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- [00:02]
Lauren LaRosa
I'm the homegirl that knows a little bit about everything and everybody.
- [00:06]
Brandon
You know, if you don't lie about that, right?
- [00:08]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
Lauren came in hot.
- [00:10]
Lauren LaRosa
All right, clap it up, clap it up. Get the energy going. By the time we do this, it's been a full day. And whenever y'all see us in here, that means we are still at the radio station. We got Brandon with me today.
- [00:24]
Brandon
It's nice to be back. Thank you for inviting me back.
- [00:26]
Lauren LaRosa
So I'm Lauren LaRosa. This is the latest with Lauren LaRosa. This is your daily dig on everything, pop culture. In all of the conversations that shake the room. I'm the homegirl that knows a bit about everything and everybody. All right, so y'all know we check in before we get to anything, because when you grind in, somebody got asked you, how are you feeling? How you doing? But for real. So, Brandon, how you feeling back on the grinding?
- [00:50]
Brandon
I'm feeling. I'm doing the best I can with what I got, but, yeah, no. Well, this weekend was amazing weekend. We celebrated my boy's birthday in Houston. Unfortunately, my flight got delayed, like, four hours.
- [01:02]
Lauren LaRosa
Going there or coming back?
- [01:03]
Brandon
Coming back. Sorry. Coming back. So I landed at, like, 2:00am I had to wake up, of course, at 4:00am for work to get here at 5.
- [01:08]
Lauren LaRosa
Okay.
- [01:09]
Brandon
It was hot as hell on that plane. I was on the plane feeling like. You ever been on a plane and you felt like they was driving too fast? I felt like he was hitting curves. It was shaking.
- [01:18]
Lauren LaRosa
I was like, yo, what airline did you fly?
- [01:20]
Brandon
United.
- [01:21]
Lauren LaRosa
Okay.
- [01:22]
Brandon
I was like, yo, please slow down. I'm panicking. I'm panicking.
- [01:25]
Lauren LaRosa
And it was no air conditioning.
- [01:27]
Brandon
No. It was hot. My chest was sweating.
- [01:30]
Lauren LaRosa
That sound like a tariff ticket to me. Something ain't right. Something ain't right. Well, we're glad you're back from Houston. I'm also. I feel like I'm feeling better from the coming back Monday from the podcast festival, but I still feel like I need a little bit more sleep. Like, Wednesday, I'm gonna be fully out of the. Oh, my God. This was a long weekend, so it's probably gonna take you until, like, Thursday, then you be back outside Friday.
- [01:53]
Brandon
Yeah. Yeah. I was my best self out there, you know?
- [01:56]
Lauren LaRosa
Your best.
- [01:57]
Brandon
Yeah, but I'll leave it there. But your best self, but yes, I love Houston.
- [02:02]
Lauren LaRosa
All right, y'all, so let's get to the latest because y'all know I love to take y'all to court. Love to take y'all to court. But today, an exclusive Interview. This literally just happened moments before, not even before we were recording. It happened the moment that we press record to start the podcast. I had reached out and if you guys watch Breakfast Club, I told you on yesterday's episode of the Breakfast Club about a lawsuit. Misa Hilton, who is the mother of Diddy Sean Combs son Christian Combs, is suing her long, long, long, long, long, long, long time best friend, Mary J. Blige. Y'all know Mary J. Blige. And y'all know, on top of being like, you know, R and B singer Mary, go Mary, go Mary. She's also super, super close with Puff. They all came up together. Misa, you know, it's respect, the architect. Misa was stylist. She was putting the looks together for Mary Kim. All the girls, you know, in that orbit. Mary J. Blige is the artist under Puff. It was like the dream team. Their relationship began in the early 90s. She began styling her in the early 90s, and it's been, you know, fricking frack ever since. So when this lawsuit dropped today, I'm not even gonna hold you shout out to Grouchy Greg at AllHipHop. But I thought, I'm like, yo, it's no way. They have to have this story wrong. Like, there is no way that Misa Hilton is suing Mary J. Blige, like, at all. But they had it right. And I, you know, I did talk to them as well on some of the coverage they did, and we talked about that on the Breakfast Club, but for