Justin Bieber is seeking to collect at least $20 million in damages in a defamation lawsuit filed against two Twitter users who alleged in posts on the social network that the singer sexually assaulted them — claims that Bieber vehemently denies and said says are “factually impossible” based on documents he has made public.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday, names as defendants two “Jane Does,” who are identified by their Twitter account names, @ItsnotKadi and @danielleglvn (the latter account which has since been deleted) and their names on social media (Kadi and Danielle).
According to the complaint, the accusations by two Twitter users about Bieber are “factually impossible, and disproven both by indisputable documentary evidence and the individuals’ own admissions.” The lawsuit also suggested the two Twitter accounts were run by the same person or launched a coordinated attack.
“It is abundantly clear that these two individuals are trying to capitalize on the climate of fear permeating the entertainment industry, Hollywood and corporate America, whereby it is open season for anyone to make any claim (no matter how vile, unsupported, and provably false) about anyone without consequence,” Bieber’s lawsuit said.
It continues, “However, Bieber will not stand idly by while Defendants attempt to get attention and fame for themselves, by recklessly spreading malicious lies that he engaged in egregious criminal conduct by assaulting Defendants, and Bieber is therefore bringing this defamation/libel action to clear his name and to set the record straight.”
Regarding Danielle’s claim that Bieber sexually assaulted her at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin, Texas, on March 9, 2014, the lawsuit states that Bieber did not stay at the hotel in March 2014 and that “there are multiple witnesses and documentary evidence to dispute Danielle’s malicious lie.”
Bieber addressed that allegation in a Twitter thread on June 21, saying, “Rumors are rumors but sexual abuse is something I don’t take lightly.” The singer wrote that “there is no truth to this story” and provided emails, receipts and articles showing he stayed at an Airbnb on the night of the alleged assault and at a Westin hotel the next night. According to the lawsuit, Bieber and then-girlfriend Selena Gomez both attended SXSW on March 9 and that he was photographed leaving the venue with Gomez.
The accusation by Kadi — whom the lawsuit describes as a “superfan” and a “Belieber” — is “a complete fabrication, an elaborate hoax,” according to the complaint.
In a tweet Sunday, Kadi wrote, “I believe Danielle, I am a victim of sexual assault by Justin Bieber too.” According to her post, on May 5, 2015, at around 2:30 a.m. she was invited to Bieber’s room at the Langham hotel in New York before she was sexually assaulted. Per the lawsuit, at that time, Bieber was at the Met Gala after-party with “dozens of witnesses.”
Bieber’s suit also accuses Kadi of seeking fame, citing a pinned tweet from December 2018 on her Twitter account that says “I wanna star in a netflix series! twitter do ur thing.” The lawsuit also cites tweets from Kadi in which she says that she has never met Bieber; those include, according to the suit, “I swear if we don’t meet I’ll find you and f— you @justinbieber #JustinForMMVA” and “@justinbieber … you’re so cute I love You!!! I’ll pay you to rape me, ok?”
In follow-up posts, Kadi has insisted that her allegations are factual. “‘Pls say you’re lying’ NO ! I won’t say any lie. I stand by my words. It happened and I won’t let you beliebers bully me into denying it. PS: I’m NOT scared of any lawsuits,” she wrote on June 22. On Tuesday, she posted, “All the proof and evidence is not for me to show y’all so why should I bother? My lawyer gets those nobody else.”
Defamation and libel lawsuits spawned by social-media posts are not uncommon.
For example, in 2015, actor James Woods filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit against an anonymous Twitter user who had called Woods a “cocaine addict.” (That was settled two years later, after the defendant’s death.) Meanwhile, the politically conservative Woods himself was sued for defamation over a 2016 tweet in which he posted a picture of a woman at a Donald Trump rally giving a Nazi salute with the caption, “So-called #Trump ‘Nazi’ is a #BernieSanders agitator/operative?” — naming a Sanders supporter who had been incorrectly identified in a news report. The case was dismissed after Woods’ attorneys successfully argued that his tweet was posed as a question, not an accusation.