Ariana Grande has launched legal action against a network of unidentified hackers responsible for stealing her unreleased music and private media.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in Los Angeles and reviewed by Variety, targets «John Does» who allegedly orchestrated phishing scams and breached the digital accounts of Grande’s close collaborators. According to the court documents, these cybercriminals subsequently sold the stolen material for «significant sums of money.»
Grande’s legal team stated the litigation aims to unmask the perpetrators and hold them accountable for their «invasive and reprehensible conduct.» The filing emphasised the singer’s desire to aggressively deter similar digital theft in the future on behalf of herself and others in the entertainment industry.
The court documents detail a sophisticated pattern of illegal behaviour stretching back to Grande’s 2011 music debut, noting that hundreds of separate leaks have occurred over her career.
These security breaches have escalated significantly in recent years. In 2019 cybercriminals compromised a photographer’s Dropbox account. A year later hackers infiltrated a producer’s mobile phone to extract unreleased masters, demo tracks and recording session footage.
The digital theft intensified in 2023 when perpetrators successfully accessed and leaked 45 unreleased songs. Most recently in 2024 the hackers employed impersonation tactics by creating a fake email address and domain name mimicking one of Grande’s photographers. This ruse successfully deceived a digital technician into transferring unpublished images belonging to the singer.
