A judge has dismissed an “inflammatory” lawsuit filed against Mary J. Blige by her former stylist Misa Hylton — and is warning that Hylton might face punishment if she engages in more “bad faith litigation tactics.”
The celebrity stylist, who dated Sean “Diddy” Combs in the 1990s, sued Blige last year over claims that the R&B legend had “sabotaged” her management relationship with the rapper Vado. Blige quickly fired back, accusing Hylton of “fabricating accusations” to extract a lucrative settlement.
In a ruling Tuesday (Jan. 6), a Manhattan judge granted Blige’s motion to dismiss the case — an easy decision since Hylton never actually filed a response in court. By doing so, the judge said she had effectively abandoned her explosive allegations as soon as she had to prove them.
“The court in no way condones parties filing lawsuits claiming millions in damages based on inflammatory accusations, only to have those very same parties abandon their allegations when faced with a motion to dismiss and sanctions,” Judge Phaedra F. Perry-Bond wrote.
Though she dismissed the case, the judge refused Blige’s request to go even further and legally punish Hylton for filing the case, saying she was more interested in simply ending the dispute quickly. But she warned that such penalties could still be revived.
“Plaintiffs and their counsel shall consider this a warning to refrain from engaging in similar patterns of behavior in the future,” Judge Perry-Bond wrote. “This written warning may serve as weighty evidence on a future application for sanctions if plaintiffs and/or their counsel continue to engage in similar bad faith litigation tactics.”
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Hylton’s attorney, Nicholas Ramcharitar, told Billboard on Tuesday that his client had chosen to stop pursuing the claims against Blige because of threats she received during Diddy’s sex trafficking trial, but that her allegations had been valid: “We do not at any point take lightly the filing of any matter, especially with the claims set forth in this prior suit.” Attorneys for Blige declined to comment.
Hylton is a longtime hip-hop stylist known for dressing Blige, Lil’ Kim, Missy Elliott, Aaliyah and many other stars in the 1990s and 2000s — and for sharing a son with imprisoned hip hop mogul Diddy. It was Hylton, for instance, behind Kim’s legendary breast-exposed purple jumpsuit at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards. And when she was honored in 2019 as someone who “helped shape the landscape of urban fashion,” Blige was in attendance.
But in April, Hylton filed a lawsuit accusing her former client of a wide range of wrongdoing. She claimed Blige exerted pressure on Vado (Teyon Winfree), who was signed to the star’s Beautiful Life Records, to fire Hylton as his manager. The lawsuit, which Vado co-filed alongside Hylton, claimed Blige had also refused to release an already-finished album or allow him to tour until he ditched Hylton.
In a scathing response in July, Blige’s lawyers said that Hylton’s allegations were not only “baseless” but also entirely fictional, written to be shared “in the press and on social media” for the purpose of “trying to coerce a favorable settlement.”
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Blige not only asked the judge to dismiss the case, but also asked for sanctions — monetary legal penalties — against Hylton and Ramcharitar for even filing it in the first place.
“Plaintiffs and their counsel had significant time to investigate these issues, not only before filing but also after defendants’ counsel sent a lengthy letter identifying with granular specificity why each of their claims is baseless,” wrote Blige’s attorneys Lisa F. Moore and Andrew Pequignot. “Yet, plaintiffs and their counsel chose not to withdraw the complaint and instead appear to be doubling down.”
After Blige filed those motions, court records show that Hylton and Ramcharitar never filed a response — or any other filing in the case at all. In her ruling on Tuesday, Judge Perry-Bond said that was tantamount to dropping the case.
“Plaintiffs failed to oppose defendants’ motion to dismiss, which constitutes the abandonment of their claims,” she wrote. “Therefore, the motion to dismiss is granted.”
In his statement to Billboard on Tuesday, Ramcharitar said Vado would continue to pursue claims against Blige, presumably through an appeal: “We are disappointed by the present outcome, though intend to pursue the matter until justice is secured for our client.”
