UMG Accused of Using Super Bowl Stage to Defame Drake, New Legal Complaint Reveals
The ongoing legal confrontation between global music icon Drake and industry behemoth Universal Music Group (UMG) has intensified dramatically. Last night, Drake's legal team submitted an amended complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, revealing new, alarming allegations against UMG related to a large-scale, coordinated defamation campaign.
The amended filing not only bolsters Drake's original claims but also raises the stakes considerably. It alleges that UMG orchestrated a sophisticated, high-budget strategy to damage Drake's reputation on a massive, international stage.
According to court documents filed on April 16, 2025 (Southern District of New York, Case No. 1:24-cv-XXXX), Drake alleges that UMG made significant financial investments to fund a calculated publicity assault against him. The amended complaint asserts that UMG utilized its extensive professional connections within the media and entertainment industry to ensure the widespread dissemination of defamatory content.
Specifically, the complaint details that UMG facilitated the broadcasting of defamatory material to over 133 million viewers during the 2025 Super Bowl and over 15 million viewers during the Grammy Awards, two of the largest and most visible stages in the entertainment world.
Citing unnamed insiders and financial records expected to be revealed during discovery, Drake's legal team accuses UMG of deliberately engineering and amplifying false narratives through paid media campaigns, strategic leaks, and partnerships with key media outlets.
Following the filing of the amended complaint, Michael Gottlieb, Partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and lead attorney for Drake, issued a firm public statement:
'Drake's amended complaint makes an already strong case stronger. UMG's PR 'spin' and failed efforts to avoid discovery cannot suppress the facts and the truth. With discovery now moving forward, Drake will expose the evidence of UMG's misconduct, and UMG will be held accountable for the consequences of its ill-conceived decisions.'
Gottlieb's remarks signal a clear shift in tone. With discovery now authorized to proceed, Drake's team plans to seek internal UMG documents, communication records, PR firm contracts, and potentially deposition testimony from executives and media personnel involved.
The court's approval for discovery sets the stage for what experts predict will be an extremely invasive examination of UMG's internal operations. Drake's amended complaint specifies the following categories of information to be uncovered:
Internal communications regarding media strategies involving Drake
Contracts with public relations agencies potentially tasked with negative campaigns
Financial records demonstrating investments in smear efforts
Communications with entertainment broadcasters and award show organizers
Drafts and pre-publication versions of public statements and news articles mentioning Drake
Legal analysts suggest that if documentary evidence corroborates Drake's allegations, UMG could face substantial legal, financial, and reputational consequences.
According to Professor Sandra Westfall, an entertainment law expert at NYU School of Law:
'If UMG directed or knowingly financed defamatory content to be disseminated during events like the Super Bowl and the Grammys, it would not only constitute defamation but could also trigger claims for commercial disparagement and tortious interference.'
Behind the scenes, insiders report that senior UMG executives are increasingly alarmed. According to confidential sources within the company, internal legal teams are conducting urgent reviews of all correspondence relating to Drake, particularly surrounding the production of media campaigns and award show promotions.
One senior executive, speaking anonymously, disclosed:
'If discovery confirms that top brass authorized anything close to what Drake is alleging, it could destroy key relationships with artists and partners across the industry.'
UMG's leadership is said to be considering emergency damage control measures, including potential settlement talks to avoid a prolonged courtroom spectacle.
Throughout the escalating legal battle, Drake himself has remained notably silent, refraining from commenting publicly about the lawsuit. Legal observers interpret this silence as a tactical choice, allowing the strength of the amended complaint and forthcoming discovery disclosures to speak louder than any social media post or song lyric.
However, industry insiders speculate that Drake may eventually address the dispute through his music, perhaps using future releases to reclaim the narrative on his terms.
As the case progresses into discovery, the implications are immense not just for Drake and UMG, but for the entire entertainment industry's handling of public relations, media influence, and artist relations.
If the allegations are substantiated, this lawsuit could set a powerful precedent, redefining the acceptable boundaries of media manipulation and corporate power plays.
For now, all eyes are on the court docket and on Drake's next move.
