Frank Ocean has hit a bum note with the judge presiding over the lawsuit that the singer’s father has brought against him.
In court papers from last week, federal judge Stephen V. Wilson threatened the “Novacane” singer with sanctions, because Ocean’s defense in the case is largely “devoid of any factual support.”
Wilson wrote: “If it becomes clear that the defendant is persisting with arguments with no factual support in order to confuse the Plaintiff or hide the truth of the matter, the Court would consider sanctions against the Defendant or his counsel as a remedy for such conduct.”
The judge’s harsh assessment came in response to a request from Ocean’s father, Calvin Cooksey, to strike parts of Ocean’s response to the lawsuit because “the affirmative defenses have not been alleged with specificity.” While Wilson opted to mostly deny Cooksey’s request, he did strike one of Ocean’s defenses, for “failure to state a claim.”
Ocean was sued by Cooksey earlier this year, over an essay that the singer wrote that painted his father as a bigot.
According to the suit, Ocean’s 2016 Tumblr post falsely claimed that Cooksey discriminated against a transgender waitress, and dragged Ocean out of a neighborhood diner while he made “immoral comments” about the waitress’ hygiene.
Specifically, the suit claims that Ocean wrote, “I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a f—t as he dragged me out of a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn’t be served because she was dirty.”
“Plaintiff has never had any confrontations, conflicts or any discriminatory incidents, or encounters with any members of the LBGT [sic] community,” the lawsuit claims.
“Defendant did not only attack Defendant’s father … by fraudulently labeling Plaintiff as a ‘Homophobic Bigot,’” the lawsuit reads. “The Defendant also attacked God’s [sic] and God’s laws as they have been written in ‘Islam and Christian’ religions.”
Alleging libel, Cooksey is seeking $14.5 million.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.