Photo of Pharrell Williams by Thomas Hawk
The long-standing lawsuit by the estate of Marvin Gaye against Pharrell Williams has taken an unexpected turn, with the estate now accusing the singer of perjury and demanding millions in attorney fees.
Earlier this year, a federal appeals court upheld a $5 million verdict against Williams and Robin Thicke. In 2015, the estate had accused the pair of infringing on the copyright of Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up” when creating their song “Blurred Lines,” and a jury agreed with them.
With the appeal process complete, most people expected that this would be the end of it. But this is not so, as now the estate is accusing Williams of perjury.
During his deposition in the original lawsuit, Williams claimed under oath, “I did not go in the studio with the intention of making anything feel like, or to sound like, Marvin Gaye.” However, in a recent interview with Rick Rubin in GQ, he admitted that he “reverse engineers” songs from which he gets a special feeling.
Williams further admitted that he did this with “Blurred Lines” and “got myself in trouble.”
Richard Busch, who is a lawyer that represented the Marvin Gaye estate in both the original suit and this new one, insists that Williams’ admission is evidence of perjury as well as demonstrates the commission of fraud against the court.
“Williams,” Busch writes in the motion, “made intentional, material misrepresentations to the jury and this Court as part of an unconscionable scheme to improperly influence the jury and the Court in their decisions. Nothing was more central to this case than whether ‘Got To’ or Marvin Gaye was on Williams’s mind while he was engaged in creating ‘Blurred.’ That fact was central to the issue of whether Williams and Thicke illegally copied ‘Got To’ and whether their copying was willful, and they knew it. It was also central to their defense of ‘independent creation.'”
Busch wants the judge in the case, based on the new evidence, to reconsider his decision not to award millions in attorney fees to the estate.
Busch offered no further comment on the motion. “We have no comment, as everything we have to say is set forth in detail in the papers we filed with the Court,” the attorney told DMN.