George Floyd’s Family Sues Kanye West

The family of George Floyd is suing the rapper formerly known as Kanye West for $250 million. That decision came after the musician endorsed the conspiracy theory that Floyd died from drug abuse during an interview on the Drink Champs podcast.

Roxie Washington, the mother of Floyd’s daughter, Gianna Floyd, announced her plans on Tuesday to file a lawsuit against the singer through her lawyers from the Witherspoon Law Group and Dixon & Dixon Attorneys at Law.  She will sue the rapper now known as Ye for “harassment, misappropriation, defamation and infliction of emotional distress”.

Ye went on multiple rants, doubling down on anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and praising Candace Owens’s new documentary, “The Greatest Lie Ever Sold”, during the interview that went viral over the weekend.

Owens made the unfounded claim, which Ye repeated during in an interview, that 46-year-Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose rather than being murdered by a police officer in her documentary. She also accused the Black Lives Matter movement of being a scam.

The lawsuit

Witherspoon Law Group and Dixon and Dixon Attorneys at Law accused Ye , and in the press release, they announced the lawsuit of making false statements about Floyd “to promote his brands, and increase marketing value and revenue for himself, his business partners, and associates.”

Attorney Kay Harper Williams of Witherspoon said, ”Free Speech Rights do not include harassment, lies, misrepresentation, and the misappropriation of George Floyd’s legacy. Some words have consequences and Mr. West will be made to understand that.”

Nuru Witherspoon of Witherspoon law added that Ye’s statements were “creating an unsafe and unhealthy environment for Floyd’s young daughter.”

Additionally, the attorneys emphasized that “Mr. Floyd’s cause of death is well settled through evidence presented in courts of law during the criminal and civil trials that were the result of his untimely and horrific death.”

“Nevertheless, you have maliciously made statements that are inaccurate and unfounded, causing damage to Mr. Floyd’s estate and his family,” they accused the rapper.

George Floyd’s cause of death

Floyd died of cardiopulmonary arrest that was the direct effect of law enforcement’s restraint methods.  Two separate autopsies confirmed the medical diagnosis, one of which Hennepin County chief medical examiner Doctor Andrew Baker verified in his testimony.

Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer, kneeled on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes during an arrest outside a Cup Foods grocery store. His actions, the court later found, effectively stopped Floyd’s heart by blocking his breath. At his trial, experts refuted the claim that the fentanyl in his system were the cause of Floyd’s death.

Floyd’s death sparked international outrage in May 2020 and fueled global protests over police brutality against minorities in America. The court handed lighter sentences down to the three other officers involved in the incident. It indicted Chauvin however on three counts of murder and manslaughter in April 2021. The former police officer is now serving two concurrent prison sentences of more than 22 years.

Drink Champs apologizes to family

Meanwhile, Kanye’s controversial Drink Champs episode is no longer available on the official Revolt TV YouTube channel since his controversial comments.

“The recent interview with Kanye West contained false and harmful information regarding the circumstances surrounding the murder of George Floyd,” a representative for Drink Champs said in a statement revealed by reporters.

“We apologize to the family of Mr. Floyd and anyone else hurt by this episode,” the rep added. The statement came almost immediately after civil rights attorney Lee Merritt tweeted that Floyd’s family was considering a lawsuit.

Nevertheless, Ye appeared again on Chris Cuomo’s NewsNation show on Monday night. While there, the songwriter defended his anti-Semitic views once again even though he has not responded to the suit publicly.

Some people suggest Ye appears to be exhibiting symptoms of mania, though he appeared to dodge a question about his mental health during the interview. He has however been public about his history of mental health issues and bipolar disorder.