Mariah Carey & Ex-Assistant Refuse To Settle Extortion Case

Mariah Carey and her former assistant were unable to agree on a settlement in legal battle, in which Mariah has accused her ex-employee of attempting to blackmail her for $8 million using intimate videos taken without her permission. Mariah filed the lawsuit against her old assistant, Lianna Shakhnazaryan, last year, citing that Lianna had filmed her in a compromising position without her consent. She then alleged that Lianna tried to extort her out of $8 million by threatening to leak the tapes. Lianna fired back with her own lawsuit against Mariah, accusing her of wrongful termination. According to court documents, Mariah and Lianna were unable to settle their differences, after they each recently attended separate mediation dates in an attempt to work out some kind of compromise to avoid a court trial. Their lawyers informed the judge that “the parties were unable to resolve these matters,” and the two of them will now have to prepare to go to trial.

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In Mariah’s lawsuit, she explains that, after she hired Lianna as her assistant in 2015, the woman “turned out to be a grifter, a Peeping (Tom)asina and an extortionist.” She is seeking $5 million in damages. Lianna has denied any wrongdoing and has argued that any mental or emotional distress suffered by Mariah were the result of her own behaviour.