background, really quickly, because we were able to talk to the attorney for Misa Hilton. His name is Nicholas Shrimp Charitar, and he is representing Misa Hilton in this lawsuit. So he gave us, you know, some, some exclusive details on, like, when the. The friendship and when things fell apart. We're going to get to that. But I want you guys to understand what's happening here. So in this lawsuit, Misa Hilton and her company are alleging that Mary J. Blige and Mary J. Blige's company tried to block Misa out of an artist deal that they had together. New York rapper Vato speaking in tongues. He's in the middle of this. So basically, Misa Hilton in these documents is alleging that she was said manager for Vato. She was receiving 20% off of his bookings and things like that. Mary J. Blige and her company allegedly were the label and they were the way that his music was getting out, and they were platforming him because she is Mary J. Blige. So he's, you know, according to these docs, you know, doing bookings through via, you know, being around Mary on tour with Mary, things of that nature. I know that I saw a song they did together some time back. That's how I even knew that he was signed to her. Yeah, basically Misa's like, look, when that whole business thing was going down, allegedly Mary J. Blige tried to block Misa out. It got to the point where Mary J. Blige allegedly and her boyfriend, who was also the head of her security, were coming to Vato behind Misa's back, according to Misa and these docs, and basically telling Vato, yo, if you come over here with just us and leave her as management, you we can get you more money. But on top of that, Misa Hilton also alleges that Mary J. Blige shelved Vlad Vado's music. So he has a current project and some songs that he's been wanting to put out. And according to Misa Hilton and some of the, you know, conversations that they put in these documents, it's alleged that Mary J. Blige is like, I'm not releasing no music. Not only is she not releasing music, not only is she no longer platforming him and, you know, not allowing any bookings that would have come through her to happen. But Misa Hilton is also alleging that there would be things like they would do like yacht parties and just different gatherings where it would be very intimate and conversations would be flowing about Vato having to leave Misa in order to move forward in a strong way with Mary J. Blige and her boyfriend. And Misa wouldn't even be invited to these things. Right. And this is her friend. This is her friend friend. This her sister. More so I was kind of feeling like, yo, this must be like a, a, a fake AI situation, cuz I don't know what the play is, because Vato, no shade to vato, but Vato in his career and the conversation about what's happening versus what's not happening for either ladies in this situation when it comes to his career is no way near bigger than the history that they've done together.
- [06:19]
Brandon
Yeah. And he's just not like the most active, you know, rapper right now. So it's interesting that like to take this, this route with the relationship.
- [06:27]
Lauren LaRosa
We are going to find out because we spoke to Nick Ramachartar. Okay, listen, we spoke to Nick, who is Misa Hilton's attorney, and we asked those questions. He gave us the rundown. So Take a listen to this. Okay, so we were on the line with Nicholas Ram Charatar, who is the attorney for Misa Hilton, in the filing that dropped today. Misa Hilton is currently suing Mary J. Blige for $5 million for a breach of contract when it comes to music artist Vato, who both. At the time I were working with Vato, Misa was on the management side. And then Mary J. Blige and her company came in on the record label side and distribution of music side, Correct?
- [07:05]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
Absolutely, that's correct.
- [07:06]
Lauren LaRosa
So when I got the filing, first of all, before we even get into, like, what is being alleged, when I got the filing and saw the headline, my first thought was, there's no way Misa Hilton and Mary J. Blige are like family. They have been that way for decades now, like since before I was even born and I'm 33 years old. What happened? When did the friendship die out?
