Frank Ocean Being Sued For $14.5 Million By His Father For Defamation

Frank Ocean is being sued by his father, Calvin Cooksey, for defamation over a comment the R&B superstar made about him on Tumblr.

Cooksey, who has been estranged from his son for several decades, is reported to be seeking $14.5 million in damages, claiming Ocean falsely accused him in a blog post of having used the word “faggot” in front of him as a young child, according to TMZ.

Frank Ocean said in a Tumblr post that his father had used a homophobic slur in front of him as a child

“I was 6 years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a f****t as he dragged me out of a neighbourhood diner saying we wouldn't be served because she was dirty,” he wrote in a Tumblr post he made last summer in the aftermath of the deadly Orlando nightclub shooting.

“That was the last afternoon I saw my father and the first time I heard that word, I think, although it wouldn’t shock me if it wasn’t.”

Cooksey, an actor and musician by profession, claims that the post had serious ramifications for the opportunities he could get in film and music. He previously filed a $142 million lawsuit against Russell Simmons in 2014 after he called him a “deadbeat dad”.

More: Are Kanye West, Justin Bieber and Frank Ocean all about to boycott the “irrelevant” Grammys?

Ocean’s tumultuous relationship with his father has been well documented. In 2012, when Ocean first broke through to the mainstream with his album Channel Orange, the singer said his dad wanted to sue him for $1 million.

He has also tweeted in the past: “Just found out my absent father’s been cyberstalking me, hi dad”.

After just over four years of waiting for a follow-up to Channel Orange, Ocean dropped two new albums in August 2016 – conventional album Blonde, which was highly praised and became a transatlantic chart-topper, and visual album Endless, an iTunes exclusive – at the same time.

More: Frank Ocean announces first live dates in support of new album ‘Blonde’