A Los Angeles judge granted a restraining order against Diplo Wednesday afternoon, filed by a woman who alleged the EDM DJ had leaked “revenge porn” of her on Twitter.
“We are pleased to announce that by an order dated November 16, 2020, the Court ordered our requests ‘all granted’ and the restraining order issued,” attorney Lisa Bloom who represents the petitioner, wrote in a statement about the decision.
The filing, which The Daily Beast reported on Monday, came after the woman tweeted a thread alleging that she’d had a long-term intimate relationship with Diplo, beginning from when she was in her late teens. During the relationship, she claimed, he had illicitly recorded them having sex and later, after a falling out, hired a private investigator to contact and “scare” her.
Subsequently, a Twitter account leaked, as Bloom described it, “a screen recording of the text-message thread between Diplo and our client, and sent the same screen recording to people who expressed support for her.” According to the order, the account had no followers and only followed one person.
“We believe that act of revenge porn was done to frighten and intimidate our client and other women from coming forward,” Bloom wrote. “That photo, she alleges, was only in the possession of two people: herself and Diplo.”
When contacted about the initial filing, Bryan Freedman, an attorney representing Diplo, maintained that the former Major Lazer member had not broken the law. “To be clear, in no way has my client violated any law,” the lawyer wrote. “In fact, he has repeatedly made it clear that he wants nothing whatsoever to do with this person."
Freedman did not immediately respond to comment on the judge’s decision.
In a declaration to the court, the woman claimed she first met Diplo over the summer of 2014. “Respondent messaged me on Twitter. I was shocked and excited because Respondent is a well-known DJ, record producer, and songwriter,” she said. “After communicating via Twitter, we exchanged phone numbers and Snapchat usernames. I was 17 years old when we met and Respondent was 36 years old.”
Because of the age gap, the declaration claims, the two did not meet until March of 2018. But the two “regularly exchanged sexually explicit photos, videos, and messages,” the declaration alleges.
“I was caught off guard and shocked when Respondent sent me unsolicited videos of him engaging in sex with other females in or about October of 2018,” the woman claimed. “I sternly told Respondent that I did not want him to ever record us engaging in sexual activities.”
The woman claims the two had sex for the first time in April of 2019 and “drifted apart” roughly a year later. According to the court documents, the woman alleges Diplo contacted her twice after: first, in April of 2020, to ask if she had messaged the mother of his children about their relationship, which the woman denied; later, in June of 2020, through a private investigator.
“I felt threatened and intimidated by the private investigator because the investigator told me that he knew where I lived and where my family lived,” she wrote.
The restraining order, which was filed on Nov. 13, requested that Diplo cease and desist distributing sexually-explicit photos, turn over all such photos to the woman, identify where he shared them and with whom, and remove any that have not yet been deleted.
“Regardless of how someone obtains explicit images, it is illegal to post or distribute them without the consent of the person depicted,” Bloom wrote. “Our client maintains that she absolutely did not consent to this post.”
In the Nov. 16 decision, the court granted all of the requests in the filing, requiring Diplo to obtain “express written permission” from the woman before distributing explicit images of her.
There will be a subsequent hearing on Dec. 8 regarding a permanent restraining order.
Following publication, the lawyer for Diplo provided an additional statement: “This individual has been relentless in her harassment of Wes, his family, and his friends. There is a mountain of evidence as to why her outrageous claims should not be believed - and we look forward to having our opportunity to present them to the court.”
