Singer Frank Ocean beat a $14.5 million libel suit brought against him by his estranged father, Calvin Cooksey. Billboard (@billboard) reports that the suit was over a Tumbler post the singer posted in June 2016, shortly after a mass shooting at Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub that killed 49 people and injured dozens more. In the post, Ocean recalled a childhood memory of when his father took him to a restaurant and became enraged that they had a transgender waitress. Ocean’s father then made an anti-gay slur before dragging his young son out of the restaurant and calling the waitress “dirty.” Ocean wrote about it in the June 2016 Tumbler post:
” That was the last afternoon I saw my father, and the first time I heard that word, I think, although it wouldn’t shock me if it wasn’t.” Ocean did not call out Cooksey by name in the post. Cooksey, who represented himself in the hearing, could not bring forth a witness who could say they saw the post and automatically thought it was about him. The presiding Judge, Stephen V. Wilson concluded that Cooksey had not provided sufficient evidence of defamation. Cooksey claimed that the post by Ocean had “ruined future financial opportunities in the film and music industries” for him.
