5 months ago
48
Chris Brown has sued Warner Bros for a whopping $500 million over the sexual assault allegations made in the docuseries Chris Brown: A History of Violence.
The 35-year-old singer has filed a lawsuit accusing the producers and companies behind the Investigation Discovery series of “libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress through defamatory claims made against him in A History of Violence.”
Allegations he drugged and raped a woman, known only as Jane Doe, at a boat party on a yacht alleged to be owned by jailed rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs – who is set to go on trial for sex trafficking and racketeering - in 2020 were brought up in the series.
Brown says Jane Doe’s claims were “discredited over and over” and claimed she was “a perpetrator of intimate partner violence and aggressor herself”.
He denied any wrongdoing when Jane Doe’s suit was first filed and leaked text messages that Doe sent him in an attempt to clear his name.
In August 2022, her suit was dismissed “without prejudice” due to “lack of representation” after her lawyer withdrew from the case.
The suit continued: “To put it simply, this case is about the media putting their own profits over the truth.
The document adds that Brown has been painted as a “serial rapist and sexual abuser”, despite never being found guilty of “any sex related crime”.
Brown pleaded guilty to physically assaulting his ex-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009, but the lawsuit notes that he has learned from his past mistakes, as “publicly acknowledged and addressed by him” in his 2017 documentary, Chris Brown: Welcome To My Life.
A$AP Rocky rejects plea deal; could face “significant prison sentence”
A$AP Rocky appeared in court in Los Angeles on Tuesday to plead not guilty to two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm in connection with an incident that took place in November 2021, when he said to have allegedly assaulted former friend A$AP Relli aka Terell Ephron.
During the hearing, Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec told Judge Mark S. Arnold his office had offered a plea deal with 180 days in county jail if the Multiply hitmaker pleaded guilty to the first count of assault with a semi-automatic firearm, with the agreement also including three years probation, a seven-year suspended jail term, 480 hours of community service and a 52-week anger management scheme, but with the maximum possible sentence being 24 years in prison if he was found guilty, he planned to push for at least 10 to 12 if the star was found guilty.
According to Rolling Stone, when asked if he had reviewed the deal with his team, Rocky, who has two sons with partner Rihanna, said: “Yeah, they spoke to me about it detail, Your Honour. I respectfully decline, thank you.”
The judge told him: “You’re not going to get any special treatment. Your status as an entertainer, your status as the significant other of Rihanna, that’s not going to inure to your benefit, and it’s not going to inure to your harm.
“You are aware that if convicted, you will go into custody and it’s very likely you will get a significant prison sentence?”
Rocky confirmed: “Yes, Your Honour, I’m well aware.”
During the hearing, Rocky’s lawyer insisted he was only carrying a “prop gun”, not a loaded pistol on the night of the incident and insisted Terell, who claimed they were fighting over Rocky allegedly reneging on a promise to pay for another friend’s funeral, had fabricated the shooting and a grazing injury to extort the rapper for money..
But prosecutors only claimed they had been told about the “fake gun” defence the night before the trial.
The judge declined to strike the witnesses but noted: “I don’t think it’s fair that you waited this long to disclose the starter pistol, if that’s central to your defence.”
Blake Lively’s team hits back at videos released by Justin Baldoni
Blake Lively’s team have insisted “every frame” of a video released by Justin Baldoni corroborates her allegations of sexual harassment.
The It Ends With Us stars are locked in a legal battle, with the Gossip Girl actress having accused the 40-year-old actor-and-director of sexual harassment and waging a smear campaign against her, and him suing for defamation.
In the latest move in their public spat, Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, released a video of the pair shooting a dialogue-free scene for the 2024 movie, in which they broke character to speak about his nose and her spray tan.
And Lively’s legal team have been quick to respond and condemn the release of the footage.
They said in a statement: “Justin Baldoni and his lawyer may hope that this latest stunt will get ahead of the damaging evidence against him, but the video itself is damning,” reads the statement from the legal team.
The lawyers claimed that releasing the footage was “another example of an unethical attempt to manipulate the public”.
When the 37-year-old actress filed her lawsuit against Justin and his production company in December, she accused her co-star of causing a “hostile work environment” with “disturbing and unprofessional” behaviour.
English (US) ·