A judge says Muni Long’s former managers cannot subpoena her medical records after she publicly accused them of involuntarily committing her to a mental health facility.
The evidentiary ruling came amid a bitter lawsuit between the Grammy-winning R&B singer (real name Priscilla Renea Hamilton) and her ex-managers Chaka Zulu and Jeff Dixon and their Ebony Son Entertainment, in which both sides have hurled insults and accusations of legal wrongdoing at the other.
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Among other disputes, Zulu and Dixon claim Long defamed them by publicly accusing them of forcing her into a mental health facility against her will. To prove that statement was false, they asked for a court order forcing the facility to hand over her medical records.
But in an order Thursday (Oct. 8), Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn ruled that such records are clearly privileged and off-limits — whether from the facility or from Long herself. The judge said the managers can seek out “non-medical information,” but not records or details about care.
“Plaintiff may ask Hamilton about the circumstances of her admission to the clinic but may not seek discovery of her medical records and treatment,” the judge wrote in the order, obtained by Billboard.
Zulu and Dixon, veteran music managers best known for their long partnership with Ludacris, sued Long in October 2025, claiming she was refusing to pay more than $600,000 in commissions after firing them. They called her a “serial grifter” who had “shamelessly reneged” on her promises to pay them.
In a media statement responding to the case, Long’s reps claimed Zulu and Dixon had at some point taken her phone and “sought to have her involuntarily committed to a mental health facility,” when what she really needed was treatment for a Lupus flare-up. Long then countersued them in January, claiming she had “experienced excruciating pain and mental anguish” from being “forced” to remain at the Cleveland Clinic Indian River Behavioral Health Center in March 2024.
Long later dropped that accusation from the litigation. But last month, Zulu and Dixon added a claim of defamation to their case, claiming the public allegations about involuntary commitment were “outlandish” and false: “That statement is a blatant lie designed to disparage plaintiff’s reputation in the music industry.”
To prove that claim, attorneys for Zulu and Dixon had sought access to “essentially all documents related to Hamilton’s treatment” at the Cleveland Clinic, including her “diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment.” Though documents are normally covered by doctor-patient privilege, they argued she had waived those protections by bringing the issue into the lawsuit herself.
But in her ruling on Thursday, Judge Netburn pointed out that Long had dropped those claims: “Hamilton’s initial counterclaim … put her mental health at issue and, thus, would have waived her privilege,” the judge wrote. “But Hamilton never released her records before she withdrew the counterclaim, and therefore her privilege was reinstated.”
Zulu and Dixon’s had lawyers argued that the medical records were the “the best (and likely the only) contemporaneous evidence” to help prove they didn’t involuntarily commit their client. But the judge said that was not enough to void a crucial safeguard like medical privilege.
“This is true even if, as Ebony Son contends, her medical records are ‘the best’ evidence to prove the falsity of Hamilton’s statements,” Judge Netburn wrote. “Indeed, the nature of evidentiary privileges is that they will sometimes block a party from relevant discovery.”
Attorneys for both sides and reps for Long did not immediately return a request for comment.
Following Thursday’s ruling, the case remains at the earliest stages. In addition to defamation, Zulu and Dixon are accusing Long of breach of contract, unjust enrichment and other wrongdoing over her alleged failure to pay. Long, meanwhile, is accusing the pair of breaching their fiduciary duty to a client through alleged failures in their managerial roles.
