Mariah Carey has prevailed in a five-year legal battle with her brother, winning the dismissal of his remaining claims that she defamed him in her bestselling 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey.
In a ruling issued Monday and obtained by Rolling Stone, Justice Leslie A. Stroth of the New York State Supreme Court found that Morgan Carey failed to establish that his superstar sister acted with “actual malice” when making the statements he challenged.
Morgan claimed in his lawsuit that his sister had damaged his otherwise “excellent and spotless reputation” by portraying him as violent, accusing him of trafficking “powdered party favors” (a reference to cocaine), and describing him as having “behavioral problems” during childhood. He claimed Mariah had relied on their late mother as a source for some of the material and was more concerned with the memoir’s commercial success than with verifying the accuracy of her claims. He said his damages were “believed to exceed $20 million.”
But the judge found that Morgan could not establish actual malice simply by pointing to the deterioration of his relationship with his famous sibling. Under New York defamation law, public figures must show that a defendant made a false statement knowing it was false or with reckless disregard for the truth.
“Plaintiff has not sufficiently pleaded actual malice on the part of [Mariah],” Justice Stroth wrote. “Plaintiff fails to provide any proof that [Mariah] made such statements with knowledge of their falsity or with reckless disregard of their falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth. While plaintiff alleges that [Mariah] demonstrates ill will towards her brother, such statement is insufficient, and plaintiff has not satisfied the pleading requirement for actual malice.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone, Mariah’s lawyer, John Rosenberg, said that the singer is “is gratified that the Court recognized that her memoir addresses significant issues of public interest and dismissed her brother’s defamation claims in their entirety.”
Rosenberg said the Grammy-winning star “believes the importance of the Court’s decision goes well beyond her own interests in this particular litigation, as it confirms that authors must be afforded broad protection when they speak out on matters of public concern.”
Morgan first filed his lawsuit on May 28, 2021. His attorney tells Rolling Stone the fight is not over. “We respectfully disagree with today’s decision as being completely inconsistent with prior rulings in the case,” lawyer Richard Altman said in an email. “We intend to appeal it very soon.”
