Celebrity Business: Jay Z faced with more than $18 million lawsuit for not promoting his fragrance properly

By Staff Writer

Jan 27, 2016 10:50 PM EST

Jay Z is faced with a $18 million lawsuit from Parlux Fragrances, the company behind the licensing, designing and marketing of many celebrities fragrances, including Jay Z's. The rapper was sued because the perfume distributor claimed that he broke their agreements that stated that the star would promote his own signature fragrance.

According to New York Daily News, Jay Z was supposed to make at least six appearances to promote his signature fragrance, Gold Jay Z. But, ever since the fragrance was launched in October 2013 he so far has made none of the agreed appearances.

Court papers noted that Jay Z declines the promotional appearance requests six different times. These promotional appearances were so important to sustain the existence of the fragrance. The lawsuit stated that it is virtually impossible to sustain the success of a celebrity fragrance without both promotional appearances by the celebrity as well as the regular updating and refreshing of the brand.

The sales of Gold Jay Z have declined significantly because of the lack of support and promote by the celebrity, says the court papers. Parlux Fragrances also claimed to have lost millions of dollar in potential sales and developmental costs.

The lawsuit also stated that Jay Z asked to award the company at least $18 million to compensate their loss, also to return the $2 million royalty payment they made, as well as 300,000 stock shares in the company.

According to Page Six, Gold Jay Z was the best-selling celebrity fragrance in 2014, a year after it was launched. But last year the sales spiraled down to just $6.1 million out of the projected $35 million, because Jay Z was not so focused to promote the fragrance.

TMZ reported that Jay Z even refused to make social media posts to help promote the fragrance. There was even an agreement of follow-up fragrances that Jay Z would help to develop, but as the lawsuit stated, he didn't come to the meetings.

Not only did Jay Z caused the fragrance's sales to drop. Parlux Fragrances also claimed that the rapper rejected five prototypes for the bottle's design as created by Jacob the Jeweler. Even so, Jay Z kept the all the prototype, worth $20,000 each with solid gold caps and drizzled gold on the exterior.

Jay Z was required to pay $20 million in total, $18 million for the compensatory damage and $2 million as the royalty payment that is claimed back by Parlux Fragrances. The compensatory fine was to cover the loss of potential sales and other costs used by the company to create and market Jay Z's signature fragrance. 

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