Danny Elfman sued for defamation in connection to sexual harassment accusations

Last year, we reported that composer and musician Danny Elfman was being sued, with fellow composer Nomi Abadi accusing the Oingo Boingo frontman of failing to pay the full part of a settlement in an earlier sexual harassment suit between them. Now Abadi (one of two women who came forward with accusations against Elfman last year) is suing the musician for defamation, in response to statements he made in response to her previous lawsuit.

Per Deadline, the suit says Elfman “peddled appalling lies for publication to Rolling Stone about Nomi,” allegedly in an effort to discredit her case against him. In his statement to Rolling Stone at the time, Elfman accused Abadi of harboring a “childhood crush” on him, and of being the one who tried to initiate an inappropriate relationship. The pair met in 2015; Abadi claimed that Elfman began to regularly push the boundaries of a professional friendship shortly after, including allegedly masturbating in front of her on multiple occasions. Both parties note that Abadi posed for nude photographs for Elfman during a trip to Paris; Abadi’s account states that Elfman pressured her into the arrangement, while his lawyers’ statements say she freely volunteered. Abadi brought a sexual misconduct complaint against Elfman in 2017, and the following year, they reached a settlement (complete with a reported NDA); the more recent lawsuit was related to Abadi’s claims that Elfman had failed to pay the full terms of the settlement, and came not long after she made public comments about being a survivor of abuse in the music industry. It’s not clear what the status of that breach of contract suit is at present; meanwhile, another woman, identified only as Jane Doe XX, brought her own suit against Elfman late in 2023, accusing him of treatment similar to that described by Abadi.

All of which brings us back to today’s defamation suit, in which Abadi accuses Elfman and his reps of portraying her as “a scorned woman seeking revenge and money to make Elfman ‘pay for having rejected her.’” So far, Elfman hasn’t issued a statement in response to the suit. The composer has continued to work steadily in the wake of the accusations against him coming to light, notably serving as the main composer on his long-time collaborator Tim Burton’s upcoming Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.