Legal

Frank Ocean's Dad Is Suing Ocean Over Gay Slur; Brings Tyler, The Creator Into It

By HHL Editors
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When Frank Ocean heard about the massacre at the Orlando gay club Pulse last summer, he reacted as a member of the LGBT community.

In the message he posted to Tumblr, he used an experience he had in his own life to explain his feelings.

I heard on the news that the aftermath of a hate crime left piles of bodies on a dance floor this month. I heard the gunman feigned dead among all the people he killed. I heard the news say he was one of us. I was six years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a faggot as he dragged me out a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn’t be served because she was dirty. That was the last afternoon I saw my father and the first time I heard that word, I think, although it wouldn’t shock me if it wasn’t. Many hate us and wish we didn’t exist.”
Ocean's father was furious that he was included in the note. Now Calvin Cooksey is suing for libel, claiming he never disparaged a transgendered waitress, and that his son's defamation has ruined his financial opportunities in film and music. He seeks $14.5 million.

The lawsuit also calls out Ocean's collaborator Tyler The Creator.

Cooksey calls the former Odd Future leader a “devil worshiper”,  and wonders why Ocean didn’t “include a homophobic bigot named Tyler, the Creator” who has a history of“homophobic hateful rap lyrics" in the Tumblr post instead of him.

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