Fugees rapper Pras Michel has dropped his lawsuit against former bandmate Lauryn Hill that accused her of defrauding him and “gross mismanagement.”
Pras sued Hill in 2024 over a range of alleged wrongdoing, including claims that she had exploited his ongoing legal troubles to get him to agree to a reunion tour. Hill strongly denied the accusations, saying Michel’s lawsuit was “full of false claims and unwarranted attacks.”
But in a court filing on Wednesday obtained and first reported by Billboard, attorneys for both Pras and Hill agreed that he would voluntarily drop his lawsuit. Neither side immediately returned requests for comment or more details on what led to the dismissal.
One possible reason is that Pras is set to start a 14-year prison sentence later this month after he was convicted in 2023 on illegal foreign lobbying and conspiracy charges. He’s currently appealing that verdict and asking the court to allow him to stay free while he does so, but such challenges typically face long odds.
Wednesday’s dismissal came with a caveat, however: It was filed “without prejudice,” a legal term meaning that Pras could theoretically refile the same accusations against Hill at some point in the future.
Comprised of Hill, Michel, and Wyclef Jean, the Fugees rose to fame in the 1990s with hits like “Killing Me Softly,” “Ready or Not,” and “Fu-Gee-La.” After splitting up in 1998, the three each had successful solo careers and mostly stayed separate until recent years, when they attempted multiple reunion tours.
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In 2019, Michel was hit with sweeping federal criminal charges over accusations that he funneled money from fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low, the mastermind of the billion-dollar 1MDB embezzlement scheme, to a lobbying campaign aimed at getting the first Trump administration to drop its investigation into Low. He was also accused of secretly funneling Low’s money to Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, and of later trying to influence an extradition case on behalf of China.
In April 2023, following a trial that included testimony from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Michel was convicted on 10 counts, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government. Last year, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison and ordered to forfeit a whopping $64 million allegedly linked to the scheme.
Michel sued Hill in 2024, claiming she had exploited his mounting legal bills to get him to sign onto a plan for the 2023 tour with false promises – a deal he said enriched Hill at his expense. His lawyers claimed she took advantage of a “desperate man” who needed to pay expensive criminal lawyers, using an advance of cash to get him to sign a deal with “onerous terms” that he would have “easily rejected in the years before his criminal conviction.”
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Hill denied Michel’s accusations at the time, saying he had omitted many key facts about the dispute, including that she had made sure that he secured a $3 million advance to pay his legal bills and that he had not yet paid that money back.
“This baseless lawsuit by Pras is full of false claims and unwarranted attacks,” Hill wrote in her response. Still, she said: “Despite his attacks, I am still compassionate and hope things work out for him.”
Ahead of Wednesday’s dismissal, Michel’s case had been in discovery for months as the two sides exchanged evidence. Both sides would have then filed motions seeking to end the case in their favor, with a trial scheduled to start in June if those motions were denied.
