As Lizzo gears as much as battle a hostile-workplace lawsuit filed by three former dancers who say they have been subjected to sexual harassment and discrimination, she’s hired infamous Hollywood lawyer Martin D. Singer, a.ok.a. Marty Singer. His work with his A-list consumer roster earned him Entertainment Lawyer of the Year from the Beverly Hills Bar Assn. and a repute as “Hollywood’s favorite legal hit man.”
Singer instructed The Times this month that he’s assured Lizzo “will be completely vindicated in this matter.”
If you’re unfamiliar with the career-saving celeb go-to, look to Sharon Stone, who stated at a 2012 tribute honoring Singer, “Marty’s like when [Mike] Tyson bit the ear off that guy … that’s like Marty in law.”
Or Charlie Sheen, who honored the litigator the identical night time, toasting, “Marty might be the only person who has f— more people than I have. … A lot has been said about my past, but trust me, I never screwed a hooker as hard as Marty screwed Warner Bros.” Sheen added: “I’ve got 100 million reasons to say thank you.”
In a 2017 profile, Vanity Fair wrote of the lawyer: “For every story Singer kills or gets taken down, there’s another he’s delayed, or defanged, or pushed off the front page, or had corrected or retracted. Singer is a kind of legal termite, eating away at foundations: one errant detail, he tells editors, makes a story, or a source, or a reporter, wholly unreliable.”
Read extra: Will Hollywood lawyer Martin Singer’s pitbull ways nonetheless work in a post-Weinstein period?
When the details aren’t on Singer’s aspect, the journal stated, “he deals,” buying and selling unique interviews with his shoppers, or images, if an editor will kill or maintain a story.
Singer’s résumé consists of Hollywood heavyweights Bill Cosby, John Travolta, Scarlett Johansson, Kevin Costner, Chris Brown, Johnny Depp, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jonah Hill, Priscilla Presley, Sylvester Stallone, Michael Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, Britney Spears, Naomi Campbell, Jim Carrey, Matt Damon, Celine Dion, Jamie Foxx, Justin Timberlake, Brendan Fraser, the late James Gandolfini, Anthony Hopkins, Alicia Keys, Stacy Keach, Demi Moore, Katy Perry, Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Piven, Whitney Houston and director-producer Brett Ratner, to call a few.
But let’s take a closer look at the methods he’s worn the superhero cape for numerous celebrities by the years.
Charlie Sheen
Singer represented the actor in his authorized battle with Warner Bros. and “Two and a Half Men” govt producer Chuck Lorre over his departure from the sitcom. Sheen was at odds with the studio and Lorre after Warner Bros. shut down manufacturing of the CBS sitcom so Sheen might search therapy for substance abuse points. Warner Bros. later fired Sheen after he publicly criticized the studio and Lorre. The actor responded with a $100-million lawsuit, and though he toasted Singer with the “$100 million reasons” bit, he reportedly settled for about $25 million.
John Travolta
In 2012, two therapeutic massage therapists filed a $2-million lawsuit in opposition to Travolta, alleging that he sexually assaulted them. Singer asserted that Travolta was on the East Coast at the time of the alleged encounter and due to this fact could not have assaulted the therapeutic massage therapists in Beverly Hills. He known as their claims “totally false and fabricated.”
“Our client will be fully vindicated in court on both of these absurd and fictional claims,” Singer promised at the time. The accusers wound up dropping the lawsuit.
Brett Ratner
In October 2017, former advertising and marketing govt Melanie Kohler alleged in a Facebook publish that filmmaker Brett Ratner had raped her 12 years prior. Singer, Ratner’s go-to man, went on to Kohler to attempt to get her to take away the publish. She later instructed The Times that Singer known as her and “scared” her into taking down her publish; he stated she had modified her account of occasions a number of instances and eliminated the publish after he calmly confronted her.
On Nov. 1, 2017, in a Los Angeles Times story, six girls — together with actresses Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge — accused Ratner of sexual harassment and misconduct that allegedly happened in non-public houses, on film units or at trade occasions. Kohler was not quoted in The Times’ story.
Ratner denied all of the allegations and sued Kohler for libel in her residence state of Hawaii hours after the Munn-Henstridge story was revealed, however dropped his lawsuit after the 2 reached a settlement the following 12 months. She has since instructed her story publicly, however Singer didn’t apologize for chipping away at what he noticed as inconsistencies in her story.
“I know people think I’m attacking victims. I’m this horrible person. I’m just trying to do a job,” Singer instructed The Times in 2017. “Nobody screws my clients. If someone tries to go after them, I look out for them as if they’re my family.”
Read extra: Six girls accuse filmmaker Brett Ratner of sexual harassment or misconduct
Zooey Deschanel
In 2015, “New Girl” star Zooey Deschanel was repped by Singer when her ex-managers sued her for alleged unpaid commissions associated to her Fox comedy in addition to compensation for the multimillion-dollar sale of her Hello Giggles web site.
“The lawsuit filed by Seven Summits is completely absurd and meritless and was filed in retaliation by a disgruntled ex-manager,” Marty Singer stated of the criticism at the time. “I fully expect that the claims will be adjudicated before the California labor commissioner, and my client will prevail in this matter.”
