Main Pop Girl

British sweetheart and current The X Factor UK co-winner Rita Ora declared war against her label this week when she filed a lawsuit against Jay-Z's Roc Nation imprint, using California's infamous "seven year rule" as basis for her action. In a suit filed on Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Ora claimed that she is seeking to nullify a contract she made in 2008, claiming that the contract violates California law and is thus unenforceable. According to Ora's legal team, the singer believes that she has been "orphaned" from Roc Nation ever since Jay-Z expanded the company to encompass ventures such as sports management, music streaming, and other endeavours, claiming that as a result Roc Nation is a "diminished" label with "only a handful of admittedly worthy heritage superstar artists" on board. "When Rita signed, Roc Nation and its senior executives were very involved with her as an artist," states the complaint. "As Roc Nation's interests diversified, there were fewer resources available and the company suffered a revolving door of executives. Rita's remaining supporters at the label left or moved on to other activities, to the point where she no longer had a relationship with anyone at the company." To make matters worse, Rita has apparently been stuck in limbo ever since 2013, when the record label switched its distribution partner from Sony to Universal. According to the lawsuit, Rita was left behind at Universal, caught in the crossfire between two major labels, neither of whom had any financial incentive to support her. Ora is now relying on California's Labor Code §2855, the Seven Year Rule, which was established in 1944 when actress Olivia De Haviland sued Warner Bros. Studio. after they continually extended her contract even while suspending her for not accepting the roles they were suggesting for her. Back then, the California Court of Appeal ruled that De Haviland could not be subject to a contract for more than seven years, setting a precedent that would help to bring down the studio system. Since then, the law has transferred over to music, with artists like Courtney Love invoking the seven year rule only to see labels counter-suing to claim that promised albums had not been made. In this case, however, Ora is claiming that she has proof that she's created multiple records for release. The lawsuit certainly explains a lot about the state of Rita's career for the past few years. While her debut album ORA was released to general acclaim back in 2012, a planned US re-release of the project failed to materialize; and even though the lead single from her second album, 'I Will Never Let You Down', was released in January 2015, a sophomore album hasn't appeared either. All this despite several high profile American TV show appearances promoting her top five Iggy Azalea collab 'Black Widow', a veritable barrage of famous boyfriends, an appearance in Fifty Shades of Grey and even a Golden Globes nomination for 'Grateful'. "Rita's relationship with Roc Nation is irrevocably damaged," says Ora's lawyers complaint. "Fortunately for Rita, the California legislature had the foresight to protect its artists from the sorts of vicissitudes she's experienced with Roc Nation."

Almost three decades after Sean Penn was accused of heinous physical abuse against Madonna, the pop singer has been forced to deny the allegations in the face of a pending court trial between Penn and filmmaker Lee Daniels. First reported way back in the 80s, Penn has two serious allegations of domestic abuse against his former partner. In one incident, he allegedly caused Madonna to be hospitalised after beating her across the head with a baseball bat. According to unconfirmed reports, however, Madonna refused to press charges as Penn as already facing sixty days in jail for assaulting a film extra and she did not wish to exacerbate his sentence. In another reported incident, Penn was accused of breaking into his Shanghai Surprise co-star's Malibu home in 1989 during a drunken rampage and telling her that he owned her "lock, stock and barrel". Reportedly, when Madonna tried to leave her bedroom, he attempted to bind her hands with the cord of an electric lamp; and when she escaped this, Penn chased her into the living room, and bound her to a chair with heavy twine. Threatening to cut off her hair, he allegedly smacked and "roughed up" the singer, before leaving her bound and gagged as he went to purchase more alcohol. He only untied her after she agreed to "perform a degrading sex act on him", after which time she fled the house and drove to the sheriffs office. “I hardly recognized her as Madonna,” said Lieutenant Bill McSweeney. “She was weeping, her lip was bleeding and she had obviously been struck.” The whole incident lasted nine hours. Penn was apparently charged by the DA with domestic assault, but Madonna asked for all charges to be dropped, and Penn ended up with just a misdemeanour. But in a new statement released today, Madonna denies that Penn ever struck her at all. Through her lawyer, she states that claims to the contrary are “completely outrageous, malicious, reckless and false”, calling Penn “a caring, compassionate individual, as well as an extremely talented actor, creative artist, and philanthropist, including in connection with his work as CEO of the J/P Haitian Relief Organization.” Referring to the alleged incident with the baseball bat, Madonna stated: “I know the allegations in those and other reports to be completely outrageous, malicious, reckless and false.” Allegations of the abuse have made the news again recently due to a new defamation lawsuit made against Empire showrunner Lee Daniels by Penn's legal team. In the lawsuit, Penn requests $10 million USD from Daniels, claiming that such remarks have injured his credibility and reputation in his personal life, occupation and philanthropic activities, and that he has never been arrested or charged on domestic abuse charges. Such comments were made during an interview Daniels gave to The Hollywood Reporter, during which he called racism while comparing legal troubles faced by Empire star Terrence Howard to those faced by Penn. "[Howard] ain’t done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of the sudden he’s some fuckin’ demon. That’s a sign of the time, of race, of where we are right now in America,” said Daniels. “Daniels, who was on notice of the falsity of his statements and who could have easily checked on the veracity of his false statements before making them, upon information and belief, made defamatory statements with actual malice, reckless disregard for the truth, and for improper purposes, with full knowledge that the statements would be prominently published and repeated throughout and outside of the United States,” stated Penn's lawsuit. While all legal matters playing out in the public eye tend to be messy, this one is even more confusing. Despite their 1989 divorce, Madonna and Penn are clearly still close, with the latter appearing at her #secretprojectrevolution launch event back in 2013 and rumours of a rekindled relationship persistently circulating. It's possible that Madonna is falsifying the claims as a favour to her ex-husband; but if what Penn says is true, and he has never been arrested or charged on domestic abuse charges (something that would presumably be easily disproven), then it's possible she's telling the truth. Either way, given the prominence of the abuse rumours, it seems like Daniels should perhaps be given a free pass if he did indeed get his facts wrong this time.

