This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Legal
Courtney Love settles Twitter defamation case
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 4 March 2011
Oh this is no fun at all, either. Courtney Love’s legal squabble with fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir over the former’s libellous rantings on Twitter has been settled out of court.
As previously reported, Simorangkir sued Love over a series of tweets posted in 2009 in which the singer accused the fashion lady of all sorts of things, seemingly after the pair fell out over a $4000 clothing bill.
Simorangkir said Love’s comments on the micro-blogging platform, which included Love branding Simorangkir an “asswipe nasty lying hosebag thief”, were untrue and damaged her reputation and business. She sued for defamation.
Love said her comments were merely opinions and not intended as statements of fact, while also arguing there was no tangible proof that the tweets had caused Simorangkir any actual financial loss.
The whole thing was due to go to court in January, and could have been a very interesting case, given it’s the first real defamation lawsuit to centre on comments made via Twitter. But the hearing was postponed after out of court negotiations began.
A settlement was reached yesterday, with Love agreeing to pay Simorangkir $430,000 in damages over the next three years.
Simorangkir’s legal rep Bryan Freedman told The Hollywood Reporter: “The amount of the settlement says it all. [Love’s] reprehensible defamatory comments were completely false and $430,000 is quite a significant way to say I am sorry. One would hope that, given this disaster, restraint of pen, tongue and tweet would guide Ms Love’s future conduct”. Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it.
Meanwhile, Love’s attorney James Janowitz told The Reporter he was also pleased with the deal, adding that Simorangkir had originally asked for substantially more in damages, and that the final figure agreed gave her team “bragging rights” but nothing else. Asked whether his client would be using Twitter in the future, Janowitz said: “I don’t think she’s using it any more. But I could be wrong”.
