Justin Bieber has dropped his lawsuit against two women who accused him on Twitter in June 2020 of sexual assaults said to have occurred in 2014 and 2015, Billboard reports and documents viewed by Pitchfork confirm. The suit was dismissed with prejudice, so Bieber will not be able to re-file the claim in the same court.
A woman identified only as Danielle first accused Bieber of assaulting her in 2014 during South by Southwest in Austin. Bieber publicly denied her allegations shortly after they were initially made, going so far as to offer screenshots, receipts, emails, and articles published around the time of the alleged incident to establish his alibi. Another woman, Kadi, then posted her own account where she claimed that Bieber had assaulted her in New York the following year. He did not publicly respond to Kadi’s account. The women’s posts were deleted, and Danielle’s account was also removed.
Bieber’s legal team then served Twitter with a subpoena, seeking information on the identities of two women that made posts on the social media platform. On June 25, he filed a $20 million lawsuit against the two women—the complaint asserted that the two “fraudulently schemed to seek attention and fame by maliciously posting despicable, blatantly false, fabricated, defamatory accusations that Justin Bieber engaged in sexual assault.” On July 16, a presiding judge ruled that his legal team would be allowed to subpoena Twitter for more information on the defendants.
Danielle was never located; attorneys for both Kadi and Bieber told the court in February that had been unsuccessful in reaching a settlement via mediation. The trial was set to begin in May.
