{"id":2823,"date":"2024-10-01T15:41:29","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T15:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/lauryn-hill-faces-fraud-lawsuit-from-fugees-bandmate-pras-michel\/"},"modified":"2024-10-01T15:41:29","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T15:41:29","slug":"lauryn-hill-faces-fraud-lawsuit-from-fugees-bandmate-pras-michel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/lauryn-hill-faces-fraud-lawsuit-from-fugees-bandmate-pras-michel\/","title":{"rendered":"Lauryn Hill Faces Fraud Lawsuit From Fugees Bandmate Pras Michel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tLauryn Hill is facing a lawsuit from her Fugees bandmate Pras Michel, claiming she defrauded him over the group\u2019s shortened 2023 tour \u2014 and that her \u201cgross mismanagement\u201d also led to the abrupt recent cancellation of the 2024 tour.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 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 \u2013 a deal they say enriched Hill at the expense of her bandmate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHill\u2019s ploy to be appear to be Michel\u2019s supposed savior was actually a devious attempt to make a big score for herself by generating millions of dollars from a Fugees tour,\u201d his lawyers write. In the process, it did not matter to Hill if she took full advantage of Michel\u2019s vulnerability \u2013 her friend and creative partner of over 30 years. In fact, she counted on exploiting that vulnerability to carry out her scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit also sheds light on the aborted 2024 tour \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBecause 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,\u201d his attorneys say. \u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tComprised of Hill, Michel, and Wyclef Jean, the Fugees rose to fame in the 1990s with hits like \u201cKilling Me Softly,\u201d \u201cReady or Not,\u201d and \u201cFu-Gee-La.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2019, Michel was hit with sweeping federal criminal charges, including funneling money from a Malaysian financier to Barack Obama\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his lawsuit on Tuesday, Michel\u2019s lawyers said Hill took advantage of a \u201cdesperate man\u201d who needed to pay expensive criminal lawyers, using an advance of cash to get him to sign a deal with \u201conerous terms\u201d that he would have \u201ceasily rejected in the years before his criminal conviction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhile the contractual advance paid to Pras enabled him to retain his new criminal lawyers, the 2023 tour agreement was a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing,\u201d his lawyers say.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe touring agreement was \u201cbased on a lie\u201d about how much Hill was being paid, Michel\u2019s lawyers say, and it \u201cceded all financial and creative control\u201d to her and her company \u2013 which gave her the \u201ctotal lack of transparency she needed in order to secretly siphon off money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit claims that Hill secretly took 40 percent \u201coff the top\u201d 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 \u201cbloated\u201d budget and an abrupt cancellation of the second half of the tour.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for the 2024 tour, Michel claims that Hill misled Live Nation that Michel was \u201con board\u201d with the plan for another run of concerts when no such deal had been inked \u2013 and did so in order to receive a $1.1 million advance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat was another lie by Hill and [her company] since Michel was not \u2018on board,\u2019\u201d say Miche\u2019s lawyers, adding that her company \u201cnever signed the fully-negotiated agreement, never paid Michel anything, and never intended to do either.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn technical terms, the lawsuit accuses Hill of fraud, fraudulently inducing Michel to sign the 2023 deal and breaching both her contract and her fiduciary duty. It also demands a ruling that the 2023 deal is voided and a court-ordered accounting of the books from the tour.<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesman for Hill did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lauryn Hill is facing a lawsuit from her Fugees bandmate Pras Michel, claiming she defrauded him over the group\u2019s shortened 2023 tour \u2014 and that her \u201cgross mismanagement\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3645,458,643,3644,3643,3642,303,3647,3646],"class_list":["post-2823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-bandmate","tag-faces","tag-fraud","tag-fugees","tag-hill","tag-lauryn","tag-lawsuit","tag-michel","tag-pras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}