Dame Dash just took a massive blow in court. According to TMZ, the Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder will have to cough up over $800,000 to director Josh Webber and Muddy Water Pictures who are responsible for the film Dear Frank.
Although Dash was originally plucked to direct the movie in 2016, he was ultimately removed from the project after he was deemed unfit for the job. Webber and Muddy Water Pictures claimed he was always high on set while shooting the film on his Sherman Oaks property. They eventually finished the film without him.
They then sued Dash for copyright infringement and defamation in 2019, claiming he tried to shop Dear Frank around as his own. They also alleged he sent promotional ephemera to networks such as BET but changed the film’s title to The List. Dame argued they shot the film at his home using all of his equipment then stole the footage to do the movie without him.
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The jury failed to see Dash’s perspective and handed down its decision earlier this week. Attorney Chris Brown, who repped the plaintiffs, said, “I will get every penny due to my clients.”
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In January 2019, Webber went on an extended rant in a since-deleted Instagram post and berated Dash for how he handled the situation.
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“I wasn’t gonna speak on this bum but fuck him and his lies,” Webber wrote at the time. “I won’t sit back and let this guy try to slander or bully me any longer. Truth is @duskopoppington is not a true independent artist or business man like he tries to pretend to be.. He was HIRED by @muddfilms to ‘Direct’ the film #thelist originally as a pure marketing stunt. I was the producer of the film and asked to ensure that it actually got made by ghost directing certain aspects.
“Dame has no idea what directing a movie actually is or takes and was constantly yelling at crew members/cast, berating people on set, smoking weed and basically sleeping at the wheel. Then while in the process of finishing the film, Dame was being a hot head with the studio executive producer/financier stepping out of line and finally got FIRED!! I was approached to finish the job by directing the movie to completion and attached my company to help in its formal release. Really simple to understand.”
He then went on to call him a “culture vulture” and “a sucker.” Dame fired back, “These liars @muddfilms @joshawebber and @tonywhiteceo tried to con me and when I caught them I lying I took over the project and let @muddfilms stay in for short paper because he pretended to be thorough. Now the #culturevulture @joshawebber who is obsessed with being me was my assistant director in true culture vulture form is going to try to take credit for a Black mans work.”
