Frank Ocean’s Father Sues: Calvin Cooksey Wants $14.5 Million For Alleged Libel

Frank Ocean’s father is suing his famous son for $14.5 million for libel. Calvin Cooksey claims that Ocean is lying about a story he told on Tumblr last year. Now Cooksey wants his son to pay up because he claims that the Tumblr story has cost him jobs and money after he was labeled a bigot.

“I was six years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a f****t as he dragged me out a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn’t be served because she was dirty,” Frank wrote just after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. “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.”

Calvin Cooksey claims that Frank Ocean made the story up and now he’s taken his son to court to collect monetary damages. Cooksey, who describes himself as a singer, writer, and inventor, is representing himself in the lawsuit. He claims that Ocean ruined his career and his potential earnings with the Tumblr post that earned more than 45,000 likes and shares on the social media platform according to Page Six.

The lawsuit against Frank Ocean was filed on Thursday in California federal court. This isn’t Cooksey’s first high-profile lawsuit. In 2014, Ocean’s father sued Russell Simmons after the hip-hop mogul called him a “deadbeat dad.” In the $142 million lawsuit against Simmons, Cooksey blasted him for failing to fact check before posting and, surprisingly, for failing to use his real name and referring to him as Frank’s father in posts on the website Global Grind according to a TMZ report. Much like the lawsuit against his own son, Cooksey was suing for future earnings, claiming the successful entrepreneur had damaged his reputation by printing misinformation.

Here’s the thing, though: Calvin Cooksey was not in Frank Ocean’s life past the age of 5. Cooksey claims that it was Frank Ocean’s mother who took off and hid the now-famous singer from her while he was growing up. Therefore, Cooksey claims that Simmons’ “deadbeat dad” comments were unfounded and libelous. The lawsuit went nowhere and a judge ended up throwing the $142 million lawsuit out without even going to trial.

After Cooksey filed the Frank Ocean lawsuit, Rolling Stone contacted him for comment and he responded. This is what he had to say about his own son and the libel lawsuit that he is waging on him:

“I have never discriminated against anyone transgender or heterosexual or homosexual. The events that defendant describes on June 21st 2016, that I called a transgender waitress F****T NEVER HAPPENED… The defendant is a scam artist, a fraud and a hypocrite who deceive[d] the LGBT community on June 21st, 2016 for the financial success of Blonde.”

Calvin Cooksey’s lawsuit claims that Frank Ocean’s Tumblr post was viewed by millions of his son’s fans and that the claims have caused him to lose out on future earning opportunities. One of those “lost opportunities” includes the manuscript for a crime thriller titled Part of the Game that Cooksey says Ocean and his mother were set to have roles in. As a result of Ocean’s Tumblr post, Cooksey claims that he will never be able to produce the movie or sell it to anyone.

So far, several publications have mentioned that requests for comment from Frank Ocean about the Calvin Cooksey lawsuit have gone unanswered. It’s unclear exactly what Ocean plans to do about his father’s libel lawsuit but certainly he’ll have his lawyers on it and not represent himself like his dad Cooksey is choosing to do.

[Featured Image by Eamonn McCormack/Getty Images]