A judge has dismissed a lawsuit from Mariah Carey’s brother, five years after he accused her of defaming him in her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey.
In the memoir, Carey described Morgan as a “sometimes drug dealing, been-in-the-system, drunk-ass brother” and called him her “ex-brother”.
Morgan first sued his sister in New York’s supreme court in 2021, alleging that she had falsely portrayed him as a violent drug dealer who had been to prison, and that her claim that he had physically abused their mother was “a false and defamatory lie”. He said he was not violent and had no criminal record, and said the memoir had “ruined” him and caused “extreme mental anguish”.
In 2022, judge Barbara Jaffe threw out 14 of 16 claims in Morgan’s original complaint, and dismissed all claims against the book’s publisher, Macmillan. However, Jaffe ruled that Carey could be liable for defamation for alleging that her brother sold cocaine in the 1980s and that he had “been in the system”.
Jaffe also found Carey’s claims that Morgan was physically abusive, and that he had accepted money to murder someone, could be defamatory, but said he had failed to demonstrate that he had suffered damages.
Morgan’s attorneys appealed Jaffe’s ruling in an amended complaint filed in January. Morgan claimed that the production of a film he co-wrote was called off after the memoir’s publication, which he alleged was due to a producer’s “fear of angering” his sister, and that he was unable to find steady work. He sued for “in excess of $1.5m” in relation to the film’s cancellation, as well as additional unspecified damages for emotional distress.
But judge Leslie Stroth threw out Morgan’s complaint in documents filed on Monday, finding he had failed to show that his sister knew that what she was writing was false or that she had recklessly disregarded the truth, meaning his lawsuit fell short of the bar needed in matters of public interest.
Morgan’s belief that his sister felt “ill will” towards him was “insufficient” proof of actual malice, she wrote.
Carey’s lawyer, John Rosenberg, told People magazine that she “is gratified that the court recognised that her memoir addresses significant issues of public interest and dismissed her brother’s defamation claims in their entirety”.
Carey “believes the importance of the court’s decision goes well beyond her own interests in this particular litigation, as it confirms that authors must be afforded broad protection when they speak out on matters of public concern,” he said.
Richard Roth, one of Morgan’s attorneys, told Variety on Tuesday that he would appeal again.
In 2021, the Careys’ sister Alison also filed a $1.2m defamation suit against Mariah over “cruel and outrageous allegations” in the memoir, including the singer’s claims that Alison left her with third-degree burns after she threw a cup of hot tea on her back, offered her drugs, and sedated her with Valium when she was 12.
Carey also claimed that her older sister put her in a vulnerable position when Alison was 20 and she was 12 by leaving her alone with her boyfriend. Carey alleged he was running a prostitution ring and forcibly tried to kiss her before being stopped by passersby. “Big sisters are supposed to protect you – not pimp you out,” she wrote.
Alison denied the claims and accused Carey in her complaint of using “her status as a public figure to attack her penniless sister, generating sensational headlines describing her lurid claims to promote sales of her book”. However, she did not pursue the lawsuit and died in 2024, aged 63.
