Photo Credit: Royel Otis (Instagram)
Aussie pop-rock duo Royel Otis’ guitarist was denied his request to reveal the identities of several Reddit users so he could sue them for defamation.
Australian pop-rock duo Royel Otis has been facing some negative press between the questionable lyrics to their hit “Moody” and a since-deleted Reddit thread alleging that the band’s guitarist was in a relationship with his underage music student. Since then, guitarist Royel Maddell (real name Leroy Bressington) urged the Didstrict Court of Northern California to force the San Francisco-headquartered Reddit to hand over the identities of several users so he could consider suing them for defamation. But now, his request has been denied.
The court docket reveals that Bressington’s request, which was filed in October, was denied on December 24. According to the filing, Bressington intended to sue for defamation if the Reddit users in question were also based in Australia. However, the application only asserted that his legal team was “prepared to initiate” legal action, and didn’t explicitly state an intention to sue for defamation.
“The Royel Otis’ song ‘Moody’ proved to be a hit but also fodder, because of its song lyrics, for anonymous people on the internet allegedly falsely to label Bressington a sexual ‘predator’ who had engaged in a nonconsensual sexual relationship with a minor while he was her music teacher,” the filing reads.
According to District Court Judge William Alsup, nowhere in Bressington’s filing did he deny the allegations of having had a relationship with a minor. In fact, the only allegations he denied are that a former partner accused him of sexual misconduct, that he faced charges as a result, and that the band’s label dropped them as a result of the scandal. Notably, Bressington has only filed a complaint in California, where Reddit is headquartered, and has not filed anything in his native Australia so far.
The Sydney-based duo, who have toured with Halsey, apologized last spring for the lyrics to their hit “Moody” after backlash online alleging the song is misogynistic. The song’s lyrics complain about the singer’s girlfriend not seeing his “good intentions” and putting him “in the doghouse again,” while the chorus calls the girlfriend “a bitch when she’s moody / but she’s my everything.”
“This song is written from a specific perspective; it is not intended to convey a broader view or standpoint about women in general,” the band said. “We apologize if anyone understood those lyrics otherwise.”
It’s worth mentioning that the song’s music video appears to reference the Adrian Lyne film adaptation of the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita, a story about a middle-aged professor who becomes obsessed with a 12-year-old girl.