- [07:27]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
I mean, that's, that's, that's a fact. I mean, that's a fact that the world knows and it was a fact that I knew before this came across our table, unfortunately. And you're right, Misa Hilton and Mary J. Blige, they're not just friends, they're non biological family. Probably closer than blood family. And it's very unfortunate that this had to go down like this because Misa tried every possible avenue in terms of trying to amicably resolve this with Mary directly with Mary's camp. But unfortunately, and it's unbeknownst to us, why Mary J. Blige and why her camp completely cut off. You know, Ms. Hilton and I can tell you that this Vato lawsuit isn't why their friendship died. And I'm sure you know that. But more importantly, it's the reason or really the cherry on top of this whole thing. Mises confused and we've tried, Mises tried to reach out to Mary. We did not want this in the media. We wanted to do what families do. We wanted to sit at the dinner table. We wanted to talk this out, hash this out. Scream and yell if you have to, but keep this private. That's what family does. But unfortunately, Misa was back into a corner and had no other choice.
- [08:35]
Lauren LaRosa
When you say that the cutoff happened and Misa is confused about it because she doesn't know why. She just started receiving phone calls and texts. So when did that allegedly happen?
- [08:44]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
It's a good question. I mean, it's hard to really pinpoint a timeframe. I would, I would probably point to maybe around the super bowl of when this all started, probably roughly around. Around, I would say, maybe late August of probably last year, when all of this kind of started to pop off. Mary was with Misa in the Amalfi coast for an extended period of time. They were together. They would have a great time, and their friendship was the same as it always was. Unfortunately, at that point, moving forward, things started to take a turn for the worst. And again, it was a little ambiguous as to why. So Mary just thought. Excuse me. Misa just thought that Mary may have been busy or, you know, there are other things going on, and that's why maybe she couldn't reach out. I mean, Mary is a wonderful person and a very busy. A very busy artist. So it made sense. But when Misa stopped getting phone calls and text messages and not being included on the normal things that they do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, you know, her antennas went up. And we try to figure out, well, what's going on here? And that's really when we started to figure out that the real the relationship wasn't the same.
- [09:50]
Lauren LaRosa
And you mentioned that there was a correspondence before this lawsuit was filed. So you guys tried to go to Mary J. And what Mary J. Blige and do what? Settle or just tell her to. You know what I mean? Like, the things you're alleging a lawsuit is that Mary J. Blige and her company allegedly block. They're blocking Vato from money and advancement in his career, so they're not providing him with bookings and allowing him to release certain music. They're misrepresenting him, allegedly, by, you know, showing up to places and saying they're their manager and not including me on any of this. Based on your documents. Right. So before it got to this point where you're saying that this is happening, how much correspondence and what. What did you guys want out of that correspondence?
- [10:31]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
It's a good question. So first, the first thing that we always do in situations like this is we'll send over a letter, what we call an loi, a letter of insent. Before we did that, though, what we did was we reached out personally. I reached out to her legal team. We know who they are. And we tried via email, via text message, whatever phone numbers we can get from other people in our orbit in the industry. And we got absolutely zero response. Misa tried to reach out personally to Mary a few times, and unfortunately, she got zero response. And the way that we wanted to do this was, yes, in terms of a settlement. I mean, let's be Honest here, Vato, I understand that maybe in 2025 and on whatever day today is, April 29, 2025, that maybe he's not as relevant as he was prior. But let's be honest, he's not signed to an independent label. He signed to Mary J. Blige. Being on tour with Mary for any artist is not just epic, but huge boost for their career. And that's one of the main parts of this lawsuit, not the whole thing. But a main part is that why would she stifle her own artist? In fact, from what I understand the allegations go as far as that they told allegedly Misa, well, if you stop managing him, then we'll put him back on, which is a complete material breach of the contract. And again, we found that very strange because of their long standing family relationship. So we were reaching out with the hopes that, hey, listen, let's just settle this. Let's just figure this out. More importantly, the one who's suffering here, besides Misa's relationship with her sister is Vato. Unfortunately, what is he doing? His entire career has now been stifled. He has no exposure. He's not on tour with Mary, he's not getting paid by Mary. He's not recording anything that was. He was contractually obligated to record. And so it's. It's terrible for him in his career.
- [12:32]
Lauren LaRosa
And what about today's the 29th. It's 1:20pm so it's in the process of happening. But she's aware that the lawsuit is filed, I mean, even before the headlines, right or wrong?
