Chris Brown has sued Warner Bros. Discovery, claiming the media house defamed him by exposing the R&B singer’s lengthy history of sexually abusing women in a 2024 documentary.
Warner Bros. Discovery and Ample Entertainment, the production company behind Chris Brown: A History of Violence, is accused in the complaint, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, January 21, of “promoting and publishing false information in their pursuit of likes, clicks, downloads, and dollars and to the detriment” of the R&B singer, “knowing that it was full of lies and deception and violating basic journalistic principles.”
“They did so after being provided proof that their information was false, and their storytelling ‘Jane Doe’ had not only been discredited over and over but was in fact a perpetrator of intimate partners violence and aggressor herself,” reads the lawsuit, which was filed by attorneys Arnold Shokouchi and Levi McCathern. “Mr. Brown has never been found guilty of any sex related crime…but this documentary states in every available fashion that he is a serial rapist and sexual abuser.”
The Jane Doe who made sexual assault accusations against Brown in the documentary is also named as a defendant in the complaint, which alleges the woman “completely disregarded the facts in an attempt for fame and fortune — all at the cost of Chris Brown and the reputation he has worked diligently in redeeming over the last decade.”
The “sensationalized, unfounded, and defamatory allegations” in the documentary “have been discredited, dismissed by the courts, or outright fabricated,” Brown’s lawyers write. The lawsuit further alleges that the Jane Doe filed a “frivolous civil lawsuit” against Brown in January 2022 in which she accused him of sexual assault and battery — but that her claims “were determined to be entirely fabricated, leading to the withdrawal of her attorneys and dismissal of the case” that same August “after a Miami Beach Police detective uncovered text messages…that exposed her dishonesty.”
The lawsuit’s central charge is that the documentary’s production companies proceeded with its release despite knowing it “contained false claims and violated journalist professional standards”; Brown’s attorneys now assert that this “caused significant harm to Mr. Brown’s reputation, career, and business opportunities.”
Brown is asking for $500 million in damages, “a portion of which will be donated to survivors of sexual abuse.”
