Lauryn Hill Sued for Fraud, Breach of Contract by Fugees Co-Founder Pras Michel (EXCLUSIVE)

Pras Michél, a founding member of Grammy-winning hip-hop group The Fugees, is suing his bandmate Lauryn Hill in federal court for fraud and breach of contract, among other claims, over their abbreviated 2023 and canceled tour a year later.

In a scathing lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Southern District of New York, Michél alleges that Hill grossly mismanaged the setup, marketing and budgeting of their scuttled 2023 tour, which “was actually a veiled and devious attempt to make a big score for herself,” the complaint states, adding that the singer then secretly siphoned off money from the tour guarantees. The full list of claims include fraud, fraud in the inducement, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, accounting and refusal to permit an audit of the Fugees’ tour.

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In a statement to Variety, Hill blasted the lawsuit as “baseless” and “full of false claims and unwarranted attacks.”

The suit claims that the 2023 Fugees tour should have been “a huge commercial success, since most of shows for the entire arena size tour were sold out in advance.” However, Michél came away empty-handed because Hill controlled the tour budget “that was so bloated with unnecessary and, most likely fictitious, expenses, that it seemed designed to lose money.” Furthermore, the tour was cut short when Hill abruptly and unilaterally cancelled the second half in November 2023, citing “serious vocal strain.”

The lawsuit, which paints Hill as a wolf in sheep’s clothing with “narcissistic tendencies,” offers up juicy anecdotes, including one involving her turning down a $5 million offer for the Fugees to perform at Coachella this year over feeling snubbed by the festival putting No Doubt at the top of the bill.

“Hill’s arrogance was again demonstrated when she unilaterally rejected a $5 Million offer [to play Coachella]. The reason was that her ego was bruised since the group No Doubt would be receiving top billing over The Fugees the night of their show,” the complaint says. “Hill never told Pras about the offer or that she had was rejected it. Pras only learned about it when it was too late, after Hill, in an astonishing display of hubris, asked Pras if he would agree to perform a few Fugees songs for free as the opening act for her son, ‘YG’ Marley, who was slated to perform at the same Coachella festival.”

The group, which was formed with Wyclef Jean in the late 1980s in South Orange, New Jersey, is often dubbed one of the most influential hip-hop acts of the 1990s, selling more than 22 million records globally. “The Score,” which was released in 1996 and marked their final album, was certified seven times platinum sales by the RIAA.

According to the complaint, Hill, reeling from a failed solo tour, first proposed the idea of a Fugees reunion in spring 2023 to Wyclef Jean, who then pitched it to Michél. She “realized that the only chance for her to perform at arena size venues and feed her insatiable ego would be to reunite with Michél and Jean and bill the 25th anniversary tour as a ‘Fugees” tour,'” the suit states.

Hill exploited Michél’s precarious situation in which he needed money for mounting legal fees, the complaint contends. At the time, Michél was in the middle of a four-year legal battle with the U.S. Department of Justice after being named as a co-defendant of “Wolf of Wall Street” financier Jho Low, who allegedly the stole $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, known as 1MDB, in one of the world’s largest financial scandals ever. While Low remains on the run and is believed to be living in China where he evades justice, Michél was convicted in April 2023, including for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and acting as an agent of China. (Michél was never accused of participating in the epic theft that was used to finance lavish Hollywood parties that cost eight figures a pop and drew the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Paris Hilton.)

But the 2023 Fugees tour, which was canceled abruptly by Hill, did little to help Michél cover his legal bills and left him owing nearly $1 million in unrecouped expenses because “Hill was taking 40% of the tour guarantees and tour net profits ‘off the top’ for herself, leaving the remaining 60% to be split equally between Hill, Pras and Wyclef,” the suit states. Michél and his representatives only learned of that setup this year.

Earlier this year, Hill allegedly entered into a new agreement with Live Nation for an 18-show Fugees U.S. tour scheduled to kick off in August 2024. She never disclosed the agreement to Michél, according to the suit. Ticket sales were dismal, which Michél blames on Hill because she “had taken far too long to close the deal with Live Nation [and] there was little or no marketing for the tour, and not enough time between the announcement and the first concert date to do sufficient advance sales to justify the tour.”

As a result, Live Nation pulled the plug on the U.S tour in August, prompting speculation about what really torpedoed the highly anticipated tour. At the time, Hill blamed the media. She released a statement that said: “Last year, I faced an injury that necessitated the rescheduling of some of my shows. Regrettably, some media outlets’ penchant for sensationalism and clickbait headlines have seemingly created a narrative that has affected ticket sales for the North American portion of the tour.”

The suit also claims that Hill has “tarnished the Fugees brand” due to “her habit of showing up late for shows, sometimes by as many as two to three hours.” Hill has continued to draw fan complaints for her chronic tardiness. Just this week, the singer reportedly hit the stage more than four hours late for a show in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Fugees aren’t the only musical act currently ensnared by legal infighting. Hall & Oates founders Daryl Hall and John Oates have been battling it out in confidential arbitration over the sale of their business partnership.