Seven Summits’ lawyer Bryan Freedman instructed Deadline in response, “Every actor or actress who hires Marty Singer when they get a letter from a manager requesting to be paid commissions rightfully owed makes a ridiculous claim of illegal procurement to try and gain false leverage. That this is an actress who had an agent throughout her career at CAA or UTA and she never thought about filing a labor board claim for procurement without the Bill Cosby/Marty Singer strategy of accusing the victim. Don’t thumb your nose at those who have helped you become famous, or it may get cut off. I don’t understand why these people just forget the people that made their careers. That strategy will unfortunately result in a huge legal bill to let the public know that she stiffs her representatives. Not a smart legal or publicity strategy.”
With Singer at the helm, the case was settled in 2018.
Ricky Martin
Singer represented Ricky Martin in 2022 when the Puerto Rican artist was hit with allegations that he had engaged in a sexual relationship with his 21-year-old nephew, who stated the connection ended with Martin harassing and abusing him. In a assertion to Variety, Singer insisted that the crooner had “never been — and would never be — involved in any kind of sexual or romantic relationship with his nephew.” Singer’s assertion got here lower than a month after the “Livin’ la Vida Loca” hitmaker denied “completely false allegations” associated to a restraining order filed anonymously in opposition to him in Puerto Rico.
“Unfortunately, the person who made this claim is struggling with deep mental health challenges,” Singer’s assertion continued. “The idea is not only untrue, it is disgusting. We all hope that this man gets the help he so urgently needs. But, most of all, we look forward to this awful case being dismissed as soon as a judge gets to look at the facts.”
Weeks later, Martin’s nephew withdrew his claims, simply in the future earlier than Martin’s two-night stand at the Hollywood Bowl, the place followers expressed their assist. But greater than a month after the Latin pop star stated he wanted time to heal from the ordeal, he filed a lawsuit in search of $20 million in damages, alleging that he had been “persecuted, besieged, harassed, stalked and extorted by a maladjusted person.”
Kim Kardashian
In 2022, on Hulu’s premiere of “The Kardashians,” Kardashian was stunned when her son Saint got here throughout a Roblox advert that featured his mother’s crying face. When she took a closer look, the advert promised “unreleased footage” of the fact star’s 20-year-old intercourse tape with R&B singer Ray J. Luckily, Saint did not discover that half, however Kardashian gave her lawyer a name. “Our legal rights are that she could sue anyone who releases the tape,” Singer is heard saying in the course of the name. “Even if it exists, they don’t have a legal right to release the tape without her consent.”
Kardashian then looped one other rep into the decision and was heard telling her to ‘have Marty scare the s— outta this man.” She then says she refuses to go through this again and that this time, she’s got the right attorney and will burn them to the ground.
The Skims mogul also turned to Singer back in 2011, when Jonathan Jaxson, a man who claimed to be her former publicist, publicly accused her of staging her lavish wedding (and 72-day marriage) to Kris Humphries for publicity. He also said that the reality star “staged several of the moments the world has seen of her,” including speculation in 2007 about an engagement to football’s Reggie Bush. Singer told the Hollywood Reporter at the time that Jaxson was never Kardashian’s publicist and claimed that in March 2007, “Jaxson apologized in writing to Kim for referring to himself as her publicist.”
Tristan Thompson
In 2021, Singer sent a cease-and-desist letter to Instagram model Sydney Chase after she alleged that the NBA star had been sleeping with her while also dating Khloé Kardashian. Chase made a public statement saying she wouldn’t “be known as a liar”; Singer responded with a scathing statement obtained by Page Six.
“You claim that your statements about supposedly receiving texts from my client are true,” Singer wrote. “You also were reading and quoting from those fictitious texts. You claim that those texts you allegedly received prove you had an affair with my client.
“However, notwithstanding continued requests from me and from the press to provide the texts to back up your specious accusations, you have refused to do so. …. The inescapable conclusion is that they do not exist.”
More of Singer’s italicized phrases followed in the lengthy statement, as well as a threat that Chase was exposing herself to “important legal responsibility.” Chase told Page Six that she did have the alleged texts, but said “that is now a authorized matter that attorneys will deal with.”
That identical 12 months, Singer gained Thompson a $50,000 default judgment in a libel lawsuit in opposition to a lady who stated the basketball participant had fathered her baby. Kimberly Alexander requested that Thompson take a paternity check, which he did. The outcome was adverse. Thompson filed his libel case shortly after the DNA check, when Alexander continued to say he was the daddy.
Singer contended within the go well with, obtained by The Times, that Alexander had “endured in publicly proclaiming that Thompson is her baby’s father and … maliciously accused Thompson of being a deadbeat dad, ‘neglecting’ and failing to take monetary duty for the kid since delivery.”
“To quote Michael Jackson,” Singer stated within the courtroom submitting, “‘the kid is not [his] son.’”
Times employees writers Amy Kaufman, Daniel Miller, Jeffrey Fleishman and Christi Carras contributed to this report.
Sign up for L.A. Goes Out, a weekly publication about exploring and experiencing Los Angeles from the L.A. Times.
This story initially appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Discussion about this post