Last May, Australian pop-rock duo Royel Otis got some negative attention surrounding some eyebrow-raising lyrics to their hit single "Moody." Around the same time, a since-deleted thread in the r/triplej Subreddit alleged that the band's guitarist Royel Maddell — real name Leroy Bressington — had a sexual relationship with a minor who was also his music student. Bressington has yet to file a lawsuit, but in October, he did try to get the District Court Of Northern California to force Reddit, which is headquartered in San Francisco, to reveal several users' confidential data including names, email addresses, and phone numbers so that he could "contemplate" suing them for defamation. On Dec. 24 Bressington’s subpoena request was denied.
According to the court docket, Bressington intended to sue for defamation if the Reddit users in question were also based in Australia. But even in that case, his application didn't explicitly say he planned to sue for defamation, only that his legal team was "prepared to initiate" an action.
“The Royel Otis’s song ‘Moody’ proved to be a hit but also fodder, because of its song lyrics, for anonymous people on the Internet allegedly falsely to label Bressington a sexual ‘predator’ who had engaged in a nonconsensual sexual relationship with a minor while he was her music teacher,” the docket reads.
District Court Judge William Alsup noted that nowhere in Bressington's application did he deny allegations of having a sexual relationship with a minor; the only allegations he denied are that an ex-partner accused him of sexual misconduct, that he was charged by authorities, and that Royel Otis were dropped from a record label. Bressington has yet to file any sort of complaint in Australia regarding the matter.
We've seen legal actions like this take place before, albeit some with different outcomes: In 2022, a judge ruled that Twitter did have to provide information about an anonymous user who posted allegations of sexual abuse targeted at All Time Low guitarist Jack Barakat.
