Composer Danny Elfman is reportedly being sued for failure to pay sexual harassment settlement
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Leon Bennett/WireImage Danny Elfman
Prolific composer Danny Elfman is reportedly being sued for failure to pay the settlement of a 2018 sexual misconduct lawsuit.
Rolling Stone reports that in 2018, the Nightmare Before Christmas musician entered into a settlement and nondisclosure agreement with fellow composer Nomi Abadi, who had accused him of sexual harassment. Per the report, Elfman failed to fully pay the agreed-upon $830,000, specifically neglecting two $42,500 installments in July 2019 and 2021.
In a new lawsuit, Abadi is now demanding the full $85,000 that she alleges she never received.
Reps for Elfman did not immediately respond to EW's request for comment.
Rolling Stone did not speak to Abadi due to a non-disclosure agreement, and instead cited a 2017 police report in which the then 30-year-old composer said that over the course of a year, Elfman exposed himself and masturbated in front of her multiple times without her consent. When contacted for comment by Rolling Stone, Elfman denied these claims.
"How do I respond to accusations so serious that being innocent is not a valid defense?" Elfman said in his statement to Rolling Stone. "It is excruciating to consider that a 50-year career may be destroyed in one news cycle as a result of vicious and wholly false allegations about sexual misconduct. Ms. Abadi's allegations are simply not true."
Elfman continued, "I allowed someone to get close to me without knowing that I was her 'childhood crush' and that her intention was to break up my marriage and replace my wife. When this person realized that I wanted distance from her, she made it clear that I would pay for having rejected her. I allowed an ill-advised friendship to have far-reaching consequences, and that error in judgment is entirely my fault."
Elfman added that he has "done nothing indecent or wrong," and claims his lawyers "stand ready to prove with voluminous evidence that these accusations are false."
In a speech made two days before this year's Grammys, Abadi spoke as a survivor of sexual misconduct and a member of the Academy, stating that she did not vote after seeing that the list of nominees included abusers. While she did not address anyone by name, Elfman was among the year's Grammy nominees.
When Abadi and Elfman settled in 2018, she specified that in addition to personal payments, some funds would go directly towards a charitable entity to aid female composers. In 2020, she founded the Female Composer Safety League (FCSL) with the mission of breaking "stigmas in the industry surrounding trauma and shame."
Addressing the composer's decision to settle, music industry executive and friend of Abadi's Erin Collins said, "It came down to career choices and backlash. She felt her career would be over if she said Elfman was a creep. And she's right. I'm sorry to say, but that's still unfortunately how this industry works."
One of Hollywood's most prolific composers, Danny Elfman has worked with acclaimed filmmakers including Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, and Gus Van Sant. He is a frequent collaborator of Burton's, having scored all of the director's movies since 1985 — including Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. On Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick, Elfman both composed the music and performed the vocals as Jack Skellington. He most recently composed music for Marvel's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the Netflix hit, Wednesday.
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