Melissa Etheridge is facing a legal battle over her brief foray into the cannabis business, filed by two business partners in Northern California who claim that the singer “abandoned them” and left them in “financial ruin.”
The Grammy-winning songwriter, who rose to stardom in the 1990s with hits like “Come to My Window” and “I’m The Only One,” announced in 2019 that she would launch Etheridge Farms, which aimed to bring the benefits of cannabis to middle-aged women. “They’re looking to cannabis, and I want Etheridge Farms to be right there to answer what they’re looking for,” the singer said at the time.
But five years later, her former business partners now claim that Etheridge and her wife effectively torpedoed the company by refusing to support it. In a legal petition filed July 9 and obtained by Billboard, Josephine and D’Angelo Roberto say they’ve been “left with nothing.”
“The Robertos trusted the Etheridges and invested their life’s work into the businesses,” writes attorney Christopher Frost of the law firm Frost LLP, representing the Robertos. “Unfortunately, their hard work did not end in a success story, but rather betrayal and abandonment.”
The filing is a demand for arbitration, which initiates a litigation-like case that will play out similar to a lawsuit. But such cases, often required under corporate operating agreements, are decided by an arbitrator behind closed doors rather than by a judge in an open courtroom.
Representatives for the Etheridges, including their attorney who received the arbitration demand, did not return repeated requests for comment on the dispute. Attorneys for the Robertos declined to comment.
A Budding Partnership
The Robertos (nicknamed Jozee and Cricket) say they met Etheridge and her wife Linda Wallem-Etheridge via mutual friends in Northern California in 2017, and that the foursome then hatched a plan to launch a series of cannabis businesses, including Etheridge Farms and Etheridge Botanicals. In a 2019 article in San Jose’s Mercury News, the singer said she had been inspired in part by using cannabis amid a battle with breast cancer in the 2000s.
“I came out of chemotherapy saying, I want to be an advocate for this, I believe in this as medicine so deeply,” she told the Mercury News. “I started looking around California going, OK, what do I need to do — I want to be part of this — I actually turned to my friends and said, I want to be the face of cannabis.” In that same article, Jozee was quoted as saying that the Etheridges “genuinely share the same values that Cricket and I share about health and wellbeing.”
According to legal filings, the group secured a rental lease in 2018 on a large facility in Soquel, Calif. to manufacture and distribute their products, and also locked down important regulatory licenses for that property.
The plan, according to the Robertos, was for the couple to contribute their extensive cannabis industry expertise and work on product development, while the Etheridges would use their celebrity status to promote the business, seek outside investors, and continue to support the business financially.
Left High and Dry?
But while the Robertos say they “devoted every ounce of their money, time and attention” to the businesses, they claim the Etheridges failed to do the same. They say she failed to promote the business, and then stopped supporting the business financially. According to legal filings, by 2020 that allegedly included failing to pay the rent at the Soquel facility as promised; when the landlord finally booted them, the Robertos say it cost the business crucial regulatory licenses that had been tied to that property.
“Despite their persistent efforts, following the Etheridges’ complete lack of engagement and financial support to the Etheridge entities, the LLC sales and performance eventually withered away,” attorneys for the couple write in the demand for arbitration.
The alleged breakdown in the business came amid great personal tragedy for Etheridge. In May 2020, the singer announced that Beckett Cypher, her son with former partner Julie Cypher, had died from causes related to opioid addiction. Months later, the singer launched the Etheridge Foundation to advocate for and support research into new treatments for opioid addiction.
Those tragic events are not directly mentioned in the new legal filings, but attorneys for the Robertos allude to them in making their case.
“The Etheridges suffered personal losses for which the Robertos have much empathy,” the couple’s lawyers write in their filing earlier this month. “However, notwithstanding these personal losses and given the challenges faced by the parties, the Etheridges ultimately decided to let all of the joint ventures ‘die on the vine,’ stopped covering expenses that they promised to pay, and left the Robertos in a much worse situation.”
In technical terms, the demand for arbitration accuses the Etheridges of breaching their fiduciary duty to the companies; breaching their contract with the Robertos; violating legal promises they made to the couple; and making fraudulent and negligent misrepresentations.
The pair are seeking an undetermined amount of damages, but say they’re entitled to at least $3 million: “The Robertos have not pursued this action and are not proceeding to arbitration for fame or fortune or as a vendetta,” their lawyers write. “Rather, they simply seek compensation for the suffering they have had to endure and the financial ruin they have experienced due to the Etheridges abandoning them.”