- Title: Showbiz in 2024: Jussie Smollett conviction overturned, Travis Scott arrested
- Date: 3rd December 2024
- Summary: - Roman Polanski acquitted by French court in defamation trial CANNES, FRANCE (FILE - MAY 2013) (REUTERS) ***WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF FRENCH-POLISH FILM DIRECTOR, ROMAN POLANSKI AT PARTY AT CANNES FILM FESTIVAL POLANSKI ON RED CARPET WITH WIFE, ACTOR EMMANUELLE SEIGNER (C) AND ACTOR MATHIEU AMALRIC CANNES, FRANCE (FILE - MAY 27, 2017) (REUTERS) POL
- Embargoed: 17th December 2024 02:11
- Keywords: 'Squid Game' actor O Yeong-su 'The Mandalorian' actor Gina Carano BTS member Suga Charlotte Lewis Doctor pleads guilty in death of Friends star Matthew Perry Drake Elon Musk Garth Brooks Gerard Depardieu Hugh Grant Jussie Smollett Katie Price Kendrick Lamar Nicki Minaj Pierce Brosnan Rebel Wilson Roman Polanski Steven Tyler Travis Scott Walt Disney
- Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
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- Country: UK
- Topics: Celebrities,Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Europe
- Reuters ID: LVA009560420092024RP1
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- Story Text: EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3 AND PROFANITY IN SHOT 58
EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT IS FROM A SERIES OF SHOWBIZ YEARENDERS RUNNING DEC. 2-5, 2024
From lawsuits to arrests, several celebrities made headlines this year.
The Illinois Supreme Court in November overturned the conviction of actor Jussie Smollett, the one-time star of the TV drama "Empire", for staging a hate crime against himself in 2019.
The court agreed with defense arguments that Smollett should not have been charged a second time for filing a false hate crime report because prosecutors had already agreed to drop such charges against him in a negotiated agreement.
A jury in 2021 found Smollett guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct for falsely telling Chicago police that he was accosted on a dark Chicago street by two masked strangers in a racist and homophobic attack in 2019. The investigation revealed that Smollett, who is Black and gay, paid two men to stage the attack.
The actor was ordered to spend 150 days in jail, but was released after being confined for six days pending his appeal.
Smollett had claimed the attackers threw a noose around his neck and poured chemicals on him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs and expressions of support for then-President Donald Trump.
The original case against Smollett was dropped by Cook County prosecutors in the spring of 2019 in exchange for Smollett forfeiting his $10,000 bond without admitting wrongdoing.
The dismissal drew criticism from then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city's police superintendent, who called the reversal a miscarriage of justice. A special prosecutor was appointed in the summer of 2019 to investigate Smollett's case, and new charges against him were brought in February 2020.
A federal judge in Manhattan dismissed for good a lawsuit accusing Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler of sexually assaulting a former teenage model twice in one day in the mid-1970s.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said in April Jeanne Bellino cannot recover damages from the 76-year-old Tyler under a 2000 New York City law protecting victims of gender-motivated violence.
He said it would be futile to file an amended complaint, and dismissed Bellino's case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought again. Kaplan rejected an earlier complaint in February.
Tyler had "vehemently" denied Bellino's allegations, which included that he assaulted her in a phone booth as others in his entourage stood by laughing, and later assaulted her in a hotel.
The alleged assaults occurred in the summer of 1975, when Bellino was 17and Tyler was 27.
Kaplan said the city law was not retroactive, and that Bellino's battery claim would have expired on her 19th birthday. He also said two more recent state laws, the Adult Survivors Act and Child Victims Act, did not revive Bellino's claim.
Tyler also defended against a lawsuit in Los Angeles, where the plaintiff Julia Misley claimed he sexually assaulted her in 1973 when she was 16 and he was 25.
French actor Gerard Depardieu's trial for the alleged sexual assault of two women on a film set in 2021 was postponed until March due to ill health.
Prosecutors say the alleged assaults took place during the filming of "Les Volets Verts" (The Green Shutters).
One of France's top movie stars, Depardieu, 75, has been at the centre of a growing number of sexual assault allegations in recent years that have tarnished his legacy. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
His trial marks the highest profile #MeToo case to come before the courts in France, a country where the protest movement against sexual violence against women struggled to gain traction in the movie industry and laid bare broader divisions over sexual conduct.
Separately in May, a veteran Italian paparazzi photographer accused Depardieu of assaulting him in central Rome after he took photos of the actor and his partner Magda Vavrusova at a famed restaurant.
Rino Barillari told Italian media he went to Harry's Bar when he heard that Depardieu was having lunch there with friends. He started taking photos before retreating to the street outside, after Depardieu's entourage repeatedly asked him to leave.
Vavrusova followed him to remonstrate, Barillari said, with Depardieu rushing out soon afterwards and punching him three times, leaving him with a cut to his head that needed hospital attention.
Barillari's account differed significantly from that of Depardieu and Vavrusova, who said he had shoved them around.
A French court in May acquitted film director Roman Polanski of defaming British actress Charlotte Lewis after she accused him of raping her when she was a teenager.
Lewis, 57, alleged in 2010 that the Franco-Polish director had sexually abused her at his Paris apartment in 1983 when she was 16 after she had travelled to the French capital for a casting session. She starred in his 1986 film "Pirates".
She sued for defamation after Polanski called her allegations a "heinous lie" in a 2019 interview with Paris Match magazine.
Paris Match also wrote that Polanski cited a quote attributed to Lewis in a 1999 interview she gave to the News of the World, in which she allegedly remarked: "I wanted to be his mistress ...I probably desired him more than he did me."
Lewis disputed the quote's accuracy. She said she would appeal the verdict.
Polanski, known for films like "Chinatown", "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Pianist", fled California for Europe in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl but before being formally sentenced.
After the #MeToo movement gained global traction in 2017, several women alleged that Polanski had sexually assaulted them as teenagers.
He has consistently denied the allegations which never went to trial, but he has since found it hard to secure global distribution deals for his movies, even if actors are still lining up to work with him.
South Korean actor O Yeong-su, who starred in the first season of the hit Netflix series "Squid Game", was convicted in March on charges of sexual harassment and handed a suspended prison sentence.
The Seongnam branch of the Suwon District Court sentenced O, now 80, to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, as well as 40 hours of attendance at a sexual violence treatment programme.
The actor, who was charged with two counts of sexual harassment in 2017, had denied the accusations.
He was indicted in 2022 and prosecutors had previously sought a sentence of one year in prison, according to media reports.
His legal team have filed an appeal, various media outlets reported.
Garth Brooks was accused of rape and sexual assault in a lawsuit filed in October by an unnamed hair and makeup artist, whose allegations were denied by the country music superstar.
In a complaint submitted to Superior Court in Los Angeles, a woman identified as Jane Roe said she had provided hair and makeup services to Brooks from 2017 to 2020. The woman said Brooks raped her in a hotel room in Los Angeles in 2019 when she accompanied him on a trip to help him prepare for an event.
She also said Brooks, the Grammy Award-winning singer of "Friends in Low Places," repeatedly appeared naked in front of her, groped her breasts while she did his hair and makeup and sent sexually explicit text messages.
Brooks said in a statement that the claims were untrue and that the woman was seeking to extort a large payment from him.
In the lawsuit, the woman said Brooks tried to pre-empt her filing with his own legal action.
She said Brooks filed a complaint in Mississippi in September, under the name "John Doe," claiming there was a woman who was "a lying extortionist who intended on destroying his professional reputation."
Brooks acknowledged the Mississippi complaint, saying it was filed "to speak out against extortion and defamation of character" and was submitted anonymously "for the sake of families on both sides."
Shock rocker Marilyn Manson agreed to drop a defamation lawsuit against his ex-fiancee, actress Evan Rachel Wood, various media reported in late November.
Manson, 55, and Wood, 37, dated from around 2007 and were briefly engaged in 2010 before separating months later.
In a 2021 Instagram post, the "Westworld" actress said Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, "horrifically abused me for years".
"I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission," she said.
Manson, known for his Gothic-inspired black outfits, said his intimate relationships had "always been entirely consensual".
He filed a lawsuit against Wood in 2022 claiming she had fabricated the allegations. A California judge threw out parts of the suit a year later, a decision Manson had been appealing, according to media reports.
In late November, Manson agreed to drop the lawsuit, various media outlets quotes both sides' lawyers as saying, adding he would also pay Wood's legal fees of around $327,000.
