Courtney Love responds to twitter defamation claim

By Eriq Gardner

In March, we wrote how Courtney Love became the first celebrity sued for Twitter defamation.

Love has filed an interesting special motion to strike fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir's lawsuit against her. Among the claims:

• Simorangkir "repeatedly asked Love both to partake in and to procure cocaine, Percoset, and other illegal and prescription drugs for herself and her husband, and she discussed both her past drug use and drug dealing."
• "After Love described some of the emotions and personal stories that led her to write (the song "Teenage Whore"), Simorangkir told her that she had worked in the past as a prostitute..."
• Simorangkir "also exhibited racist, homophobic, and generally mean-spirited behavior with Love"  

These are just some of the allegations in one of the nastiest motions we've ever seen. It's unclear what sort of legal weight these new provocations carry. Love seems to have a better chance if she sticks to "free speech" arguments and traditional defenses against defamation. For instance, in the motion, Love says, 

"As a musician and artist, I believe strongly in free speech rights, and I further believe strongly in the right of consumers to publicly warn other consumers about unscrupulous vendors. I live my life in the public eye, and I maintain both a MySpace page and Twitter page to ensure that my personal perspective on the events of my life is publicized rather than the viewpoint of someone else. For these reasons I made several comments in March 2009 on the Etsy consumer feedback page for Simorangkir in which I described how Simorangkir had manipulated her personal relationship with me to steal hundreds of thousands of textiles, vintage clothing, and related raw materials from me to use for her own ends."

Interestingly, Love is represented by Keith Fink, arch-enemy of many celebrities and the American Apparel clothing chain. Kind of an irony that Fink defends a celebrity in this potentially precedent-setting case, although we think we see some of Fink's legal stylings here.

UPDATED: Additionally, Fink tells us that he'll be filing a countersuit soon for breach of contract, fraud and trademark infringement against Simorangkir. The coming lawsuit revolves around an agreement between the two parties on a line of clothing. Courtney Love claims to have given Simorangkir vintage  clothing owned by silent movie stars to "upcycle." Love claims Simorangkir wanted more money than agreed upon, and when Love refused, Simorangkir sold the clothes. Additionally, Love says the fashion designer stole her idea for a clothing line called Never the Bride and hired a model who looked exactly like her to market the clothing.