Ariana Grande has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles against a group of hackers whose identities remain unknown, accusing them of unlawfully accessing the accounts and devices of people in her inner circle to steal and leak unreleased songs, videos, and photos that have never been published.
According to the filing, the perpetrators reportedly employed phishing techniques to gain entry to the accounts of photographers and producers who have collaborated with the singer. They allegedly then sold the material for substantial sums of money. The objective of the lawsuit is to identify those responsible and hold them accountable for conduct that Grande’s legal team describes as invasive and reprehensible.
The document argues that the leaks have accompanied Grande’s career since her debut in 2011. Among the cases cited is the 2019 breach of a photographer’s Dropbox account, the 2020 hacking of a producer’s phone to obtain demos, unreleased masters, and footage from recording sessions, and the leakage of up to 45 unreleased songs during 2023 alone.
The filing also asserts that in 2024 the attackers managed to create a Gmail account and a domain impersonating a photographer in order to have a technician send them unreleased photographs from the ‘eternal sunshine’ era. With this legal action, Grande aims to curb these practices “in her name and on behalf of other artists.”
Ironically, one of those leaks ended up inspiring one of her latest hits. The demo ‘Fantasize’ was the seed of ‘The Boy Is Mine’. Now, with ‘Petal’ around the corner, the album seems to have dodged leaks, at least for the moment.