One of two California doctors who were among the five people charged in the overdose death of "Friends" star Matthew Perry pleaded guilty to illegally distributing the drug ketamine.
Dr. Mark Chavez of San Diego entered the plea during an appearance in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in October. He could face up to 10 years in prison at his sentencing, which was scheduled for April.
Another physician charged in the case, Dr. Salvador Plasencia, has pleaded not guilty, as has co-defendant Jasveen Sangha, who authorities said was an illicit supplier of the drug and was known as the "ketamine queen." The pair are scheduled to go on trial in March.
Perry's live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, who admitted to injecting Perry with the drug, and the alleged middleman who said he obtained ketamine from Sangha, have already pleaded guilty to charges they faced.
Authorities said Plasencia purchased ketamine from Chavez, and in text messages to Chavez discussing the amount to charge Perry for the drug wrote: "I wonder how much this moron will pay."
The defendant admitted to obtaining ketamine with a fraudulent prescription written for another patient and that he knew the drug was intended for Perry.
He also acknowledged providing ketamine, a short-acting anesthetic, to Plasencia, and that he understood it should only be administered under medical supervision with proper safety equipment nearby.
According to court documents, Plasencia administered ketamine to Perry at the actor's home and supplied vials that were injected by the assistant. Plasencia's lawyer has said his client properly prescribed and administered ketamine to Perry.
Perry died at age 54 in October 2023 from "acute effects" of ketamine and other factors that caused him to lose consciousness and drown in his hot tub, according to a December 2023 autopsy report.
The actor had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including during the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s television sitcom "Friends."
Chavez pleaded guilty under an agreement with prosecutors, who offered him lesser charges for his assistance in their case against Plasencia and Sangha.
Grammy-nominated American hip hop star Travis Scott was arrested at Paris' luxury Georges V hotel after a scuffle with a security guard in August.
He was later released from police custody in Paris, without charge.
In June, the 33-year old had been arrested in the United States on disorderly intoxication and trespassing charges after a disturbance on a yacht in Miami Beach, Florida.
Police officers found Scott standing on the dock yelling at passengers on the vessel. Scott briefly obeyed officers' commands to sit down and continuously stood back up, the affidavit said.
Police sensed "a strong smell of alcohol coming from the defendant's breath," the affidavit said. The person who complained told officers he did not want to press charges, but wanted Scott off the boat.
American rapper Nicki Minaj cancelled a show in Manchester, England, in May after she said she was held by police at Amsterdam Schiphol airport on allegations of possession of soft drugs.
Minaj, 41, was detained hours before the show had been scheduled to start.
Dutch military police confirmed a 41-year-old American woman had been held for possession of soft drugs adding it was prohibited to take such substances out of the Netherlands.
Police did not identify the suspect, but in a later post on social media platform X said the woman had been fined and released.
The singer had earlier posted a video on X in which a Schiphol employee apparently told her that police wanted to "search all her luggage". Another video on her social media showed a police officer telling her she was "carrying drugs". In the video Minaj denied that.
Actor Pierce Brosnan was fined in March by a court in Wyoming for getting too close to a thermal area after walking off trail in Yellowstone National Park in the United States.
Brosnan, 71, pleaded guilty to foot travel in a thermal area and was fined $500 and required to pay a $1,000 community service payment to the Yellowstone Forever Geological Fund, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Wyoming, said.
Citing court documents, it said the James Bond actor had in November 2023 uploaded photos to Instagram of himself "standing on a Yellowstone National Park thermal feature at Mammoth Hot Springs", referring to the scenic area in the park's northern part.
"There are signs posted in the area that warn visitors of the dangers of thermal features and state that visitors must remain on the designated boardwalks and trails," it said.
Posting on his Instagram page, Brosnan said he was "an environmentalist" who had "the utmost respect for and love of our natural world".
"I deeply regret my transgression and offer my heartfelt apologies to all for trespassing in this sensitive area," he said.
Drake escalated his dispute with fellow rap superstar Kendrick Lamar, filing a pair of court notices warning of legal action against major music companies for what Drake called manipulative promotion of Lamar's megahit "Not Like Us."
The record-breaking "diss" track "Not Like Us" released this year suggests Drake is a sex offender with lyrics such as, "Drake, I hear you like 'em young," and references to a "certified pedophile" and a "predator."
