Rhye’s Michael Milosh Sues Ex-Wife’s Attorneys Over ‘Frivolous’ Sexual Abuse Case
Alexa Nikolas accused Milosh of abusing her, but he says the case was a frivolous "extortion plot" – and that the attorneys should be held responsible.
A year after former Nickelodeon star Alexa Nikolas sued ex-husband Michael Milosh over allegations of sexual abuse, the Rhye musician is now suing her attorneys for allegedly filing a “frivolous lawsuit” that they knew contained false accusations.
Nikolas filed her lawsuit last summer, claiming the Canadian electronic musician “preyed on the innocence of a minor fan” by grooming her and then abusing her, but she voluntarily dropped the case this May. She says she plans to refile the case, but has not yet done so.
Related
Now, Milosh (best known for the R&B project Rhye) is striking back against the attorneys who filed that case, suing them for so-called malicious prosecution. He says the abuse lawsuit’s allegations were “complete nonsense,” filed by lawyers who have “no respect for the law or the truth.”
“In an effort to extort money, garner fame, and drum-up new business, defendants filed a frivolous lawsuit against Mr. Milosh that lacked any legal basis or factual support,” he wrote. “Defendants filed it because they thought they could use the publicity to extort a settlement from Mr. Milosh. When that did not work, defendants dismissed the lawsuit. But the dismissal came too late. By then, the damage was done.”
Trending on Billboard
Milosh says Nikolas’ lawsuit caused him “well over $10,000,000 in actual damages,” and says he’ll be seeking additional punitive damages that “will be established at trial.” As defendants, the lawsuit named Nikolas’ law firms, Greenberg Gross LLP and Gibbs Law LLP, as well as several individual attorneys who worked on the case.
In a statement to Billboard, Greenberg Gross managing partner Alan Greenberg said Milosh’s case was “completely baseless and will be thrown out of court in short order.” Gibbs Law did not immediately return a request for comment.
Nikolas, known for her work on the Nickelodeon television series Zoey 101, filed her lawsuit in August 2021, claiming he had first contacted her when she was 16 and he was 33. Once married, she claimed he had subjected her to “years of emotional, sexual, psychological, and financial torture.”
“Defendant Milosh utilized his power of authority and seniority over Plaintiff, as well as years of sexual grooming of Plaintiff as a minor child, to manipulate her into trusting him,” she wrote. “Upon gaining her trust, Defendant Milosh terrorized, sodomized, and abused Plaintiff as a part of his continuous conduct aimed at satisfying his prurient and economic desires.”
Nikolas dropped the case in May, though she did so “without prejudice” – meaning she can eventually refile the claims. When reached by Billboard on Friday, Nikolas said would be “refiling my suit very soon.”
In his new lawsuit this week, Milosh argued the case was dropped because it was clearly frivolous. In addition to flatly refuting the allegations themselves, he says the case was clearly barred by the divorce settlement that the couple signed when they finalized their split in 2019.
“When Ms. Nikolas and Mr. Milosh dissolved their marriage, they signed a stipulated judgment and divorce decree,” his lawyers wrote. “In that Judgment, among other things, Ms. Nikolas waived any and all claims against Mr. Milosh, confirming that she was not the victim of any sort of assault or abuse and that she did not have any claims to assert against him.”
Her lawyers knew about the settlement before they filed the case, Milosh says, but “intentionally omitted” any reference of it from their case. Instead, they “made lurid and unnecessary references to sex acts” to drum up media attention and filled their lawsuit with “ridiculous accusations.”
Read Milosh’s entire legal complaint here: