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Kanye West is facing a quarter-billion dollar lawsuit over his comments on Drink Champs.
Roxie Washington, acting on behalf of her minor child, who is the sole beneficiary of George Floyd’s estate, retained the Witherspoon Law Group and Dixon & Dixon Attorneys at Law to file a $250 million lawsuit against Ye for comments he made regarding Floyd’s death on the popular podcast.
The episode has been pulled from distribution due to his harmful misinformation regarding Floyd’s death and regurgitating those talking points from a recent Candace Owens documentary.
“Kanye’s comments are a repugnant attempt to discount George Floyd’s life and to profit from his inhumane death,” attorney Pat D. Dixon III said. He also noted the goal of this lawsuit is to “hold Mr. West accountable” for his “flagrant remarks” against Floyd.
The suit not only includes Ye but his “business partners” and “associates” and alludes to his comments retraumatizing Floyd’s family and amounted to “harassment, misappropriation, defamation, and infliction of emotional distress.”
Floyd, a native of Houston, Texas, was killed in Minneapolis on Memorial Day 2020 by ex-Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin. While a nonlethal amount of fentanyl was in Floyd’s system at the time of his death, several medical examiners concluded he died due to asphyxiation and his death was ruled a homicide.
Chauvin was found guilty and is in federal prison, serving more than 22 years.
Regardless of the facts, several right-wing conspiracy theorists have continued to peddle the lie and other misleading statements surrounding fentanyl and Floyd’s death. In response to the Drink Champs episode, host N.O.R.E. has apologized and Revolt issued a statement condemning it.
“Drink Champs prides itself on its ability to allow a free flow of ideas within the hip hop community. That being said, unfortunately, the recent interview with Kanye West contained false and hurtful information regarding the circumstances surrounding the murder of George Floyd,” a rep for Revolt said. “Integrity is very important and we don’t want to promote false narratives on our platform. Our goal is to celebrate the culture. Therefore, we had no choice but to remove the episode from distribution. We apologize to the family of Mr. Floyd and anyone else hurt by this episode.”