Drake, using his given name Aubrey Drake Graham, filed a petition in Bexar County District Court in Texas in late November serving notice to music giants iHeartMedia and Universal Music Group, accusing UMG of scheming to turn "Not Like Us" into a viral hit at the expense of Drake, a fellow UMG artist.
Universal Music Group denied it undermined Drake or that it used unethical practices to market Lamar's song, saying in a statement that Drake's accusations were "contrived and absurd legal arguments."
Representatives of iHeartMedia, which is based in San Antonio, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Drake's company Frozen Moments filed a similar action in New York Supreme Court against Universal and Spotify, accusing Universal of using payola and other manipulative practices to promote "Not Like Us."
Spotify did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As in Texas, the New York case is not a formal lawsuit but a notice that a suit could be forthcoming.
Drake alleged in the New York filing that UMG "launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate" streaming services like Spotify to help "Not Like Us" go viral, "including by using 'bots' and pay-to-play agreements."
Universal, whose division Interscope Records represents Lamar, contested the allegations.
The two onetime collaborators began feuding after Lamar's bravado on a 2013 track called out Drake and several other big names in the genre, rapping, "I got love for you all, but I'm trying to murder you ... Trying to make sure your core fans never heard of you." Seemingly minor at first, the dispute has intensified over the years.
Australian actor Rebel Wilson was sued for defamation after making accusations against producers of her directorial debut "The Deb".
In a video shared on Instagram in July, Wilson accused the producers - whom she named - of trying to stop the film from premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival as well as "inappropriate behaviour towards the lead actress" and "embezzling funds from the film's budget".
Producers Amanda Ghost and Gregor Cameron and executive producer Vince Holden launched a defamation lawsuit against Wilson, denying her accusations. She countersued, looking to California's anti-Slapp laws to say her claims were a matter of public interest and the case should be dismissed, but in November, a California court rejected her bid. Her lawyers said they would appeal the decision.
Actor Gina Carano sued Walt Disney for wrongful termination from Star Wars series "The Mandalorian" in a lawsuit filed in February and backed by billionaire Elon Musk.
Carano argued in the suit, filed in a California federal court, that she was fired in 2021 for voicing conservative opinions on social media platforms including Twitter, which is now owned by Musk and known as X.
She also claimed sex discrimination, arguing that male stars who voiced opinions did not suffer any consequences.
Disney removed Carano from "The Mandalorian" over social media posts that the company at the time called "abhorrent and unacceptable" for "denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities."
A judge denied Disney's attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed and the trial will go ahead in September 2025, various media outlets have reported.
British actor Hugh Grant settled a lawsuit against the publisher of the Sun tabloid newspaper over claims journalists used private investigators to tap his phone and burgle his house.
Grant, alongside King Charles' son Prince Harry, was suing News Group Newspapers (NGN) for alleged widespread unlawful information gathering, including landline tapping, burglary and "blagging" confidential information about him.
His case was one of several which were eligible to go to trial at London's High Court in January, but the actor said in April he had reluctantly settled with NGN because he could be left with a multi-million pound legal bill if he rejected their offer then, even if he later won the lawsuit.
K-pop star Suga, a member of the boy band supergroup BTS, was been fined 15 million won ($11,500) by a court in September for drunk driving while on an electric scooter.
A judge at the Seoul Western District Court issued the fine in a summary judgment made after his case was referred to the prosecution.
In August, the songwriter and rapper made an apology for the incident calling it "careless and wrong behaviour" with police also revoking his licence for riding the e-scooter while drunk.
Suga rode the scooter and tripped when parking at night, according to his label Big Hit Music, which is part of K-pop firm HYBE. The label also said he failed a breath test to measure his blood alcohol level conducted by police.
Former British glamour model and reality TV star Katie Price attended a bankruptcy court hearing in early August after being arrested at London's Heathrow Airport.
Price had been arrested as she returned from Turkey, where she had undergone cosmetic surgery, for failing to attend court.
An arrest warning had been issued for Price in July after she missed a previous court hearing on her bankruptcies.
A late August hearing during which she was due to be questioned over her bankruptcies was adjourned in favour of "private interview" instead, British media reported.
Price has been declared bankrupt twice - in November 2019 and again in March 2024.
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