- [12:42]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
100%. I mean, her. I believe that her camp and her team were aware for this for months and they had our letter of intent and no one bothered to reach out.
- [12:52]
Lauren LaRosa
Got you. Okay, Brain, you got any questions?
- [12:55]
Brandon
Yeah. So from my understanding, she was pretty much trying to box Misa out and so she can manage bottle herself. Correct. And take a bigger portion of the profits.
- [13:06]
Lauren LaRosa
Allegedly.
- [13:06]
Brandon
Allegedly.
- [13:12]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
Allegedly. That is. That is what we're. Those are the allegations that. That we're putting forth. Now listen again, guys, it's a blush. Do I think that this contract with Vato is going to make a rich or make a poor? No. And that was really what kind of perked up everybody's ears on Misa's camp was that we know this isn't about Vato, even though it is directly about Vato. This is more to do with Misa Hilton and whatever reasons the deterioration of the relationship happened and the reasons as for why. But yes, Votto is obviously directly in the Middle of this. But again, I wouldn't say that Mary did this for monetary purposes. I believe there were other issues, again, that are either unresolved or unknown to us as to why she put the pressure on me so. To box her out.
- [13:56]
Lauren LaRosa
Yeah. Like what happened that you said they were wearing on the Amalfi coast getting money. What the hell the coast do to the friend group? I heard the girls not making it back from Miami as friends, but Mafi coast is a little crazy now.
- [14:14]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
It is a little crazy. Crazy, but. No, I know they had a wonderful time together. I mean, there was no issues then. I was speaking. I was speaking with Misa while she was with Marion. You know, they just had the wonderful relationship that they always had, and it really was a beautiful thing. And it's really. It's really more sad for me said that she had to go down this road, but more sad that. That she lost a sister.
- [14:33]
Lauren LaRosa
How's Misa feeling today with the lawsuit, you know, being picked up in headlines and you said she's been going through this for some months. She also has a lot of other things going on. You know, Puff, her child's father, is currently locked up. She's watching her kids go back and forth to try and, you know, fight for their dad. How's she feeling right now?
- [14:48]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
Absolutely. I mean, she's upset. There's a lot going on. I mean, listen, at the end of the day, you know, Sean Combs and what's going on with him, it's unfortunate, but it affects everybody. You know, Misa is a wonderful woman. You know, Sean's kids are wonderful, wonderful kids. I. I can't say more about them. They. They really were raised as gentlemen, and I deal with them on a consistent basis. But she's upset, and again, she's more upset of the relationship. It's like. It's like all of a sudden you have a sister that you've been with forever, and 40 years later, all of a sudden, your sister stops talking to you and you have no reason why. It's going to be upsetting on all sorts of different levels.
- [15:27]
Brandon
Yeah, we've been talking about the relationship. So is their business with Vato the only business ties they have together at the moment?
- [15:33]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
That's a good question. To the best of my knowledge, I'm not involved with any other business transactions between Misa Hilton and Ms. Mary J. Blige at this time, so I can only comment on this.
- [15:43]
Lauren LaRosa
Okay, and then how did Misa find out about all of the, like, the alleged backdooring that Was that you guys are legend was happening from Mary J. Blige's ended. Vato come to her.
- [15:52]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
Or I believe it was more of a collective conversation and a collective effort that kind of. It was just a bunch of random puzzle pieces out there, and we're trying to put them all together and figure out, wait a minute, why is this happening?
- [16:04]
Lauren LaRosa
Gotcha.
- [16:05]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
Is Mary just busy? Are they just not pursuing the Vato contract anymore? But it came readily apparent as time went on that Misa was purposely getting boxed out. And unfortunately, that was directly affecting Vato and his contractual relationship with Mary J. Blige.
- [16:21]
Lauren LaRosa
Got you. Well, I don't know if there's anything that we have not asked you that you want to get out or Misa wants out now, but if so, now's the time, let me know because I'm all out of questions. I think you've provided a lot of context. I appreciate that.
