He Said:
Songwriter and ex-boyfriend, Rob Fusari alleges in a $30 million lawsuit that he helped develop Stefani Germanotta, a.k.a “Lady Gaga”, into the talent she is today — and claims that he even gave her her well-known stage name.
According to the NYPost.com, the lawsuit by Rob Fusari Productions begins by stating, “All business is personal. When those personal relationships evolve into romantic entanglements, any corresponding business relationship usually follows the same trajectory so that when one crashes they all burn. That is what happened here.”
In 2006, they formed a company with Germanotta’s dad called “Team Love Child” for “for the purpose of exclusively professionally exploiting Germanotta and the songs that Fusari co-wrote and or produced,” the filing states. Fusari was a 20 percent owner.
In January 2007, he ended their “romantic involvement,” the suit says.
Since then, Fusari claims he’s been practically frozen out. He says he was sent a check for $209,000 in June of last year, but the next check, which arrived in December, had a message on it saying it would be the last.
The suit claims that Gaga’s companies have breached their agreement, and that he’s entitled to 20 percent of the royalties and merchandising rights she has pulled in.
She Said:
As reported by thresq.hollywoodreporter.com — Lady Gaga claims in New York court that the contract between her and Fusari is invalid because he was not a licensed talent agent. She is seeking damages because he allegedly tried to take advantage of an “inexperienced performing artist.” The lawsuit challenges the contract that gave him rights to her future earnings as “predatory and financially abusive.”
The critical issue is whether Fusari was acting as an agent or a music producer at the time. A number of states, including California and New York, require talent agents to be licensed. New York’s laws doesn’t seem as straightforward as California’s “Talent Agencies Act,” which seeks to protect artists from corrupt attempts to take advantage of an artist’s talents by voiding contracts when someone is found to have “produced” work on their behalf without a license. But it does have a statute (NY Art and Cultural Affairs Law § 37.07) [justia.com] that generally guides talent representation.
Robert Meloni, Fusari’s lawyer, says Gaga’s claim is “ludicrous” and that his client wasn’t holding himself out to be an agent. He fires back by telling the NY Daily News that “Rob was no more of an ‘agent’ for her than she is a Roman Catholic nun.”
I guess all is fair in love and war.
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