Drake Drops Legal Petition Against iHeartMedia
Drake has reportedly decided to remove iHeartMedia from his legal petition involving Kendrick Lamar hit “Not Like Us.”
In a filing from last November, the five-time Grammy winner accused iHeartMedia, the parent company of iHeartRadio, of accepting payola from Universal Music Group to play “Not Like Us” on national radio stations and “inflate artificially the metrics.” Drake’s petition claimed that UMG should have prevented the release of “Not Like Us,” due to defamatory statements about him engaging in pedophilia, harboring sex offenders and other criminal accusations.
But while Drake continues to pursue a federal lawsuit against UMG, he’s settled with iHeartMedia. As of February 26, the rapper’s legal team notified the Bexar County, Texas court that iHeartRadio has been removed as a respondent.
Rolling Stone noted the two parties “have reached an amicable resolution of the dispute to the satisfaction of both sides.”
“In exchange for documents that showed iHeart did nothing wrong, Drake agreed to drop his petition. No payments were made by either one of us,” a representative for iHeartMedia said in a statement.
In January, Drake dropped his original petition against UMG, re-pursuing the music label with a defamation lawsuit, claiming that it was known that the pedophilia allegations were false, yet UMG overlooked the “inflammatory and shocking allegations.” The label, which has Drake on its artist roster, would deny the allegations as “offensive and untrue.”
Amid the “Not Like Us” controversy, the song won a whopping five categories at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year, and was performed during Kendrick’s Super Bowl LIX halftime show.