Warner Bros. and Ample LLC are seeking more than $275,000 from Chris Brown after having been dismissed as defendants in a lawsuit filed by the R&B singer Chris Brown regarding the documentary “Chris Brown: A History of Violence.”
Brown’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit originally sought $500 million for what he said were false sexual assault allegations leveled against him in the production. Brown’s lawsuit disputed included claims by Chantel Daisia Frank accusing him of sexual assault. Frank is the only remaining defendant in the case.
In January, Judge Colin Leis issued a final ruling in favor of Warner Bros. and Ample, agreeing with the companies that the complaint infringed on their right to free speech. Having won their motion, the companies are now asking to be awarded $278,715 in attorneys’ fees. In the alternative, the pair seek $186,500 as well as another $25,300 in discounted attorneys’ fees and costs to compensate them for bringing the attorneys’ fees motion.
Leis is scheduled to hear the motion for attorneys’ fees on Aug. 18. In his earlier dismissal ruling, the judge said that even if one assumed that Brown had successfully shown that the two media defendants likely either knew of Frank’s untruthfulness or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, the media defendants correctly countered that the fair reporting privilege provided an absolute defense to publishing Frank’s statement.
Brown also cited as defamatory co-defendant and cultural critic Scaachi Kohl’s statement that the singer has a “predilection for punching women in the face.”
But the judge noted that Brown admitted to punching former girlfriend Rihanna in 2009.
Both Warner Bros. and Ample contended that Brown’s suit was a “garden-variety attempt by a celebrity plaintiff” to penalize protected speech reporting on court proceedings and criminal investigations.
Brown, according to the defense attorneys’ pleadings, is a “Grammy Award-winning artist whose prolific music career has been largely overshadowed by his acts of violence against women.”
The defense motion was brought under the state’s anti-SLAPP — Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation — law, the goal of which is to stop people from using courts, and potential threats of a lawsuit, to intimidate those who are exercising their First Amendment rights.
In his suit filed in January 2025, Brown alleges the media prioritized “putting their own profits over the truth” and that the defendants aired the October 2024 documentary “knowing that it was full of lies and deception.”
The 36-year-old Brown has never been found guilty of any sex-related crime, but the documentary states “in every available fashion that he is a serial rapist and sexual abuser,” the suit states.