Dame Dash: His Lawsuit against Lee Daniels and His answers the Regarding his Wealth

When I first heard about this, I dismissed it as another frivolous lawsuit. I just figured that Dame Dash was trying to work some angle and at the end of the day he was just being a sore loser about all of Daniels recent success. While that might indeed be part of it, there is also some merit to Dame’s lawsuit.

Dame accuses, Daniels of taking money from him to produce some very successful movies and when those films did produce profits, Dame was not cut a check. Dash’s attorney, Natraj Bhushan described the situation as upsetting,

“It’s very upsetting because there was a certain point where Lee was up-and-coming and Damon, as a music mogul and producer, really saw potential,”

We are talking serious money. In 2004 Dash put $2 million dollars into the movie “The Woodsman”. This movie cost $2.5 million to make and produced $4.6 million worldwide. There is a legitimate gripe as Dash put up nearly the films entire budget.

During a recent interview with hiphopdx, Dame gives his perspective on what happened with Daniels,

I was funding my own movies.  So, I funded The Woodsman for Lee Daniels. He really asked me to do him a favor and take the two million from The Woodsman. And I got what I needed out of it. I got the perception. I brought Kanye. Went to Sundance. Did everything I wanted to do…The money was coming back and he asked me to do him a favor and help him do his movie to showcase him directing. And I was like—The script was crazy to me. And I was like ‘Dawg, this my money for movies. To put in to flip. The same way I empowered you I’m using this to empower other people.’ He swore to God I was gonna get my money back. Like ‘Don’t worry about it. You’ll get your money back next week’ type shit. ‘I promise you.’ This, that, and the third. And the movie ended up costing like $12 million. And I had no say in how it came out. They didn’t want me a part of the perception of the marketing of it…And I ended up never getting my money back.”

THE $25 MILLION LAW SUIT IS NOT QUITE ACCURATE

It’s being reported that Dash is suing for $25 Million. That is not completely accurate. The summons basically tells Daniels about officially about Dash’s claims and allows him to demand to be served with an official complaint. If he does nothing than Dash is asking for $25 million and producer credits on all of Daniels’ projects as a default judgment; these project include, “The Butler”, “Precious” and “The Paperboy”.

He is also looking for another $1 million from Simone Sheffield who is credited as the co-producer on some of Daniels’ movies that Dame is not. He is citing Sheffield for tortuous interference and defamation. Dame is claiming that Sheffield provided the media details about Dame Dash’s impending incarceration that were not true. The claim is that this defamation and other things that are not specifically detailed prohibited formal deals from being done with Daniels.

Both lawsuits are filed after several attempts to collect from Daniels and several broken promises. Dash’s attorney says that Daniels was using Dame’s generosity like a running tab at a bar.

So far there has been no comment from Daniels camp.