{"id":9134,"date":"2025-12-20T10:31:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T10:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/avicii-estate-faces-lawsuit-from-djs-manager-over-netflix-documentary\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T16:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:45:15","slug":"avicii-estate-faces-lawsuit-from-djs-manager-over-netflix-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/avicii-estate-faces-lawsuit-from-djs-manager-over-netflix-documentary\/","title":{"rendered":"Avicii Estate Faces Lawsuit From DJ’s Manager Over Netflix Documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tAvicii\u2019s estate is facing a lawsuit for allegedly suggesting in a Netflix documentary and two books that manager Ash Pournouri<\/strong> was a \u201cmanipulative slavedriver\u201d who overworked the Swedish dance music icon and drove him to suicide in 2018.<\/p>\n

\n\tPournouri sued the Avicii estate on Tuesday (Dec. 16) in Stockholm District Court. The lawsuit, obtained by Billboard <\/em>and translated from Swedish by the service DeepL, alleges the estate has violated the terms of a 2016 agreement that ended an eight-year professional relationship between Pournouri and the DJ (Tim Bergling).<\/p>\n

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\n\tAccording to Pournouri, this agreement barred Bergling and his heirs from publicly discussing Pournouri or disparaging the manager. But he says Bergling did just that in the 2017 Netflix documentary Avicii: True Stories<\/em>, as did the DJ\u2019s estate in two authorized biographies published after his 2018 death (2021\u2019s Tim: The Official Biography of Avicii <\/em>and 2024\u2019s Avicii: The Life and Music of Tim Bergling<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis has mainly been done by misrepresenting Arash Pournouri, among other things, as a person who ruthlessly pushed Tim Bergling to the limit and exploited his career for personal gain,\u201d reads the translated lawsuit. \u201cThe image of Ash Pournouri portrayed in the documentary and books is completely inaccurate and amounts to character assassination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTrue Stories<\/em>, which included participation from Bergling, chronicled the star\u2019s career and eventual decision to separate from Pournouri and retire from touring in 2016. According to Pournouri\u2019s lawsuit, Bergling falsely implied in documentary clips that Pournouri pressured him to keep working despite mental and physical health struggles.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cIn fact,\u201d Pournouri\u2019s lawyers write, \u201cAsh was very positive about Tim\u2019s decision to stop touring and saw it as a much needed and welcome turning point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPournouri also alleges that recordings of himself were featured in True Stories <\/em>without consent or key context. There\u2019s a clip, for example, of Pournouri speaking in Swedish with English subtitles reading, \u201cTim is going to die. With all the interviews, radio tours and everything, he\u2019s going to fall down dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMuch has been made of this statement, given Bergling\u2019s struggles and eventual suicide. But according to Pournouri, these subtitles are a mistranslation of the Swedish phrase \u201che will die,\u201d which he says is a common idiom \u201cused to convey excitement or intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPournouri alleges that he was also portrayed falsely as overworking Bergling in both the 2021 and 2024 biographies. According to the lawsuit, the books were approved by the Bergling\u2019s heirs and relied on interviews with Bergling\u2019s friends and family, as well as documents supplied by the estate.<\/p>\n

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\n\tAs a result of all this, Pournouri says, the public now believes an \u201cabsurd and false\u201d narrative that he drove Bergling to his death. Pournouri alleges the opposite is true. The lawsuit says they had no contact for two years before the suicide, adding, \u201cAsh Pournouri is convinced that Tim Bergling would not have committed suicide if Ash Pournouri had still been present in his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPournouri posted a lengthy statement on Instagram the day his lawsuit was filed. In the post, he said the goal of the case is to \u201ccorrect an inaccurate and incomplete public narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is not an intent to attack. It\u2019s just time to let the facts speak,\u201d Pournouri wrote. \u201cAlthough I have suffered considerable harm, any damages awarded go directly to real charitable causes. I take nothing personally. This is about the record, not profit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA rep for the Avicii estate did not immediately have a comment on the lawsuit. <\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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Avicii\u2019s estate is facing a lawsuit for allegedly suggesting in a Netflix documentary and two books that manager Ash Pournouri was a \u201cmanipulative slavedriver\u201d who overworked the Swedish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7170,7171,2121,70,458,303,2511,2710],"class_list":["post-9134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-avicii","tag-djs","tag-documentary","tag-estate","tag-faces","tag-lawsuit","tag-manager","tag-netflix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134","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=9134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9408,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134\/revisions\/9408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}