In 1983, Frank Sinatra sued celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley after learning she was working on the book His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra, only to drop the case within a year. Seventeen years later, a judge threw out litigation from the estate of David Ruffin over the 1998 NBC miniseries The Temptations. And in 2018, an appeals court said actress Olivia de Havilland could not sue FX over her portrayal in the Ryan Murphy series Feud: Bette and Joan.
These are just a few among scores of cases that have failed over the decades in trying to challenge unauthorized biographical works about celebrities, largely due to First Amendment free speech protections. Experts tell Billboard that Billy Joel would likely meet the same fate if he brought legal action over the unauthorized biopic Billy & Me.
The project, announced by Variety last week, tells the story of Joel’s early career through the eyes of his first manager, Irwin Mazur, and early collaborator Jon Small. But Joel himself has not given his blessing — and he has publicly stated that the movie should not be made.
“Since 2021, the parties involved have been officially notified that they do not possess Billy Joel’s life rights and will not be able to secure the music rights required for this project,” says Joel’s spokesperson, Claire Mercuri, in a statement shared with Billboard. “Billy Joel has not authorized or supported this project in any capacity, and any attempt to move forward without it would be both legally and professionally misguided.”
If he made good on that not-so-subtle threat, what would Joel’s legal options be? He could theoretically sue the filmmakers in New York or California under state-level laws that protect that right of publicity — that is, a person’s right to control their name, image and likeness. Such a lawsuit could be brought before the movie’s release if Joel wanted to seek an injunction stopping it, or afterwards in pursuit of damages for alleged harm.
Right of publicity laws have been invoked in many previous celebrity biopic lawsuits, typically without success. There are two key reasons for this. First, the bulk of states that have right of publicity statutes limit this protection to commercial products, such as the use of one’s face on an advertisement or merchandise, and exclude artistic endeavors like movies. Second, courts have routinely found that a filmmaker’s First Amendment right to free speech overrules an individual’s right to control their story.
“The legal rule is no one has a monopoly on historical facts,” says Elizabeth Seidlin-Bernstein, a media lawyer at the firm Ballard Spahr. “No one has veto power over the making of a biopic about them. The First Amendment protects that kind of expression.”
While a right of publicity lawsuit would thus face long odds for Joel, there is another type of legal action that could also be available to him after the movie comes out: a defamation lawsuit.
Related
“If there are significant mischaracterizations or untruths that potentially harm the reputation of a subject of a film, there could potentially be defamation claims,” says Tal Dickstein, an entertainment litigator at Loeb & Loeb.
Whether Joel has any legal recourse for defamation will depend on the specific content of Billy & Me, which for now remains unknown (the script is not yet done, per Variety). There are also First Amendment barriers to the success of defamation claims for public figures like Joel; in order to win this sort of legal action, a celebrity must show that a lie was told with actual malice, meaning the teller knew it was false or recklessly disregarded the truth. “It’s a high bar,” explains Dickstein.
The fact that the Billy & Me filmmakers have not bought Joel’s life rights is not independently a legal issue. It is true that many Hollywood production companies prefer to get a subject’s authorization before greenlighting a project. But Seidlin-Bernstein says this is not so much a legal requirement as a sort of “insurance policy,” since life rights agreements typically include a release of all possible claims one could bring in the future, and often a promise of access or participation from the subject.
Dickstein similarly tells Billboard that the concept of a life right is “more of a contractual restriction than a free-standing intellectual property right.” He says that in addition to helping filmmakers avoid risk, these agreements also can be valuable in prohibiting a subject from inking a film or book deal with someone else.
The Billy & Me filmmakers are thus legally free to make a Joel biopic sans life rights, albeit without the valuable upsides that would come with his buy-in. With Joel’s approval, the movie will also likely be lacking in another important element: his music. Joel retains ownership of his catalog, meaning he’d have to grant approval for Billy & Me to dramatize the production or performances of Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers like “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” or “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
This is likely why, as reported by Variety, the movie’s plot will be Joel’s origin story before the release of his breakout hit “Piano Man” in 1973. Writer and producer Adam Ripp told Variety that the film takes place during Joel’s time in his early 1960s band The Hassles and “features the cover songs performed by them during that era.”
“As such, characterizing Billy & Me as ‘legally and professionally misguided’ does not accurately reflect the nature of the project nor the legally obtained rights underlying the production,” Ripp said in his statement. “The film is based on Irwin Mazur and Jon Small’s firsthand experiences and Irwin’s legitimate right to tell his own life story and perspective regarding the events depicted in the film.”
In a statement to Billboard for this story, Joel’s spokesperson Mercuri said, “At no time has Billy Joel even suggested that he would seek to enjoin this proposed film. Instead, he has made clear that his music will not be licensed and he has not authorized those associated with the proposed film to depict him visually or vocally and he reserves his rights to protect his valuable state law rights.”