The post UMG Accused of Using Super Bowl Stage to Defame Drake, New Legal Complaint Reveals appeared first on Where Is The Buzz | Breaking News, Entertainment, Exclusive Interviews & More.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
37 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Meet the former Chicago ‘theater kid' who stages Kendrick Lamar
Mike Carson made the backdrops for school plays. Mountains, villages, flat and colorful, that sort of thing. He also ran the lights. He was a tech guy in school theater. He played football at Plainfield North High School, but at heart, he was a theater kid. Even now, living in Los Angeles, he heads to the theater whenever he can. As a child, his parents often took him to Chicago theater. That stuck in surprising ways. So much so, you are familiar with Mike Carson's work even if you don't know him by name, or thought of that work as theatrical. Carson, now the creative director at pgLang in Los Angeles, is one of Kendrick Lamar's longtime production designers and creative partners. If you're headed to Solider Field this week to see 'The Grand National Tour' featuring Lamar and SZA, know this: a lot of what you'll see is Mike Carson's ongoing collaboration with Lamar and Dave Free, childhood friends who cofounded pgLang in 2020 as an arts incubator that, according to its mission statement, speaks in music, podcasts, film, theater, books, TV, visual arts — 'because sometimes we have to use different languages to get the point of our stories across.' Next spring, they have a movie co-starring Lamar, made with Matt Stone and Trey Parker of 'South Park,' about a Black intern who plays a slave in a living history museum. But so far, their best-known production is the Super Bowl halftime show from February, the most watched halftime show in NFL history, a furious, petty, startling satire of American dreams, joys and contradictions. If its stage kind of looked like a PlayStation controller to you — that was the idea. Nothing about a Lamar performance is phoned in. Carson thinks of them as quasi-theatrical musicals. 'The music becomes the script and gives us an intention of how the show will flow the way it does,' he says. 'When we're conceptualizing, you might imagine us just throwing songs onto a board or images up on a board, then going from there, but there's a reason, or a narrative, or something underlying everything on that stage. Myself, I like some tension in there, but everything gets crafted, from the setlist to the color of the lights at one moment to why there are (dancers) on stage another moment. I definitely took that approach from going to plays.' Take the backdrops. Your average stadium concert is going to blow up the performer's image to Godzilla proportions, blending in bits of video and a lot of CGI surrealism — the DNA comes directly from the churning swirls of late 1960s concert psychedelia. With Lamar, not so much. Yes, he's gargantuan on those video screens; it is a stadium. But he also mingles with images reminiscent of 'The Last Supper' and sculptor Augusta Savage, Los Angeles car culture and the great contemporary collagist Lauren Halsey; the tour uses seven of her assemblages of Black archival images, street advertising and neon colors, blowing them up big enough to stretch across Soldier Field and superimposing Lamar into the mix. A few years ago, when Lamar headlined Lollapalooza, he performed against large lo-fi backdrops of Black friends and family, made by the contemporary painter Henry Taylor. Lamar's shows are big on motifs. For this tour, it's a 1987 Buick Grand National GNX, the same one that was the focus of the half-time performance. 'We've been rolling with that car since the Super Bowl,' Carson said, 'only now its retooled from that, where it was basically a clown car.' Car collectors may flinch. The GNX, counted as one of the last American muscle cars, was so limited edition that only 547 were manufactured by General Motors; each of the top 500 Buick dealers in the nation received just one or two to sell. After a countrywide search, Carson and Co. landed one — then gutted it for the Super Bowl, allowing an improbable number of dancers to appear to stream out of it. The Grand National Tour opens with laser-drawn interpretations of Latino-inspired car window fonts, backed by a swooning serenade from Mexican American mariachi Deyra Barrera. Then the GNX rises out of the stage with Lamar in the driver's seat. Lamar's previous 'Big Steppers' tour was even more outwardly theatrical: It opened with Lamar at a piano, playing to a puppet of Lamar. Dancers moved mechanically, separated out exactly. At one point in the show, when Lamar bent over, his shadow was cast huge against a backdrop, except on the backdrop, a row of arrows appeared to be stuck in his back. 'Doing that kind of thing in arenas is a little easier,' Carson said. 'You can get more abstract, or you can be a little more theatrical. In a stadium, the expectation is for a spectacle and you think in terms of how three corners of a stadium are getting the same thing. But we can be subtle, we can — Kendrick's always willing to push things past a normal show.' One of the tour's indelible images involves Lamar simply sitting on steps, tens of thousands before him. Carson knows pop ambitions. He grew up in the western suburbs of Berkeley and Bellwood, then later moved to the Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen. He attended Columbia College for a time until meeting legendary Chicago fashion designer and Kanye West collaborator Virgil Abloh, who died in 2021. 'I basically dropped out after my first semester sophomore year and began working with Virgil and went on the whole 'Watch the Throne' thing with Kanye and Jay-Z, the album and the tour. I was documenting Kanye and Jay-Z. Virgil took a chance on me. For a few years, that was my college experience.' He remembers Abloh, no matter how any assistants were around him, often doing the work himself. Indeed, you could argue that Abloh's creative spirit is in 'The Grand National Tour,' in the blend of street clothing and stark minimalist staging, and in the way Lamar, Carson and Free make the familiar feel fresh, and how they somehow come off bold without forgetting to remain accessible. 'You want to be always forging a new way of doing this,' Carson said. 'That could mean our version of what concert choreography could look like. Or our version of what stage design can look like. Or Kendrick's interpretation of what a stadium concert could look like right now. How do you get your own distinctive visual language out? And how do you do it at the scale of a football stadium?'
