On July 19, 2023, Rolling Stone broke the news that Composer Danny Elfman had previously settled a case involving alleged sexual misconduct for $830,000. The settlement and NDA had been signed back in July of 2018, but the news was coming out in 2023 because the accuser, Nomi Abadi, had filed a lawsuit, claiming Elfman had missed two payments.
Since then, Elfman has denied the accusations, and his legal team has claimed that Elfman agreed to the settlement in order to protect his career and family at the height of the #metoo movement.
Fans of Elfman and other curious folks have wondered if Abadi filing a lawsuit (which subsequently brought the allegations to light) could be considered breaking the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) she signed as a condition of the settlement. There is also the question of whether Abadi brought it all to Rolling Stone herself.
The court has since ordered the case to arbitration, finding Abadi's reason for flouting the arbitration clause to be bogus. We likely won't know what will happen behind closed doors from here on. However, the cat is not going back in the bag. On Feb 28, Rolling Stone once again printed Elfman's name in association with unproven, settled claims. Which is what Abadi seems to have wanted all along...
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A spokesperson for Elfman (per Rolling Stone) said: "While we can’t comment on a lawsuit that we haven’t received, the fact that it has made its way to the media before the defendant further shows that this is another stunt in a years-long campaign to demand money from Mr. Elfman and his family."
The Complaint and Summons were electronically filed by the court on 7/19/2023 at 12:37pm PST. At 5:17pm PST, Rolling Stone published a 3,000-word article, which laid out the allegations in great detail. The actual court documents did not disclose what the original Settlement was about, but (supposedly) within five hours, Rolling Stone had spoken to lawyers on both sides, obtained a "lengthy" response from Elfman that included legal declarations from two other people, and had interviewed at least five other people (all friends or colleagues of Abadi). Rolling Stone wrote: "Through her lawyer, Abadi declined to comment for this article." Yet there are multiple claims in the article that aren't credited to any particular source and have still not appeared in any court documents, yet are stated as fact. Here is one example: "When Abadi and Elfman settled, she stipulated that alongside personal payments, some funds were to be earmarked for establishing a charitable entity to help female composers. By 2020, she’d founded the FCSL; It wasn’t specified at the time that the organization would be focused on assisting survivors of sexual misconduct in the industry."
(We covered that statement in more detail in another blog. Read it here.) Rolling Stone somehow obtained messages between Abadi and Elfman's assistant. They noted the assistant had declined to comment, so one could assume the assistant was not the one who shared the messages. Rolling Stone also obtained a police report, though not from the LAPD, who claimed to have no record of it. To recap: Rolling Stone seems to have known about the lawsuit before Elfman, possibly before it was filed. They published a very detailed article with information from at least eight people or entities, and that article included claims and referenced documents with mysterious origins not disclosed by Rolling Stone - all within five hours of the legal filing.
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Of course, we can't say for sure if Abadi has broken her NDA by speaking to the press. However, Elfman's lawyers have argued that Abadi had no legal right to file a lawsuit about missing payments, and the court has agreed. The Settlement that Elfman and Abadi signed included an arbitration clause. If there were any disputes "relating to the enforcement" of the agreement, they both agreed to mandatory arbitration. Behind closed doors. AKA not in a public lawsuit. One exemption Abadi identified was if one party was seeking, "injunctive relief". Injunctive relief is a legal remedy which compels or restrains certain acts or behaviors from a party. In simpler terms, it forces someone to do something or to not do something. It is generally only used if there is no other remedy available, and there is risk of irreparable harm if the relief is not granted. As Elfman's lawyers successfully argued, Injunctive Relief generally does not count monetary payment as an "action", and there is no risk of "irreparable harm". Abadi's argument to this was that she WAS asking the court to compel or restrain an action: She wanted the court to restrain the action of Elfman not making payments...
The court agreed with Elfman's lawyers that just because Abadi calls "making payments" an action, it does not count as Injunctive Relief, and the parties have been ordered to handle it in arbitration. But the cat's already out of the bag. Abadi legally should have taken this issue to arbitration and adhered to the non-disclosure agreement she made (in exchange for $830k). But instead, she found a (weak, wrong) loophole so that she could file a lawsuit and make the accusations public, even possibly alerting the media herself beforehand.
But, Abadi was apparently hesitant to sign the NDA in the first place.
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A source who attended an initial hearing told Rolling Stone that it was difficult for Abadi to agree to a settlement, which would take away her ability to speak on the matter.
Per Rolling Stone:
"'The whole thing with the NDA was a problem for her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to give up her right to speak, but she realized this was a "he said, she said" situation, and because there were no other witnesses, it wasn’t easy,' the source says. 'I think Nomi feels responsible to other women.'"
