Last Friday, Jay-Z appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court to testify against perfume company Parlux, which claims the Reasonable Doubt rapper failed to "properly promote his Gold Jay-Z cologne line," and caused $18M in lost revenue. Jay maintains that he did fulfill his contract with Parlux, and filed his own countersuit against the company, claiming it still owes him $2.7M.
During last week's testimony, things got semi-heated between Hov and Parlux's lead attorney, Anthony Viola.
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Viola tirelessly questioned Jay-Z, and accused him of changing his testimony on multiple occasions. Viola also brought into question a 2019 deposition, in which Hov allegedly admitted that he was not fully aware of the requirements of the contract.
According to Complex, the Brooklyn rapper accused Viola of "playing lawyer tricks," and "word games," that prompted the judge to request that Viola reword his phrasing of certain lines of questioning during testimony on Monday.
Along with complaints over Viola's tactics in the courtroom, Hov also made it clear that Parlux had never given him the proper resources or support to make his Gold Jay-Z cologne successful, and that they sabotaged their own product by stocking it in "discount stores."
Noting that he "always had problems with the quality of the lazy work that was coming from Parlux," Jay said that Parlux was "almost cutting the legs off from the brand [by] putting it in discount stores,” and when asked if he wanted the scent to be a success, he assured that he would not have co-signed a product he wanted to fail.
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"I’m not gonna cut off my nose to spite my face," he told the court.
Despite claims that Jay-Z never appeared in person to promote his Parlux cologne, the hip-hop icon and recent inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame says that he "did a lot for the Gold Jay-Z launch," and in claiming that the company still ows him nearly $3M, has repeatedly brought into question Parlux's ability to promote their own product.
This case is still developing, so keep it locked to HNHH for any further updates.