Drake, D4vd and the cases still to come

0:01Hello and welcome back to Fame Under Fire from BBC Sounds with me Anoushka Mutanda-Doughty. I'm away this week, I'll tell you more about that later, and Sean is trapped in a court case so no full episode for you, but there's loads to catch up on in the feed. So in solidarity with the UK kids doing A-levels and GCSEs, this is a revision week. Now we've done Rebel Wilson, Priscilla, Molly May, Bonnie Blue, Will Smith, Jason Derulo, The Beckhams, Liam Neeson. Mind you, not all together, although I would like to go to that dinner party. If you're uninitiated on the Diddy saga, there are hundreds of episodes that can keep you busy, from the bombshell balcony dangling allegations to the case of Costco and the baby oil that never was.

0:39Then we stepped out of the Diddyverse and into the Yainiverse. We have done multiple episodes tracking the many legal battles heading Mr. West's way. And we are deep in the docket of the Drake, Kendrick and UMG lawsuit. At the heart of this case are some really big issues. Rap in the courtroom, art on trial and of course, the First Amendment. Sean, take it away. It is a Latin phase, amicus curi, which literally translates to friends of the court is what that means. And amicus brief is basically the nosy neighbor who has nothing to do with anything. It was just like, I won't be a part of this. And just like peeking is like, what are y 'all talking about?

1:15But what ends up happening is somebody is watching this case. And I'm not saying this is what happened in this situation. But somebody is watching this case and said the decision that is going to come out of this case is going to have such far reaching effects on other people. We want to petition the court so we can be heard, because remember, we talk about precedent. And once a court sets out a precedent or a law, it is a controlling law for everybody potentially in a situation. And so some other folks are out there saying we think this is bad. So there was two amicus briefs filed, one out in California, a group of lawyers, a group of experts, a group of rap folks.

1:54And when you read the opinion, it's their amicus. I always picture that they're doing it in some type of an auction like this and saying, you know, rap music affects everybody. And according to us, we feel that this is completely unfair. It's a bunch of legal rap scholars. And that's what I said. Amici are a nationally recognized experts on the use of rap lyrics in court. Who says lawyers can't have a little fun? Thank you, Sean. And we know some of the cases we are tackling for the rest of the year. Russell Brand, he's been charged with rape and sexual assault, seven charges in total. He's pleaded not guilty on all charges.

2:29When he takes the stand, we will be there doing what we do best. Daily updates, all the details. And the case against the singer David. He faces charges including murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 years old, and the unlawful dismemberment of human remains. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. We've been covering this case in detail for months now.

2:49Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:However, there is the other charge. We've been through the continuous sexual abuse of the minor. We've been through the lying in wait, the murder for financial gain. But there is the unlawful dismemberment of human remains, which is a separate charge. Now, in the way of evidence, this is what the prosecution allege they have in this briefing, which is one-sided. But they say, quote, tellingly defendant subsequently purchased tools to carry out his plot to dismember and dispose of the victim's body on april 24th 2025 defendant ordered a shovel from home depot that was delivered to his home from postmates on may 1st 2025 defendant ordered and subsequently amazon delivered two chainsaws to his home on may 5th 2025 defendant ordered and amazon subsequently delivered a body bag, heavy duty laundry bags and a blue inflatable pool to his home.

3:38Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:They say he made these purchases under the fake name Victoria Mendez. Now, on the 8th of May 2025, defendant returned to the same area in Santa Barbara County, leaving his home around 11.30pm. He returned to the area again on May 31st, 2025. This is an isolated site off SR154, where the victim's identification was subsequently discovered in January 2026. thanks sean it also says that he ordered on amazon a burn cage i didn't even know it was possible to order these things to your home yeah under the same name it alleges as part of his plan to incinerate evidence moreover defendant took horrifying measures to destroy and discard the victim's body after placing her body into the blue inflatable pool to prevent her blood from spilling onto his garage floor defendants used a chainsaw and perhaps other tools to cut off her limbs small plastic blue fragments were found embedded in the victim's remains which were collected by the los angeles county medical examiners department the fragments were analyzed by the lapd's forensic science division and trace analysis unit an expert was able to make a physical fit match from the blue fragments to the blue inflatable pool purchased by the defendant sean there is if you take the prosecution's word as fact and at the moment it's just that side there is a whole load of evidence here to back up the unlawful dismemberment of human remains.

5:00Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:I mean, this is almost a digital diary of evidence. It is. And now, again, I'm not saying yes, I'm not saying no, we have not looked at anything. But if you go back and you read, and we talked about prosecutors, if they can lay out a story, and if you read a lot of it, a lot of it is creative storytelling. Again, I'm not saying it's not accurate. Those are the things that you're not going to be able to do in front of a jury because these are not things. Like there are certain parts of that pre-trial brief, if you read it, they talk for David. And in between covering all of these stories, we keep returning, of course, to the Epstein files.

5:42You send us your questions and we answer them. Is there a reference to killing babies and murdering innocent children in the files?

5:49Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:yeah I've seen this question a lot this conversation online appears to have come from this email exchange it's an email which appears to be from Sarah Kay it's FTA00563164 if anybody wants to look Sarah Kay was one of Jeffrey Epstein's assistants here's what it says quote hi Rich Jeffrey is asking if you can FedEx the painting he had made of the massacre of the innocents to the ranch it's the large nine by nine canvas that we had rolled out for him to see in the entryway where they are killing babies. He wants to use it on the ranch and hoping you could FedEx it to arrive by Wednesday. Thanks, Sarah.

6:23Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Close quote. So we're not quite sure who Rich is, but we do know about the reference to the Massacre of the Innocents. It's a reference to a painting. Now, there are several under the same name, one by Bruegel, for instance. Now, it depicts the scene in the Bible where, after hearing from the wise men of the birth of Jesus, King Herod ordered that all children in Bethlehem under the age of two be murdered. That's a real email, but they're talking about a painting. That's it for this episode of Fame Under Fire from BBC Sounds with me, Anushka Matanda-Dowdy. As always, if you've got any questions, send them to me on social media.

6:56It's Anushka underscore MD on Instagram and TikTok, or you can WhatsApp us on 0330 678 1114. That's 0330 678 1114. Make sure you subscribe and turn on your push notifications so you never miss a thing.