First of all, no thank you. Secondly, she did take the Settlement and sign the NDA. She accepted the $830k in exchange for her silence. But that didn't stop her from talking. Abadi has since then founded her own nonprofit organization with the purpose of addressing issues of sexual harassment in the composing industry. She has made herself the poster-child for female composers who are survivors of sexual assault. She has spoken on podcasts and sought media attention. She may have avoided saying Elfman's name, but she dropped hints, including her words at a press conference before the Grammy Awards, as well as this gem.
A quote from Abadi on Female Composer Safety League meets Teammates, dated 1/26/2022: "I think if people really want to do a quick think about cancel culture, all we have to do is look at this year's Grammy nominees. They don't look too cancelled to me!" Elfman was nominated in two categories that year.
Filing the lawsuit made it clear who she has been speaking about all along. His name has been linked to every time she called him her "aggressor" or her "monster", and every time she claimed to have been groomed, abused, and even raped by her "friend and mentor".
Regardless of whether she spoke to Rolling Stone, an argument can be made that Abadi has breached the settlement agreement. If Elfman decides to make a claim of defamation or malicious persecution, he could have a strong case for it.
------- We don't believe Abadi ever intended to adhere to the terms of the NDA she signed, despite taking the $830k settlement. Below are some quotes and passages from Abadi herself that helped lead us to that conclusion:
From the Roar with KK podcast, released 3/10/2020:
"These settlements were- became an option because of republican white men made these exist. CEOs do not get taxed, victims do get taxed. Settlements are usually paid slowly over an amount of time. The victim usually ends up with very little, but they're also very protective to the victim. Like there's so many misconceptions about like, this greed, and it's like, no no no no, it's like, NDAs can sometimes be a wonderful thing for victims."
"It's like buying a car, except you're losing like the most important part of yourself. It's like if little mermaid also was buying a car, and then had the entire public forcing their- but she's like, you didn't read the contract, you don't understand what Toyota is binding me to. But fuck, but this car is going to save my life!"
"And of course, you want to hope, in a perfect world that this person pays for it and goes public. And then its like, you know, the towns people come out with their torches, and then and then they fall off the mountain and the witch loses- It doesn't work like that, its never- there's never a win or a lose its always going to feel like a shitty compromise one way or another..."
From the Beyond the Chameleon podcast, released 1/25/2022:
"I can assume what's going to be used against me if I ever decide to go public is that people are going to say, 'oh look at all these text messages you sent him that are like so sweet and nice, and you kept coming back, and you said how much you liked him, and you were so happy. Why did you stay da-da-da-?'"
"I'll talk about it one day, maybe if I write a book, because there's just too much that -there's just too much shit that happened when I exited."
"We could talk about like how we haven't even broken the #metoo movement into the composing industry. Hasn't happened yet, and they think its because its not happening, and thats just simply not true. Um, I think we're on the verge of it, especially with this nonprofit and my big loud mouth, we might be making some headway whether people like it or not.
"I don't think women are rushing to sell their story. Actually, you can't even buy a story, as it turns out. You definitely lose money being an activist. I will say that- that's my headline about what it's been like trying to break my story. Nobody pays survivors for anything."
"Yep, its all- and even then it's still at the cost of a woman because its like, you know, um- And some of those cases I think are absolutely worth taking if a woman wants to be paid out for therapy and she's able to get a settlement. I do think like, I mean, this is my very, very, very liberal approach, but I think its so okay for a woman to take and get anything that feels right to her, after whatever it was that happened to her, um- But its still that- the- its not enough that it was- like, because of the emotional damage alone. Like the court barely ever recognizes emotional damage from these things. They ask for proof and- and- We know that we don't need to go down that train, but you know, I mean so- so- i mean- I'm like- I'm thinking of like my own experiences and how much I want to share, but- but- I cant, but, um, but yeah, I mean I think thats'- that's- that's something that's really heartbreaking is that it's- it's not just that the woman is being compensated for her terrible experience. Usually it also costs her voice on the matter. And sometimes like thats okay, like sometimes I think women do want to sign an NDA. I personally, I'm like, well maybe they want to be rid of needing to ever talk about that again, and and I totally understand that and- and- um- and I release all judgment on anyone who's ever been through anything and whatever it was they could get. But it's still, even that process is just so set up to benefit the man, as you said, that it's kind of like well, what are we really fighting for? We're trying to fight for our literal lives all the time and then these men are just trying to fight for, like, another chance."
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We'll close with a quote from a representative for Elfman (per Rolling Stone):
"Accusations alone should not and do not equate to guilt, and Danny will defend himself and clear his name with the volume of evidence and the other party’s own words — her words speak for themselves."
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