- [16:36]
Nicholas Ram Charatar
Listen, it's my pleasure. The one thing that we want to put out there is that this is not something that we wanted to happen. This is a relationship that was a beautiful relationship between Ms. Hilton and Ms. Mary J. Blige. And unfortunately, it's come to this point. I mean, we hope that this can be resolved in an amicable fashion and that we hope that they will understand where we're coming from. This is not coming from Lisa Hilton aggressively. In fact, even though a lawsuit is a very aggressive way to deal with something, we tried our best. We tried to do everything that we could to put it out there. And unfortunately, through our best efforts, they were not met. And here we are.
- [17:14]
Lauren LaRosa
Okay, well, thank you so much. I'll be in contact. First of all, I just appreciate attorneys who are always down to provide context because it helps to paint a picture of a narrative. But he sounds just as confused. And Misa Nick, Misa's attorney, and Misa Hilton sound just as confused about what happened as we did.
- [17:32]
Brandon
We do. One thing that stood out to me was him talking about how Misa's taking every other route besides suing her. And like we said, we're all surprised. Like, why did Misa sue marry if they're that close? But she's. It sounds like she's tried everything. And this is always tough. I don't know if you've tried it, like, just doing business with friends and stuff like that. There's always that teetering between friendship and business. And business. And, like, you could love somebody. Like I said, they were just on a trip. You could love somebody to death. But sometimes the business you want it kind of done your way, you know, or what you feel is the right way. So it's always tough to, like, put that aside.
- [18:05]
Lauren LaRosa
Right?
- [18:06]
Brandon
Especially like how much energy you dedicate to something. So I know that's a tough situation.
- [18:11]
Lauren LaRosa
They'Re in right now, I think too. Well, for me, when it comes to doing business with friends, what I've learned is, is like you, I said I don't, but that's not true. I do. And you can, but you gotta, like, I like, you just approach it and stand off a bit differently. Like, I would rather be like an investor in something that my friend is doing versus, like an active, not silent partner because of, you know what I mean, coming to heads about things. Or if I have a friend that like, you know, I decide, like, works for me, it's like I put them in a position where I can't empower them. But, like, I also have to know, you know your friends as well too. I also have to know that this friend is a friend that like, really wants to do the job, is willing to learn. So that when I come to them like, yo, that's not right. You did it wrong, blah, blah, blah, like, you know what I mean? They're not taking it personal. It don't make it weird for us. It's like, no, I'm here to learn type of vibe. But I just, another thing for me is how do they come out of this?
- [19:00]
Brandon
Yeah, that's why I want to ask you, how do you, how would you handle business that has gone wrong with somebody very close to you? Like, what would you do? Would you scrap the business and save the friendship or take this route on, you know what? Like, let me, I have to take her to court because this, we have paperwork and all this stuff. Like, what, what route would you take? I mean, those are not the only two routes.
- [19:19]
Lauren LaRosa
But listen, I don't blame Issa Hill for handling her business in court. She felt like that's what need to do. But I think for me, I would just, I, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go this route. I wouldn't file a lawsuit. Not because it's like, oh my God, girl, that was supposed to be your friend. But just because it's like, I heard, I heard, I hear you, right? Yeah, I see what you're doing. I'm cool. I'm, I'm here. Look, vado, look, go ahead, go be managed. Like, it's not worth the headache for me. And we don't know everything that happened Here I have reached out to Mary J. Blige's side. I have not heard back from them yet. And I've also reached out to Vato as well now, too. We gotta get some more, like, you know, painting on the. Or color on the painting, some more context. But from what it seems like Misa was expecting certain things of her friend in business and didn't get it. And because of that, and, you know, in real time, they're losing money because of these things that they set up for this artist to be able to do. She decided to do a lawsuit. So we just got to see where it flows, see where it goes.
- [20:17]
Brandon
Yeah. I mean, I hope they can make up and, you know, handle this amicably. So I'm wishing them the best, for sure.
