Ocean’s lawsuit claims “the essay speaks for itself.”

In February, Frank Ocean was sued by his father Calvin Cooksey for libel after accusing Cooksey of using a homophobic slur when he was a child.

“I was six years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a faggot as he dragged me out a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn’t be served because she was dirty,” wrote the Blonde artist in a Tumblr post. The essay was written in the wake of the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre that left 49 LGBT+ people dead.

Cooksey claimed that Ocean “published these falsehoods…for the financial success of Defendant’s new album Blonde, and to ruin his father.” Ocean has now responded to the allegations, asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

Pitchfork have acquired legal documents in which Ocean “admits he wrote the published essay” and argues that “the essay speaks for itself.”

Ocean claims in the document that his allegations towards his father were “statements of opinion, and thus not the proper subjects of a libel claim,” also suggesting that the complaint is barred by applicable statutes of limitations. Ocean is asking Cooksey to pay his legal fees.

In other news, the ‘Swim Good’ artist has cancelled another of his scheduled summer festival appearances. Ocean was due to perform at Hangout festival in Alabama next weekend (May 19-21), but a tweet from the festival cited production delays “beyond his control” as the reason for the cancellation.

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