Azealia Banks, one-time star and full-time irritant, has made waves for her destructive behaviour once again after being arrested outside New York's Up&Down club last night. The incident mirrors a similiar situation which occured in September, when Banks controversially called a flight attendant a "fucking faggot" after an on-flight scuffle in which she spat in a man's face and scratched at his shirt. According to sources, Banks was at the club for a private party which required a hand stamp to get in. When she tried to enter the downstairs party with no stamp and a guest who was not on the list, she was told to go back upstairs, which lead to an altercation breaking out with bouncers. Allegedly, after the two bouncers failed to recognise the rapper, Banks began screaming curse words and racist slurs at them, attracting the attention of the club owner. Even after the owner gave her a stamp to let her in, Banks continued the tirade, screaming her credentials at the guards by claiming that she was featured on Rihanna's upcoming album. When security approached to escort her from the building, Banks spat in the female bouncers face; and as they escorted her out at around 12:30 a.m., she apparently bit the same guard in the breast, breaking her shirt and, according to a police report, "causing swelling and redness". After being removed from the club, Banks apparently started screaming, "I'm gonna call the cops!", approaching a police traffic enforcement car. She then returned to the club with police officers in tow, bizarrely going on to punch the female bouncer in full view of them. "Why are you arresting me?", she asked the cops as she was taken to the Sixth Precinct on a misdemenaor charge of third-degree assault and held for evaluation. For the record, Rihanna herself has never confirmed any features on ANTI, apart from presumably Paul McCartney and Kanye West on lead single 'FourFiveSeconds'. In fact, the only hint that she might even know who Azealia is comes from this Snapchat video, which appears to show them, Cara Delevigne and Travis Scott dancing at one of Scott's tour afterparties. On the other hand, Azealia can't seem to keep RiRi's name out of her mouth. In yet another strange move, the rapper released an official press statement back in March of this year just to announce to the world that she was tired of being RiRi's understudy, and that she looked up to female musicians like Lana Del Rey, Meghan Trainor and Taylor Swift. On the other hand, in 2013 Banks referred to Rita Ora as "Rihanna's understudy" during a Twitter beef with the English singer. That said, this isn't the first time there's been rumours of Azealia and Ri collaborating. Back in 2012, before the release of Lady Gaga's ARTPOP when she and Banks were still on good terms, there was rumours that they, along with Rihanna and Beyonce, would feature on 'Ratchet', an alleged sequel to Gaga's 'Telephone'. Would you be here for a Azealia collaboration on the long-awaited ANTI? Or with RiRi's choice of A-list stars like Kanye or Eminem, should she be setting her sights higher? Is Azealia's behaviour a result of her infamous arrogance, or the sign of a potential mental illness? Let us know in the comments below!