Ariana Grande has filed a lawsuit against anonymous hackers she alleges infiltrated the devices of people close to her and stole unreleased music, behind-the-scenes footage and music videos that were reportedly sold online.
In a lawsuit filed on Monday in California state court, obtained by Variety, NBC News and ABC News, the pop star reportedly targets a group of unnamed John Does for phishing scams and hacking schemes that caused “unlawful and egregious theft, dissemination and exploitation of unreleased content.”
Grande’s legal team reportedly outlined a pattern of illegal behaviour in which the unnamed hackers targeted the personal digital accounts of photographers and producers who work closely with her and sold the data for “significant sums of money,” according to Variety.
Grande is suing the unnamed hackers to “uncover the identities of these currently unknown and unscrupulous individuals in order to hold them accountable for their invasive and reprehensible conduct,” per Variety.
The lawsuit reportedly states that it is “imperative to Ms. Grande to ensure — on behalf of herself and others — that such conduct is deterred to the fullest extent possible.”
The 33-year-old singer’s legal team is asking a judge to order a return of her items as well as stopping further action in the future, ABC News reports.
The lawsuit also alleges invasion of privacy, violation of California’s Comprehensive Data Access and Fraud Act, and civil theft, according to the outlet.
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“In 2023 alone, 45 unreleased songs belonging to Ms. Grande were hacked, stolen, and leaked by Defendants,” the complaint alleges, according to NBC News. “Since her music debut in 2011, hundreds of similar leaks have taken place.”
The We Can’t Be Friends singer alleges that in 2019, the unnamed hackers obtained login credentials for the Dropbox account of a photographer she had worked with and downloaded unreleased photos, NBC News reports.
In 2020, the defendants hacked a mobile device of a producer who worked with Grande and were able to obtain still-in-production, unreleased masters and demos, the lawsuit reportedly alleges.
After allegedly obtaining Grande’s content, the defendants reportedly sold and continue to sell the stolen material in batches using payment services like PayPal and Cash App, according to NBC News’ reporting.
Grande is demanding a jury trial, according to the complaint, viewed by the outlets.
Global News has reached out to Grande’s rep for further comment, but has not received a response.
Grande previously spoke out about her unreleased music showing up online without her permission during a 2024 appearance on the Zach Sang Show.
She said her unreleased song Fantasize was leaked online and gained popularity on TikTok.
“Before I left for Wicked, a few studio sessions that I did, which are all over TikTok — thank you so much, I’ll see you in jail. Literally,” Grande said.
“They’re all real leaks?” Sang asked.
“No, yeah, they are real,” she responded.
Grande said most of the leaks were written for a TV show.
“So Fantasize comes out, crazy. It was stolen, thieves, pirates, crooks, illegal! I’ll pay you more to put it away, to get it back,” she said. “That wasn’t my song. It wasn’t for me. It was like a parody of a ’90s girl group vibe but they loved it.”
The news of Grande’s lawsuit comes as the pop star is gearing up to release her eighth studio album Petal later this week.
Petal, executive produced and co-written by the 33-year-old singer and Swedish songwriter Ilya, will be released on July 31.
In a press release, Grande described the upcoming album as “Something that is full of life and growing through the cracks of something cold and hard and challenging.”
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