Filed under: News
A production company is suing R&B songstress Chrisette Michele and her Island Def Jam label for $20 million. The company is claiming that Michele, along with family members and other record company execs, engaged in unlawful business practices with the intent of getting her out of her contract with the producers.
Douglas "Biggs" Ellison, CEO of Four Kings Productions Inc., filed the lawsuit against Island Def Jam Music Group, Shalik Berry (A&R) and Michele's parents (Lynette and Lemuel Payne) in June of 2008. He alleges that the defendants conspired to break the Grammy-nominated artist's exclusive contract with his Queens, N.Y.-based company.
Michele filed a lawsuit against Four Kings in 2007 but later decided not to pursue it. The singer originally claimed that Ellison not only embezzled money from her Def Jam contract but harassed her as well. Ellison claimed that Michele's allegations were unfounded and defamatory, and when they went public, besmirched his reputation.
Ellison stated the following in his lawsuit:
"As soon as the artist's mother saw that Chrisette was receiving money, all a direct result of the efforts of the production company under its contracts with the artist, Lynette Payne quit her job as a teacher and, in willful disregard of the artist's contractual obligations to Four Kings, usurped management functions regarding her daughter's newly found success in an effort to keep the money in the family."
Michele's publicist, Rochelle Brown, told All Hip Hop back in 2008 that her client and Ellison were lovers who met at a Long Island college:
"This is just a case of the jilted lover and gold-digging manager getting caught. The Payne's and Mr. Berry did not unlawfully try to get Chrisette out of her contract with Four Kings. Mr. Ellison's devious plot to exploit and rip Chrisette off began to be revealed."
Mixing business with pleasure is a formula that rarely works!