The previous supervisor of rising British-Canadian pop star Lauren Spencer-Smith is suing Common Music Group (UMG) and two of its labels over what his lawsuit calls “libel,” “slander” and “tortious interference”.

Legal professionals for David Ehrlich, who represented Spencer-Smith as her leisure lawyer and supervisor, filed a summons with the Supreme Court docket of the State of New York on Wednesday (April 26) in opposition to UMG Recordings, Island Data and Republic Data.

Spencer-Smith just isn’t named within the swimsuit.

“Defendants falsely advised Spencer-Smith and others that Plaintiff David Ehrlich… engaged in: (1) illegal habits with girls by taking images of them and (2) illegal harassment in direction of girls,” the court docket submitting states.

The lawsuit alleges that these “false and defamatory statements” triggered Spencer-Smith to sever her contracts with Ehrlich’s leisure regulation agency, David M. Ehrlich & Associates, and his expertise administration firm, DME Administration.

The lawsuit goes on to say that, on account of these statements, “a number of of plaintiffs’ potential enterprise relations broke down, thereby immediately inflicting injury to plaintiffs.”

It continues: “Plaintiffs have suffered financial and non-economic damages, together with however not restricted to misplaced revenues from the purported terminations of [Spencer-Smith’s contracts with Ehrlich’s firms], in addition to substantial hurt to plaintiff Ehrlich’s fame and standing in his occupation, enterprise, and locally.”

(You may learn Erlich’s full summons by way of right here.)

The lawsuit seeks USD $45 million in damages, together with $25 million for alleged “defamatory conduct,” $10 million for the lack of the administration contract with Spencer-Smith and $5 million for the lack of the authorized illustration contract. It additionally seeks court docket charges and curiosity prices.

Nineteen-year-old Spencer-Smith, who was born in Portsmouth, UK, and grew up on Canada’s Vancouver Island, first gained consideration when she positioned within the High 20 on the 18th season of American Idol in 2020.

In 2022, her monitor Fingers Crossed, which she self-released by way of TuneCore, went viral on TikTok, propelling it into the charts.

The monitor reached nineteenth place on the US Billboard 100, and have become a High 10 hit within the UK, Australia and Canada, amongst different international locations.

In December of final yr, she was named considered one of VEVOs’ “artists to observe in 2023.” 

Based on the lawsuit, Spencer-Smith signed with Ehrlich’s regulation agency in 2019, and together with his expertise company in 2021 (each earlier than her breakout hit) and severed her relationship with each corporations on Could 13, 2022. That might have been two months after UMG introduced she had signed with Island and Republic.

In June of 2022, it was reported that Spencer-Smith signed a joint administration settlement with Ziggy Chareton and Shawn Mendes supervisor Andrew Gertler’s AG Artists.

In September of 2022, Spencer-Smith signed a worldwide publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music (WMC). 

Ehrlich’s lawsuit is considered one of quite a lot of current lawsuits by which former managers have taken authorized motion in opposition to artists or their labels.

In 2020, Probability the Rapper (aka Chancellor Bennett) was sued by his supervisor over an alleged $3 million in unpaid commissions.

And in 2022, Ricky Martin’s ex-manager, Rebecca Drucker, sued the singer for breach of contract – once more over allegedly unpaid commissions.Music Enterprise Worldwide