The members of Jane’s Addiction were flinging civil lawsuits at one another Wednesday like it was nothing shocking, with each side registering arguments about a physical altercation that started onstage in 2024 and took the tour — and the reunited band — down with it.
First, Dave Navarro, Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins sued Perry Farrell in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract and more. Hours later, Farrell and his wife, Etty Lau Farrell, sued the other three, alleging almost the same offenses but with a very different backstory.
As Farrell says in his lawsuit, the history of Jane’s Addiction has been peppered with “well-documented” antagonism between its “original” members, who settled in as the lineup in 1986, a year after the band was founded. That antagonism is clear in both complaints, which were reviewed by The Times.
The lawsuit listing Navarro as the first plaintiff says Farrell was struggling during the tour. He “regularly appeared onstage in an advanced state of intoxication,” “ruthlessly assaulted” the guitarist onstage in Boston in September 2024, then continued his “unhinged barrage of punches” backstage, it says.
“The Attack, which was virally viewed by millions of people worldwide, was brutal and unprovoked. It quickly forced the termination of the show and eventually the entire Tour,” the complaint says.
Farrell, meanwhile, says in his lawsuit that the other members had spent years “bullying” and “trying to undermine” him by turning up the volume on their instruments so loud that he was forced to crank his in-ear monitors to dangerous levels to hear his own voice. During the tour, the three “decided that Jane’s Addiction’s decades of success should be jettisoned” in pursuit of that harassment campaign, the complaint says.
In Boston, the singer’s lawsuit says, “Farrell became angry that Navarro, playing at top volume, was bullying him yet again and callously refused to lower his volume despite his repeated requests. As a result of Navarro’s loud playing, which was excruciating and dangerous to Farrell, during the song ‘Ocean Size,’ Farrell reacted by body-checking Navarro. Farrell did not throw any punches, but simply wanted to alert Navarro that he had to stop playing so loud.”
The body check led to a sort of shoving match until Navarro and Farrell were separated by a guitar technician, the lawsuit alleges. That break allowed Avery “to put Farrell in a headlock and begin punching him repeatedly in the kidneys and stomach while Farrell was unable to defend himself,” Farrell’s complaint says.
Navarro was painted as the aggressor toward Farrell and his wife backstage and was quoted in the document as shouting, “I’ll never work with you again.”
Days after the altercation, Navarro, Avery and Perkins said in a statement posted on Navarro’s social media that “due to a continuing pattern of behavior and the mental health difficulties of our singer Perry Farrell, we have come to the conclusion that we have no choice but to discontinue the current US tour. Our concern for his personal health and safety as well as our own has left us no alternative. We hope that he will find the help he needs.”
Farrell’s lawsuit calls that statement libelous, but he is not suing for defamation or libel. He blames the other three band members for unilaterally deciding to end the tour.
“Shockingly, it has also become apparent that in addition to trying to seize the media narrative about the unfortunate events of September 13, 2024, Defendants made their false, malicious and defamatory statements about Perry Farrell in a disingenuous effort to secure insurance coverage for the consequences of their ill-conceived and unlawful cancellation of the tour,” Farrell’s lawsuit says.
The lawsuit from the other three says they had a “majority rules” system of decision-making in place for the tour because of previous problems with Farrell making decisions on his own. “With a series of swift blows,” the document says, Farrell “single-handedly destroyed the name, reputation, trademark, and viability of the Band and those who built it.”
“Ironically, it was Perry who convinced the original members to reunite for the Tour,” Navarro’s lawsuit says. “Even Navarro agreed to join, as he continued to fight long-term COVID-19 complications” while receiving $25,000 a month from a disability insurance policy. Navarro cut off those benefits, which the suit says could have continued for many months, to get the band back together and tour.
“Yet Perry was the only one who did not perform to the standards to which fans were accustomed,” the complaint says, alleging Perry “struggled night to night” and appeared to be intoxicated, forgot lyrics, lost his place in familiar songs and mumbled rants as he drank from a wine bottle onstage. While the band’s performance was lauded by music media, it says, Farrell’s was “widely panned.”
“If there is a question about what to believe, you can believe the video we’ve all watched,” attorney Christopher Frost, who is representing Navarro and the others, said in a statement to The Times. “You can believe Etty Farrell’s contemporaneous Instagram posts stating: ‘Perry was clearly the aggressor, I’m not arguing that point at all… [H]e has been struggling mentally for quite some time…’ You can believe Perry himself when he apologized to the Band: ‘I apologize to my bandmates, especially Dave Navarro, fans, family and friends for my actions during Friday’s show. Unfortunately, my breaking point resulted in inexcusable behavior.’ [The] complaint from Perry, including his account of events backstage after the September 13 show, is revisionist history. It won’t stand.”
Representatives for Farrell did not respond to The Times’ request for comment.
Both lawsuits seek jury trials with damages to be determined.
