An attorney for Danny Elfman is asking a judge to a pianist's defamation suit against the songwriter, arguing in new court papers that it infringes on his First Amendment rights.
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Plaintiff Nomi Abadi's Los Angeles Superior Court complaint against Elfman, filed July 10, pertains to remarks he made during a 2023 media interview. Elfman's denials of Abadi's allegations of repeated sexual harassment and misconduct were included in an investigative piece about a settlement he made with his former mentee.
"The motion should be granted and this harassing and outrageous complaint dismissed," according to the court papers filed Friday by attorney Camille M. Vasquez, who represented Johnny Depp in his dueling litigation with former spouse Amber Heard.
Vasquez also maintains Abadi's defamation claim is time-barred because she filed her lawsuit more than a year after the March 2023 interview Elfman gave.
The intermittent friendship between Elfman and Abadi ended in political disagreements related to the 2016 presidential elections when Abadi insisted that voter fraud gave Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, according to Vasquez's court papers.
In an attempt at humor, and partly to defuse their disagreement with a joke, Elfman in August 2016 filled a cocktail glass with various cleaning products from his bathroom counter, including the facial cleanser Cetaphil, to mimic a cocktail full of nasal drainage, all intended to be a joke about a cocktail he would like to serve then-President Trump, according to Vasquez's pleadings.
Once Abadi's romantic aspirations were dashed, the plaintiff turned on Elfman and made up a story that he had "behaved inappropriately around her," according to Vasquez's court papers.
The 71-year-old Elfman weighed in on the motion with a sworn declaration filed with Judge Gail Killefer, who is scheduled to hear the anti- SLAPP motion on Dec. 10. The state's anti-SLAPP -- Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation -- law is intended to prevent people from using courts, and potential threats of a lawsuit, to intimidate those who are exercising their First Amendment rights.
Elfman says the nasal drainage was not meant to have a sexual connotation.
"The cocktail was intended to look disgusting, like a cocktail glass full of snot," Elfman said. "I acknowledge that this joke was juvenile, but it was not intended to be sexual and it did not contain any bodily fluid."
Elfman further says that when Abadi failed at an attempt to renew their friendship, she "made a decision to commit herself to my destruction."
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