Pras Michél, a founding member of Grammy-winning hip-hop group The Fugees, is suing his bandmate Lauryn Hill in federal court for fraud and breach of contract, among other claims, over their abbreviated 2023 and canceled tour a year later.
via: Billboard
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for Pras allege that Hill exploited his mounting legal bills to get him to sign onto a plan for the 2023 tour with false promises – a deal they say enriched Hill at the expense of her bandmate.
“Hill’s ploy to appear to be Michel’s supposed savior was actually a devious attempt to make a big score for herself by generating millions of dollars from a Fugees tour,” his lawyers write. In the process, it did not matter to Hill if she took full advantage of Michel’s vulnerability – her friend and creative partner of over 30 years. In fact, she counted on exploiting that vulnerability to carry out her scheme.”
The lawsuit also sheds light on the aborted 2024 tour – which had been set to kick off in early August but was quietly cancelled just days before it was set to begin, with no immediate reason given. In his court papers, Michel pins the blame squarely on Hill.
“Because of the gross mismanagement by Hill and [her company], who had taken far too long to close the deal with Live Nation, the 2024 U.S. tour tickets sales were dismal,” his attorneys say. “There was little or no marketing for the tour, and not enough time between the announcement and the first concert date to do sufficient advance sales to justify the tour.”
Comprised of Hill, Michel, and Wyclef Jean, the Fugees rose to fame in the 1990s with hits like “Killing Me Softly,” “Ready or Not,” and “Fu-Gee-La.” After splitting up in 1998, the three each had successful solo careers and mostly stayed separate until recent years, when they have attempted multiple reunion tours.
In 2019, Michel was hit with sweeping federal criminal charges, including funneling money from a Malaysian financier to Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign and then later trying to influence an extradition case on behalf of China. In April 2023, he was convicted on 10 counts including conspiracy, witness tampering and failing to register as a foreign agent.
In his lawsuit on Tuesday, Michel’s lawyers said Hill took advantage of a “desperate man” who needed to pay expensive criminal lawyers, using an advance of cash to get him to sign a deal with “onerous terms” that he would have “easily rejected in the years before his criminal conviction.”
“While the contractual advance paid to Pras enabled him to retain his new criminal lawyers, the 2023 tour agreement was a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” his lawyers say.
The touring agreement was “based on a lie” about how much Hill was being paid, Michel’s lawyers say, and it “ceded all financial and creative control” to her and her company – which gave her the “total lack of transparency she needed in order to secretly siphon off money.”
The lawsuit claims that Hill secretly took 40 percent “off the top” from the tour revenue before accounting for the one-third split that was owed to each of the three members. And he says the tour made much less money than it should have, thanks to a “bloated” budget and an abrupt cancellation of the second half of the tour.
As for the 2024 tour, Michel claims that Hill misled Live Nation that Michel was “on board” with the plan for another run of concerts when no such deal had been inked – and did so in order to receive a $1.1 million advance.
“That was another lie by Hill and [her company] since Michel was not ‘on board,’” say Michel’s lawyers, adding that her company “never signed the fully-negotiated agreement, never paid Michel anything, and never intended to do either.”
In technical terms, the lawsuit accuses Hill of fraud over the way she paid out money from the touring revenue; of fraudulently inducing Michel to sign the 2023 deal; and of breaching both her contract and her fiduciary duty. It also demands a ruling declaring the 2023 deal void, and a court-ordered accounting of the books from the tour.
The lawsuit also includes numerous other digs at Hill beyond the actual allegations of legal wrongdoing. In one section, Michel’s lawyers point out that Hill took the stage nearly four hours late during a recent concert in Kenya. At another point, they claim that she “unilaterally rejected” rejected a $5 million offer to play Coachella earlier this year because “her ego was bruised” that the band No Doubt would receive higher billing at the festival.
“Hill never told Michel about the offer or that she had rejected it,” his lawyers write. The money the Fugees would have been paid for Coachella would have defrayed most of the additional legal retainer Michel needed. So much for Hill being the guardian angel for her bandmate, Michel. Massaging her own ego was more important.”
A spokesman for Hill did not immediately return a request for comment.
I say take her ungrateful, holier than thou behind for every damn penny. Heck, the fans need to sue her behind too like the ones that tried to sue Madonna during her Celebration Tour for being late.
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