A dispute between Zac Brown and his estranged wife, Kelly Yazdi, has spilled into social media and the court system.
The Grammy-winning singer of the Zac Brown Band has sued Yazdi over an online post, prompting a forceful response from her on Instagram.
The couple, who got married last year, have each lobbed accusations of tarnishing one another’s reputation.
Here’s what to know about the controversy.
Brown, 45, filed a lawsuit in Georgia on May 17 demanding that Yazdi take down an Instagram post he said broke a confidentiality agreement and negatively impacted his public image, according to court documents obtained by NBC News.
He is seeking a temporary restraining order forcing her to remove the post. It’s not clear in the court documents what specific Instagram post he is asking to have taken down.
The lawsuit also asks for the court to prevent Yazdi from “making any defamatory, false, untrue, or otherwise damaging statements” about Brown, his family and his bandmates, according to NBC News.
Has Zac Brown publicly said anything about the lawsuit?
A day after filing the lawsuit, Brown issued a statement to NBC News about why he took legal action.
“After much deliberation, I took the steps necessary to enforce an agreement between us to maintain personal and business affairs in confidence and to protect my family from online harassment and speculation,” Brown said.
“My only hope is for us to keep private matters private and to move forward with the mutual respect we had agree to show one another when we parted ways,” he continued.
What is Kelly Yazdi’s response to the lawsuit?
Yazdi fired back with an Instagram post on May 20, calling Brown’s lawsuit “a meritless filing” and saying she will “not be silenced” by Brown’s “ridiculous” tactics.
The actor, model and hunter, who has appeared on the TV series “Hawaii Five-O,” said that the Instagram posts in question in the lawsuit are “two poems” she posted.
“I intend to respond swiftly and robustly to his meritless complaint that publication of two poems on my personal social media account divulged any ‘confidential information’ about his business, much less authorizes a court to enjoin me from speaking about matters in my personal life that have nothing to do with my brief former work for the Zac Brown Collective, Inc.,” she wrote.
Yazdi, 33, also alleged Brown released a music video that negatively portrayed her.
“It is beyond ironic that Zac’s first act after filing an unnecessary public divorce lawsuit was to release a music video that deliberately mocked our wedding party from only a few months before — including a false and defamatory caricature obviously intended to be me and hurt me — followed by a second unnecessary and legally meritless public lawsuit and press release, yet he now claims his ‘only hope’ is that we show each other ‘mutual respect’ by keeping ‘private matters private’ as we negotiate the terms of our divorce,” she wrote.
Yazdi went on to explain that she made “no public response” to Brown’s “unnecessary personal attacks” toward her in an effort to maintain privacy and establish respect. However, she said that Brown’s recent actions have shown his intentions are otherwise.
“But it is clearly Zac, not me, who has strategically chosen to drag our difficult divorce negotiations into the public eye with these tactics in an effort to portray himself as a victim and to use his vast resources to silence me from telling the truth about our marriage,” she wrote. “It will not work, and I will not be silenced by him no matter how ridiculous his tactics. Like Zac, I have lawyers too, and I will tell my truth in court — where he has unnecessarily dragged me.”
NBC News reached out to Brown for comment about Yazdi’s statement but has not heard back yet.
Discussion about this post