Danny Elfman sued over alleged sexual harassment settlement

Composer and musician Danny Elfman has been sued this week over charges that he failed to pay all of an agreed-upon $830,000 legal settlement. Which has, understandably, put quite a bit of focus on that previously unknown settlement—which, per a new report from Rolling Stone, was centered on a series of sexual harassment accusations made against the Oingo Boingo songwriter and frequent film composer by fellow composer Nomi Abadi.

Elfman agreed to the settlement, which included non-disclosure agreements for the participants, back in 2018, after 35-year-old Abadi accused him of exposing himself and masturbating in front of her multiple times during their friendship and professional association. Although Abadi didn’t talk to Rolling Stone, the report alleges that the settlement was related to multiple instances in which Elfman is said to have invited Abadi into his studio and masturbated as part of his “creative process.” (Other alleged incidents included Elfman supposedly pressuring Abadi into a nude photo shoot, and a bizarre-sounding incident in which Elfman sent her a photo of a martini glass he had filled with moisturizer with the caption “a mystery pik [sic] to pique your ‘magination,” which Abadi reportedly took as a reference to semen.)

The report quotes two friends of Abadi’s, who talk about how happy she was to become friends with Elfman, a long-time hero, in 2015, and who say she told them about the incidents, which allegedly began happening within the first year of her and Elfman’s friendship. Abadi has spoken publicly before about being a survivor of sexual misconduct, but has never named Elfman; her lawsuit alleges that, of the $830,000, he failed to make two payments (totaling $85,000) that had been earmarked “for establishing a charitable entity to help female composers.” (Abadi co-founded non-profit group the Female Composer Safety League in 2020.)

Elfman issued a statement today roundly denying almost all of the claims in the initial settlement, which, his representatives claim, he only signed out of a desire to “protect his family” at the height of #MeToo. (His representatives did admit the martini glass thing happened, calling it “a stupid photo prop,” and claim that Abadi initiated the nude photo shoot.) In his statement, Elfman accuses Abadi of retaliating against him after he denied her romantic advances; sources in the report say the pair had a falling out over politics, not sexual misconduct.

Here’s Elfman’s statement:

How do I respond to accusations so serious that being innocent is not a valid defense? It is excruciating to consider that a 50-year career may be destroyed in one news cycle as a result of vicious and wholly false allegations about sexual misconduct. Ms. Abadi’s allegations are simply not true. I allowed someone to get close to me without knowing that I was her “childhood crush” and that her intention was to break up my marriage and replace my wife. When this person realized that I wanted distance from her, she made it clear that I would pay for having rejected her. I allowed an ill-advised friendship to have far-reaching consequences, and that error in judgment is entirely my fault. I have done nothing indecent or wrong, and my lawyers stand ready to prove with voluminous evidence that these accusations are false. This is the last I will say on this subject.

A representative for Elfman denied that he had ever masturbated in front of Abadi.