Ariana Grande Is Suing Up to 100 Unnamed Hackers. The Alleged Trail Goes Back to 2019.
Ariana Grande filed a lawsuit Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court against as many as 100 unidentified defendants, accusing them of a years-long campaign to hack her collaborators' accounts and sell her unreleased work on the dark web. The suit names John Doe 1 and John Does 2 through 100, and accuses them of invasion of privacy, violating California's computer data access and fraud law, and conversion.
The complaint doesn't allege anyone broke into Grande's own accounts. Instead, it claims the defendants targeted photographers and producers who worked closely with her, then used what they found to steal music, photos and video that were never meant to reach the public. According to the filing, a photographer's Dropbox login was compromised in 2019; a producer's phone was hacked in 2020, exposing unreleased masters, demos and session footage; and in 2023, 45 unreleased songs were taken and leaked in a single incident. The most recent claim dates to 2024, when hackers allegedly built a fake Gmail account and web domain impersonating a photographer to trick a digital technician into sending over private material.
The lawsuit states the stolen content was sold "on the dark web for significant sums of money," and that the pattern isn't new: it claims hundreds of similar leaks have occurred since Grande's 2011 debut. A source close to the singer told People the litigation is meant to function as a deterrent going forward, adding it's not only about protecting Grande's own catalog but the broader principle that artists should control when and how their work reaches the public. A representative for Grande did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Variety.
Naming 100 John Does isn't about identifying anyone yet - that's what discovery is for. Grande's legal team says finding out who's behind the accounts is the whole point of filing.
