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Jezebel reports that rapper Talib Kweli is suing the site for $300,000 in damages, claiming they caused him “emotional distress” because he wrote a 2020 article titled “Talib Kweli’s Harassment Campaign Shows How Unprotected Black Women Online.” and are offline”. The article detailed the rapper’s harassment of a 24-year-old woman, Maya A. Moody; He sent hundreds of tweets about her, urging his followers to harass Moody as well. He was also permanently suspended from Twitter for the harassment.
Two years after the play’s release, Kweli last week filed a lawsuit against Jezebel’s parent company, G/O Media, and the play’s author, Ashley Reese. The site claimed Kweli could have sued them for defamation, but the statute of limitations expired last year. He filed a pro se lawsuit, meaning he is suing on his own behalf and not through an attorney. Kweli claimed the track described him as “some kind of monster who didn’t like black women” and cited his song “Brown Skin Lady” as proof to the contrary.
A spokesman for G/O Media released a statement on the lawsuit Tuesday afternoon: “Jezebel’s article fairly reported the controversy that led to the permanent suspension of Talib Kweli’s Twitter account. This lawsuit, filed two years after the story was published, is without merit and the company will seek our attorneys’ fees under the protections afforded to the press to publish stories about matters of public interest like this.” Jezebel concluded with the Repeat that they stand by their original story. Vulture contacted Kweli for comment on the lawsuit.