- [20:23]
Lauren LaRosa
Who you telling now? Taking it to the streets? Cause y'all know we be outside. We be outside before the treats. Every other page, I go to the tweets. So Philip Lewis, who works for Huffington Post. So Philip Lewis, who works for Huffington Post, he's the deputy editor over there. He tweeted out the lawsuit, and he said Styla stylist Misa Hill in is suing Mary J. Blige for allegedly refusing to drop drop rapper Vado's completed album until he cut sides with the fashion professional. Now this. The Twitter, you know, comments are going to Twitter. So somebody responded and said, dominique Horn. I am Dominique Horn. Said Mary J. Blige. Trying to tell a person from Harlem to cut ties with Misa Hilton. Cause Vado's from Harlem is like telling Max B. Telling the Max B fan to stop thinking he's coming home soon. That is a very New York, New Jersey tweet. It's like, you gotta. Yeah, you gotta understand. I'm not even from here, but I have so many friends from New York, and I also have a lot of friends from Harlem. And I just know how particular people are about being from Harlem and about Misa. And I know how particular New York people are very delusional about Max B. Yeah, y'all, Max B. Been home. Oh, the wave. Been home and free for a long time. If we leave it up to y'all, y'all keep doing songs with him.
- [21:41]
Brandon
I'll give you a verse with the quickness.
- [21:43]
Lauren LaRosa
Okay? Quinn Foz said. So basically, allegedly, Mary is doing the same thing that Puff did to her. This is whack of her, and she's done some whack things that people dismiss because she's married. What Mary then did, that's whack. I don't know nothing that Mary has done. That's what.
- [21:59]
Brandon
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I hope they don't misconstrue this, but she seems to be the victim to a lot of things that happen here that like. Yeah, her divorce, like, it's right.
- [22:08]
Lauren LaRosa
She's still paying that man.
- [22:10]
Brandon
Yeah, that's rough.
- [22:11]
Lauren LaRosa
She was just on stage talking about how the men don't be worth her time.
- [22:14]
Brandon
And she got to work hard. She's like, doing so much.
- [22:17]
Lauren LaRosa
Everything about Mary be given all my life, I had to fight, and I hate that for her. I really always looked at Mary like she is the, like, literally like the, like the. The architect of the hip hop R and B ways. You know what I'm saying? Like, she deserves to enjoy her money and her time. And it seems like she's always just having to carry this way to things. Yeah. Maybe it's because her music feels like that too. I'll do one more. So Rod Wayne said it tweeted Mary don't need any more L's in the courtroom. Please work this out. I think what Rod is referring to is the divorce with Mary J. Blige's ex husband, where she had to pay.
- [22:56]
Brandon
Him all that money, 30k a month.
- [22:58]
Lauren LaRosa
$30,000 a month in spousal support was the ruling. This was significantly less than the $129,000 that he actually requested. Additionally, Blige was ordered to cover Isaac's legal fees, which totaled in $235,000, and she had to pay retroactive spousal support. So she had to pay spousal for spousal support for the time before the. The time before the judge awarded him this, like, from.
- [23:28]
Brandon
Yeah, listen, I'm for Mangan alimony as well, but this is. This is that I. This is a bias. Depending on who's too. I don't like this happening to Mary at all.
- [23:39]
Lauren LaRosa
I don't either. So I hope they figure it out. But in the meantime, until they don't, y'all know, we'll be right here giving you the latest because that's just what I do. You know what I'm saying? Thank you guys for tuning in. Brandon, thank you for joining me.
- [23:52]
Brandon
Thank you for having me on again.
- [23:54]
Lauren LaRosa
You gonna be back?
- [23:55]
Brandon
I'll be back. Yeah, I'll be back. Yeah. As long as you have me, I'll be back.
- [23:57]
Lauren LaRosa
Thank you for joining me. Brandon will be back, y'all. And I appreciate you guys. At the end of the day, there is always a lot to. To talk about. And I tell y'all every single time how much I appreciate you for being right here with me to talk about it, because y'all could be anywhere listening to anybody. But you're right here with the Latest with Lauren LaRosa. I'm your host, Lauren LaRosa, and I will see you guys in my next episode.