(EXCLUSIVE) Brandy & Fantasia’s Ex Publicist Loses Discrimination Lawsuit With Sony

theJasmineBRAND.com exclusively reports, Fantasia and Brandy’s ex-publicist has been shut down in his legal battle with Sony Music, in which he accused the label of racism and causing him to be fired because he was black. A federal court judge has thrown out the case and awarded the publicist nothing from his lawsuit.

Courtney Barnes – a well-known music publicist – filed a lawsuit against Sony Music accusing them of firing him for being black back in 2014. Barnes explained that he was the PR rep for both Fantasia and Brandy.

Fantasia

The lawsuit claimed that following Fantasia hiring Barnes for PR, the singer’s manager told Barnes that the V.P. at Sony – Sarah Dennison – hated him and wanted him to be fired so bad that she threatened to screw over Fantasia’s career.

Barnes said that Fantasia’s manager told him that the Sony V.P. claimed that he had a reputation for “shady business practices“, but Barnes said that was code language for racism. Further, he said he only met the V.P. once so she had no reason to have a negative opinion about him.

Barnes filed suit against Sony Music and the V.P. for ruining his good name in the music world and for emotional stress and demanded 250k in damages. Sony Music responded, claiming the whole lawsuit was nonsense and asked the judge to throw out the case.

Brandy & mother Sonya Norwood

The legal battle had been going on for over a year. During the case, Brandy’s mom and Fantasia’s manager both were deposed in the case.

Then on April 6th, the federal court judge came back with his decision and threw out the publicist’s entire lawsuit saying there was no evidence to back up his claims of discrimination.

The judge explains that Dennison – the V.P. at Sony – did not interfere with any deal that Barnes had with the clients. He says that Fantasia’s manager gave testimony that backed up the label’s argument by saying he had no idea who Barnes was.

The federal court judge granted the defendants motion for summary judgement and dismissed all claims against the label and the executive.

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