Frank Ocean called his estranged father out for homophobia. Now his father's suing him.
Openly queer singer Frank Ocean is facing legal action, TMZ reports, from his estranged father, Calvin Cooksey, who’s claiming that his Grammy award-winning son has caused him significant financially trouble after accusing Cooksey of being a homophobe.
In the wake of the shootings at Pulse nightclub in Orlando last summer, Ocean took to his personal Tumblr blog to describe his own encounters with homophobia that have shaped his feelings on those who express anti-LGBTQ bigotry. While Ocean recalled hearing homophobic rhetoric in the church, he also described a childhood experience with his father that fundamentally changed the way that he felt about the man.
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“I was six years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a faggot as he dragged me out a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn’t be served because she was dirty,” Ocean wrote. “That was the last afternoon I saw my father and the first time I heard that word, I think, although it wouldn’t shock me if it wasn’t.”
Now, Cooksey is taking Ocean to court to the tune of $14.5 million over claims that his son’s statement about his alleged homophobia is hurting his own fledgling music career. This wouldn’t be the first time that Cooksey, an apparently litigious man, attempted to go after other people in the music industry for large sums of money. In 2014, Cooksey filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against Russell Simmons for $142 million after Simmons’ website, Global Grind, mentioned that Ocean has spoken about how his father was not a part of his life growing up.