Talib Kweli Suing Media Outlet ‘Jezebel’ For $300k Following Permanent Twitter Ban, Claims Article Published By Site Caused Him “Deep Depression” & “Emotional Distress”

Talib Kweli

Talib Kweli Suing Media Outlet ‘Jezebel’ For $300k Following Permanent Twitter Ban, Claims Article Published By Site Caused Him “Deep Depression” & “Emotional Distress”

Musician Talib Kweli recently served news and culture media outlet Jezebel with a lawsuit, stemming from his Twitter ban.

Reportedly, the 46-year-old New York native filed a grievance against the news and culture commentary website, referencing a profile article they wrote about him back in 2020. Talib Kweli reportedly filed the lawsuit with the New York Supreme Court against G/O Media, its site Jezebel, and journalist Ashley Reese who wrote the story. As part of the suit, Kweli reportedly alleged the article caused “negligent infliction of emotional distress,” and that he went into a “depression state of loss of appetite, sleeplessness, edgy, anxiety, and discomfort around certain women.”

According to Jezebel, the 2 -year-old expose titled “Talib Kweli’s Harassment Campaign Shows How Unprotected Black Women Are Online and Off”, detailed the musician’s social media interactions with and about a then-24-year-old student and activist named Maya Moody.

As previously reported, Kweli was permanently banned from Twitter after Moody claimed the artist used his platform to repeatedly harass and threaten her, encouraging his followers to do the same. A rep for the social media platform released a statement back in 2020 on the matter which read:

“[Talib Kweli’s] account has been permanently suspended after repeated violations of the Twitter rules….Twitter’s purpose is to serve the public conversation. Violence, harassment and other similar types of behavior discourage people from expressing themselves, and ultimately diminish the value of global public conversation. Our rules are to ensure all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely.”

Jezebel subsequently did a story on the incident, that featured an in depth into look at Kweli’s public relationships and interactions. The story quickly caught the former Black Star member’s attention, who then took to his social media account to lash out on Jezebel and the article’s writer Ashley Reese.

In the recent suit, reports state that Kweli claims the Jezebel story “painted him as some monster that didn’t like black women, when 500k plus of his fans are black women, his ex-wife and child’s mother are black women, and his employees are black women.” He is reportedly seeking $300,000 in damages.

Talib Kweli

Jezebel has stated that they stand by their article, and plan to fight the “suit that has no merit”.

[VIA 1,2]

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