Jury in Parlux vs Jay-Z vs Parlux: A Pox on Both of Youse

Fragrance licensee fights their own smellebrity to a draw

The Parlux breach of contract lawsuit against Jay-Z a.k.a. Shawn Carter, filed nearly six years ago, and Jay-Z’s countersuit for unpaid royalties, went to a trial recently and yesterday the jury rejected claims for damages by both sides.

Parlux, which created the Jay-Z Gold fragrance and grew frustrated when they couldn’t get the smellebrity to engage in the development process or appear for promotional events, issued the obligatory pledge to “pursue all legal options available.”

Some of Jay-Z’s testimony in the case, e.g.,

“If I hurt Parlux and I hurt Gold Jay Z — they are in my name.”

“I’m not going to cut off my nose to spite my face,” Jay-Z said.

“It was a tough relationship but I was still trying to create something amazing.”

was hard to square with depositions that showed him to be foggy on the deets and his representatives dragging their feet and refusing to respond to continual pleas and inquiries from Parlux to get him to engage in creative decisions and show up for critical promotional events.

A hard-boiled cynic might think that Jay-Z took a pile of sweet Parlux deal money, refused to honor his side of the bargain, and then dared them to do anything about it. If so, there didn’t appear to be any hard-boiled cynics on this New York jury.