A judge has declined to dismiss a defamation claim against a woman who accused singer Chris Brown of sexually assaulting her aboard a yacht in 2020 at a New Year’s Eve party hosted by Diddy, finding that her statement was one of fact and not of protected speech opinion.
Brown’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit seeks $500 million for what he said were false sexual assault allegations leveled against him in the documentary “Chris Brown: A History of Violence.”
In addition to Warner Bros. and Ample LLC, Brown sued several individuals including podcast hostess Scaachi Koul, community activist Michelle Taylor, broadcast journalist Sharon Carpenter and former Los Angeles police Officer Cheryl Dorsey. Judge Colin Leis previously dismissed all those parties as defendants on free-speech grounds, but took the case against his sexual assault accuser, Chantel Daisia Frank, under submission in late January before rejecting her First Amendment defense in a ruling Friday.
While Frank contended her statement Brown raped her was an opinion, she was actually asserting as a fact the singer raped her, a statement that can be disproven, according to the judge, who further stated Frank’s statement was not protected speech after all.
The judge declined to find that Brown was “libel proof,” saying the entertainer’s alleged history of violent behavior does not include a history of rape allegations. Brown pleaded guilty to felony assault after a violent altercation with his then-girlfriend, singer Rihanna, in February 2009. Rihanna was hospitalized for facial injuries.
A libel-proof plaintiff is someone whose reputation is already so irreparably tarnished that further defamatory statements do not allow the person a recovery for additional harm.
The defense motions were 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.”
Brown, 36, 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.
Brown alleges he has suffered significant harm to his reputation, career and business opportunities and that the lawsuit discredits actual survivors of violence. Frank will now have to defend herself on Brown’s defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims, but no trial date has been set.