Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland, who cowrote the band’s “Break Stuff” and “Nookie” and likewise fronts his personal group, Large Dumb Face, is utilizing his ire at how an album assessment interpreted his ex-wife’s newest file as gasoline for a authorized motion towards her, accusing her of defamation. The submitting additionally cites an interview that ex-wife Carré Callaway (aka indie rocker Queen Kwong) gave the identical author for one more publication. Callaway rose to prominence utilizing the Queen Kwong identify a few decade in the past, after her moody, private music caught Trent Reznor’s ear; the group has toured with 9 Inch Nails and its music has featured on Peaky Blinders. Borland’s submitting, obtained by Rolling Stone, claims she tried to revenue off his identify by speaking about him.
A choose for the third judicial circuit of Michigan’s Wayne County, the household division court docket, will hear Borland’s petition Tuesday morning. Borland particularly requested for Callaway “to indicate trigger why she shouldn’t be held in contempt for her refusal to adjust to this Courtroom’s Judgment [the divorce decree].” The divorce settlement, signed by each events in 2020, states that “neither occasion could make speeches, give interviews, or make public statements that defame the opposite occasion.”
A 2022 Bandcamp Day by day article about Callaway, cited in Borland’s submitting, claimed Borland gave Callaway three days to depart their Detroit-area marital house with a number of rescue cats after the wedding fell aside. She is quoted as saying that one of many cats, Daisy — whom she eulogized on her album’s “The Mourning Music” — “died per week after he left as a result of he was the one one who might take care of her.” Borland’s submitting additionally claims a assessment in Flood journal of her 2022 album, {Couples} Solely, by the identical creator, Mischa Pearlman, repeated these claims and urged one track, “Emdr Atm” “particulars the sort of purported ‘gaslighting’ Ms. Callaway claims she obtained from Mr. Borland.”
The doc claims, “These statements deliberately do what Ms. Callaway was expressly prohibited from doing: They adversely have an effect on Mr. Borland’s public picture and status that he has constructed over a twenty-plus–yr profession” and are an try at “destroying Mr. Borland’s extraordinary and hard-earned skilled status.” Borland is asking for $5,000 for “prices and legal professional charges” and for the court docket to sanction Callaway.
The assessment, which gives background details about Queen Kwong’s songwriting, states: “She’d been dwelling with him in Detroit, with a complete host of cats they’d rescued, solely to be pressured out of the home they’d made their house. She was given three days to maneuver out, to rehouse all of the cats, to say goodbye to a life and a wedding and a husband she thought she knew. She was additionally ostracized by these within the music business who felt they stood extra to realize by being buddies with Borland than together with her.”
Callaway, who married Borland in Oct. 2016 and filed for divorce in Jan. 2019, stands by her feedback. “The TRUTH CANNOT BE DEFAMATORY,” she writes in a press release to Rolling Stone. “This motion is solely a tactic to bully, intimidate, and silence me. That is an try to financially break me, exhaust my bodily well-being and denigrate my credibility with the specific intent of inflicting hurt to my profession. That is an general assault on freedom of speech and creative expression. What does it imply for indie musicians like myself —who can’t afford to even tour nowadays — to have to fret about combating frivolous lawsuits. What does it imply for ladies who’re already afraid to inform their tales? What does it imply for journalists if their phrases will be spun to silence the very girls they’re making an attempt to present a platform to?”
“Mr. Borland filed a post-judgment movement asking that the Wayne County, Michigan Household Courtroom implement particular Judgment of Divorce provisions that each events agreed to abide by as a part of their 2020 divorce settlement,” the guitarist’s legal professional, B. Andrew Rifkin, tells Rolling Stone. “Mr. Borland’s post-judgment movement has nothing to do with any points past what every of the events agreed to do as a part of the finalization of their 2019 divorce case. The events’ Judgment of Divorce requires each Mr. Borland and Ms. Callaway to chorus from ‘… mak[ing] speeches, giv[ing] interviews, or mak[ing] statements that defame the opposite occasion.’ Mr. Borland has totally complied with that provision, and he’s asking the Household Courtroom to clarify to Ms. Callaway that she has the identical obligation to conform that Mr. Borland has.
“Mr. Borland needs Ms. Callaway the most effective in her profession,” Rifkin continues. “He doesn’t want to restrict her creative expression, however as a part of their divorce settlement, each events agreed to maintain their opinions about their divorce personal and chorus from making unfavorable public feedback concerning the different occasion.”
Throughout their marriage, Borland briefly performed guitar in a touring line up of Queen Kwong. It’s unclear why he left the group, however in a 2017 NME interview he urged that he regretted attaching himself to her work. “[Being in Limp Bizkit has] positively been damaging to my spouse’s indie band, Queen Kwong,” he mentioned. “Having me related to it has price her.”