Chicago Tribune
an hour ago
- Chicago Tribune
What to do in Chicago: Blues Fest, the ‘Grand National Tour' and Jeremy Piven doing standup
Kendrick Lamar and SZA: You got a taste during the Super Bowl, but now you can see the full show. Kendrick Lamar and SZA bring their 'Grand National Tour' to a sold-out Soldier Field. Expect the two to trade off sets before performing together during the nearly three-hour show. Rolling Stone called it 'a spellbinding display of star power.' Chicago Blues Festival: Mavis Staples caps off the Chicago Blues Festival on Sunday, but in the meantime, you have dozens of reasons to head downtown. Catch Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram Friday in a B.B. King tribute, along with D.K. Harrell and Jonathan Ellison with the B.B. King Centennial Band. Or, see him Saturday night when he headlines on his own. 57th Street Art Fair: If you'd like to browse some art and also work in some blues, head to Hyde Park. Now in its 78th year, the juried fair offers the opportunity to browse the works of more than 150 artists. Buddy Guy's Legends also hosts a stage. Jeremy Piven: Evanston native Jeremy Piven brings his stand-up routine to The Vic. Perhaps best known for his Emmy Award-winning performance as a Hollywood agent in HBO's 'Entourage,' Piven has had a long acting career that started with training at the Piven Theatre Workshop, founded by his parents, Bryce and Joyce Piven. Caamp: The folk-rock band's two-night stand at the Salt Shed coincides with the release of their new album, 'Copper Changes Color.' Following an initial burst of success a few years back, the Ohio-bred Caamp canceled shows in 2023 to work on their mental health. This international tour marks their return — and clearly they've been missed. Ravinia Festival: Get thee to the Metra! Ravinia kicks off its summer season this weekend with Heart on Friday and Grace Jones and Janelle Monáe on Saturday. Ann and Nancy Wilson return to Ravinia with the rest of Heart, marking the 50th anniversary of the release of their debut album, 'Dreamboat Annie.' Then, on Saturday, Jones and Monáe light up Highland Park as only they can. Get there early for LGBTQ+ dance party Queen! Ben Harper and The Innocent Criminals: Last month, the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter released a new song, 'Before the Rain Dried.' Now he's on a world summer tour that stops at the Auditorium Theatre before rolling on to a couple dozen other venues, including the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Lincoln Park Greek Fest: Maybe you've been to Greektown, but have you enjoyed the filoxenia — hospitality — of the Lincoln Park Greek Fest? Centered around St. George Greek Orthodox Church, the festival offers a mix of traditional Greek music and folk dancing, Greek food and a lot of the standard fixings of a Chicago summer festival. Ribfest Chicago: Smoke will rise in Northcenter this weekend, as crowds gather to binge on barbecue. It's the 25th annual Ribfest, featuring more than 20 food vendors, whiskey tastings, live music and kids entertainment. Dinopalooza Dino Derby: Faster than a nanotyrannus? Break out your best dinosaur duds and head to the Field Museum for its Dino Derby. The winner gets a $1,000 cash prize. It's part of Summer of Sue, the museum's 25th anniversary celebration of its beloved display. While you're there, see the Jabberworcky Marionettes' dinosaur puppets, see show off your dino smarts during live game shows, participate in arts and crafts and more family fun.
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
WWE's 'The Miz' comments on Super Bowl LIX, American Century Championship training
WWE's 'The Miz' comments on Super Bowl LIX, American Century Championship training This week, Chiefs Wire's Ed Easton Jr. spoke to Mike 'The Miz' Mizanin about his training for this year's American Century Championship, which will take place July 9-13 at Edgewood Tahoe. He shares his thoughts on the Kansas City Chiefs loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX and potential golf competition on the WWE roster. "Training is going well. I am so devoted to doing well at the American Century Championship that I created my own YouTube channel, called MizGolf," said Miz, "where I am learning different tricks of the trade to get my swing dialed in for early July because I plan on winning. I want to win. I feel like I have the IQ to win. I'm just hoping that my swing is doing exactly what I want it to do on the day of the tournament." WWE is having two events in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 7th: 'Worlds Collide' at the Kia Forum and Money in the Bank at the Intuit Dome. Miz, a career grand slam champion with the company, made it clear without hesitation that he is the best golfer in WWE. "Me, I'm the only golfer in WWE. I think Jimmy Uso just started golfing, so you can't really put him in that category, but I think I'm really the only real golfer in WWE, as of right now." Although the Chiefs' loss in Super Bowl LIX was disappointing, according to the Miz, it was more about the Eagles players rallying around their head coach, Nick Sirianni, for motivation. "I think everyone was a little shocked, especially the way the Eagles (won); first, at the beginning of the season, people were asking for Sirianni's head, like they wanted him fired, and this guy goes on to win the Super Bowl," said Miz, "Think about that, the pressure your fanbase started to go against you. The news media outlets are talking negatively about you, and you can rally this team behind you and take them all the way to the Super Bowl. They developed an amazing team and a franchise. I'm hoping the (Cleveland) Browns can follow in their footsteps." The annual tournament awards $750,000 in prize money, much of which the celebrity players donate to local and national charities. Over the years, nearly $8 million has been donated to non-profit causes. Network television exposure on NBC, along with a first-place prize of $150,000, makes the celebrity tournament one of the most prestigious in the golf world.
