Rihanna promoting products for Fenty Beauty, which, like Savage X Fenty, was founded in 2017. Photo Credit: SIGMA
Back in January of 2019, Rihanna sued her father and his business partner for allegedly misrepresenting “to third parties and the public that their company, Fenty Entertainment…is affiliated with Rihanna, and has the authority to act on her behalf.” Now, more than two and a half years later, the “Umbrella” singer has officially dropped the complaint.
In the straightforward action, Rihanna – full name Robyn Rihanna Fenty – alleged that her father, Ronald Fenty, and his aforementioned business partner, Moses Joktan Perkins, had attempted “to solicit millions of dollars from unsuspecting third parties in exchange for the false promise that they were authorized to act on Rihanna’s behalf, and/or that Rihanna would perform at various locations throughout the world.”
Ronald Fenty (who still resides in Rihanna’s native Barbados, according to the original suit) and Perkins founded their Fenty Entertainment talent company in about April of 2017, the action stated, and “gave the public the false impression that” they “were acting on behalf of, with the authority of, and in affiliation with Rihanna.”
Said false impression was allegedly created by statements about Rihanna’s purported involvement with the company as well as the homepage presence of a logo for the 33-year-old singer and businesswoman’s Fenty brand.
The latter, Rihanna and her legal team stated, “is famous and well-known in the U.S. and around the world to consumers and the public to be affiliated with Rihanna, her businesses and products, and her as an entertainer.” Moreover, Rihanna’s Roraj Trade “holds sole legal title to the trademarks used in connection with Rihanna’s professional activities,” all manner of Fenty trademarks among them, per the text.
Fenty Entertainment’s allegedly “fraudulent conduct” prompted Rihanna to pursue legal action after a third-party company, one SBS Entertainment, allegedly offered the singer (via Fenty Entertainment) an “exclusive deal” to play 15 concerts in Latin America for $1 million each, in addition to two 15-minute stateside performances for $400,000 apiece.
The defendants allegedly “‘accepted’ the deal on Rihanna’s behalf and took affirmative steps to finalize the terms of the” agreement, before allegedly ignoring “repeated demands to cease and desist.” And August of 2018, Rihanna specified, saw the defendants submit a trademark application to the USPTO for Fenty “resort boutique hotels.” According to the plaintiffs, however, Rihanna’s father and his business partner “never had a bona-fide intent to use the mark” in hotel projects and moved to obtain it “to mislead the public into believing… that Rihanna would be affiliated with, sponsor or approve such use in connection with resort boutique hotels.”
As initially mentioned, Rihanna has officially dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, new legal filings have revealed.
These legal filings don’t disclose the terms of the agreement that the involved parties reached, but at the time of this piece’s publishing, FentyEntertainment.com – the website associated with the defendants’ company – was no longer live. And despite the conclusion of this years-running suit, Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty remains embroiled in a different courtroom confrontation (albeit as a defendant), concerning alleged trademark infringement.