophile — despite knowing it was false.
That pending legal action makes it fair to wonder: When Lamar steps onto the world’s biggest stage on Sunday night, will he face pressure to avoid the whole mess by just skipping “Not Like Us” entirely?
To answer that question, I turned to top legal experts – who told me that Drake probably won’t win in court, but that corporate legal departments are also famously risk averse and might want to avoid trouble. For the full breakdown of how Sunday might go, read my entire story here.
Other top stories this week…
SPOTIFY BEATS ‘BUNDLE’ CASE – A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed against Spotify by the Mechanical Licensing Collective, rejecting the group’s allegations that the streamer illegally slashed its music royalty rates. The lawsuit, filed last year, accused Spotify of bookmaking trickery – namely, claiming that the addition of audiobooks to the platform entitled the company to pay a lower “bundled” rate for music. But in her ruling, the judge said Spotify had done nothing wrong under “unambiguous” regulations – and that if anything, the company had paid too much in royalties.
A.I. COPYRIGHT REPORT – The U.S. Copyright Office issued a long-awaited report on artificial intelligence. The report’s overall message was hardly groundbreaking: only human authors are eligible for copyrights, but material created with the assistance of AI can qualify on a case-by-case basis. But it included key assurances for existing music industry practices — saying using AI as a “brainstorming tool” to help write a song, or using it to assist in a recording studio session, would not automatically void copyright protection for the resulting songs.
TERMINATION GOES GLOBAL? A Louisiana federal judge issued an unusual legal decision on copyright termination, breaking with existing precedents and handing a major win to songwriters and their heirs. Ruling on a dispute over the 1963 rock classic “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love),” the judge said that termination rules apply not just to American copyrights but also to the rights to a song around the world – an outcome that legal experts have said would represent a “major upheaval” and could “radically revolutionize the way the music business runs.” The losing party in the case, who has warned the decision will cause “chaos,” is almost certain to appeal the ruling.
LYFT DISCRIMINATION CASE – A Detroit rapper named Dank Demoss (Dajua Blanding) filed a discrimination lawsuit against Lyft over allegations that one of the company’s drivers told her she was “too big” for the backseat of his car and that “his tires were not capable of supporting plaintiff’s weight.” In a viral video of the January incident, the driver can be heard telling Blanding that he’s “been in this situation before,” and that she needs to order a pricier “Uber XL” to accommodate her size.
UPDATED DIDDY INDICTMENT – New York federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment against Sean “Diddy” Combs, adding additional victims and new allegations in the sprawling criminal case against him. Among the new claims: that he or his associates paid a $100,000 bribe to hotel staff to bury the now-infamous surveillance video of him assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in 2016. Another civil lawsuit was also filed against Combs, the latest in a long list of such cases filed by Texas attorney Tony Buzbee.
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been hit with a pair of new sexual assault lawsuits that allege he drugged and sexually assaulted the plaintiffs and/or forced them to engage in sex acts with others during a “group-sex” party at Trump Hotel in midtown Manhattan.
Filed in New York state court on Tuesday (Feb. 4), the lawsuits — the latest to be lodged by Texas attorney Tony Buzbee against the disgraced hip-hop mogul — were filed by Jane Doe plaintiffs who say they were involved in the New York hip-hop scene in the ’80s and ’90s.
The first complaint was filed by a woman who says she was “an active member of New York’s hip-hop industry from the 1980s onward” and “appeared in numerous music videos for varying hip hop artists, was employed as a hip hop dancer for live productions, as well as having roles in major motion pictures.” According to the complaint, she was subject to “sexual assault, coercion, abuse and violence either at the hands of, or direction of Combs” on numerous occasions.
In the first alleged incident, the woman claims she was drugged and “forced to participate in group sexual activity” with Combs and others while attending (and being prevented from leaving) a so-called “shadow party” held at a New York bar sometime in the 1990s.
Later in the decade, while allegedly dating Combs’ security guard, the woman says she attended another of Combs’ parties at the five-story New York nightclub Limelight, where she says “group-sex parties” were occurring on the top two floors. After the party, she claims Combs and the security guard took her and a friend to a penthouse at a Trump hotel in midtown Manhattan, where she says she was “physically and sexually assaulted” by the guard as Combs watched. Later that evening, she claims she and her friend were forced to take “ecstasy or [a] similar ‘party’ drug” and “engage in a group sex activity that [they] did not want to participate in.”
This alleged incident is echoed in the second lawsuit filed on Tuesday by a woman who claims she was “a part of the hip-hop scene that was developing in New York City” in the ’80s and ’90s and “appeared in numerous music videos for various hip-hop artists and participated in other projects within the industry.”
After attending a party also allegedly held at the Limelight — which reads like the same event described by the first plaintiff — the woman claims she and a friend were taken to the Trump Hotel in midtown Manhattan against their will, drugged “and forced to participate in group-sex activity during which she [was] sexually assaulted over the next several hours. For instance, Plaintiff was vaginally raped by a club promoter at Combs’ direction, while Combs observed.”
The woman also outlines a second incident she says occurred after she was hired to serve as a “bottle-service attendant” at a party Combs hosted in the Hamptons in 1997. Shortly after arriving at the event, the woman says she and others hired for the event were encouraged by Combs to drink from coolers and offered marijuana, after which she “began to feel woozy, slipping in and out of consciousness.” At this point, she says she was “sexually assaulted and vaginally raped by Combs’ associates, at Combs’ direction, while Combs was present.” After suspecting the assault was videotaped, she says she reached out to Combs “to request that he delete the video, but Combs refused to comply.”
The woman further alleges she “suffered several incidences of sexual assault at Combs’ hands while traveling to other states, including California,” though only the New York incidents are included in the complaint.
Both women are asking for compensatory and punitive damages from Combs and his various Combs Global businesses, which are named as co-defendants for “enabl[ing]” the alleged abuse.
A representative for Combs and Combs Global did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.
Combs is currently awaiting the start of his criminal trial, which is set to commence on May 5, at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. He is charged with running a criminal enterprise aimed at satisfying his need for “sexual gratification.” Among other accusations, Combs is alleged to have held so-called “freak offs” during which he and others drugged victims and coerced them into having sex. He is also accused of acts of violence and intimidation to silence his alleged victims. Combs faces a potential life prison sentence if convicted on all charges.