When it rains, it pours.
Such is the case for 34-year-old Antonio Brown, who has been hit with a series of lawsuits and unflattering allegations in recent weeks, the latest of which accuses the athlete-turned-rapper of attempting to rip a music promoter off for half a million dollars, among other things.
As the NY Post reports, a suit was filed against AB this past Wednesday in Sarasota County Circuit Court, accusing him of breach of contract and defamation over an "exclusive artist agreement" that was signed in July with a Tampa-based company called Secure the Bag (STB) Entertainment.
Within the filing, owner Ryan Kane alleged that Brown attempted to beat his company out of $178K after submitting "fraudulent" expenses in hopes of being reimbursed and "making a series of lewd, racist, sexist, and threatening remarks towards STB execs and others."
"Now I know how the Raiders felt when they paid him [at least $1 million], and he never played a single game for them," Kane told The Post on Friday (October 7). "I gave him … a huge advance and an opportunity to make money legitimately, and all he did was walk off the field."
According to STB's founder, he started his company in early 2022, and after striking up a brief friendship with Brown, he recruited and gave the NFL player a $150K advance. At the time, the duo was eager to work together on a music video for "Cracked" featuring Lil Wayne, but ultimately, their friendship soured before the project came to fruition.
Kane claims that AB came to him requesting $250K in cash to pay Wayne, who reportedly wanted the money directly from the Miami native. Though the STB leader initially wrote the cheque, his intuition held him back and he told Brown he was stopping payment, despite being "threatened" that "the check better be good."
After speaking firsthand with reps for the Young Money founder (who has not been named in the lawsuit), they confirmed to Ryan that it wasn't necessary for the money to travel through Brown first and that the "Phone Home" hitmaker only expected a payday of $150K.
According to last week's legal filings, STB believes that Brown attempted to defraud them out of the remaining $100K to pocket for his own benefit.
Brown's unauthorized expenses included in the suit are $87K for a five-hour Los Angeles studio rental, as well as $8,500 for members of the artist's entourage to fly along with him on a private jet. After the company refused to pay, the father of five promptly hopped on social media to make "defamatory statements about STB writing bad cheques and not paying their bills."
According to Kane, while some say that the 34-year-old's "career is blossoming," he thinks that it's dead. "I own the rights to all his music. He can’t release any music for the rest of his life unless I approve it," he said.
Read more about Ryan Kane's ongoing fake Richard Mille lawsuit against Antonio Brown here, and tap back in with HNHH later for more pop culture news updates.
[Via]
