K. Michelle has come out victorious against ex-boyfriend Memphitz
Wright Jr., who filed a defamation suit against the owners of VH1 and
producers of Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta.
If you recall, K. Michelle said on the show that she had been abused
and ripped off by Memphitz (although she never said his hame). Despite
not being named, the blogosphere knew who the unnamed abuser was and ran
with hit.
via AJC:
In the lawsuit filed in the United
States Northern District of Georgia on Sept. 5, 2012, Wright asked for
$15 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages.
To win the defamation case, Wright
had to prove K Michelle’s allegations that he physically abused her were
false, that he is more a private figure than a public figure (where the
bar is far higher to prove defamation and “actual malice” has to be
proven) and that the production companies and VH1 aired this information
knowing it was false. He also had to prove the allegations were
“injurious to his reputation and was published with a degree of fault at
least amounting to negligence.”
The Fulton County judge Robert McBurney
decided in favor of the defendants. In general, the allegations were
true, Wright is deemed a public figure as a former TV host and husband
of singer and reality star Toya Wrightand the
production company “exercised due diligence concerning Defendant Pate’s
domestic violence claims,” according to final court judgment. “The
record shows that they reasonably believed Defendant Pate during
production of LHHA and that they still do today.”
Wright in depositions acknowledged he
got into a physical altercation with K Michelle in a Memphis hotel
altercation in 2009 and had spent money from Jive Record’s budget for
jewelry, not to help her career, and had sent a text message threatening
to kill K. Michelle’s son. That content of the text was bleeped out on
the show, negating its import in the case.
The summary judgment goes into detail
about the argument between K Michelle and Wright where Wright admits he
put a pillow and/or his hands over her mouth to try to shut her up. She
reasonably thought he was trying to kill her. He later tried to
backtrack from his initial acknowledgments, according to a court filing
by the defendants seeking summary judgment.
Although K Michelle wasn’t a
defendant in the original case, she was added later. The other
defendants are Viacom, which owns VH1 and the production companies NFGTV
and Monami Entertainment.
The judge was also displeased that it
took several months for Wright to specify what was defamatory, noting
that the delays “consumed the resources of the Court and Defendants and
ultimately required an order of the Court to fix.”
Welp.
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