Vicky Cornell's lawyer says Soundgarden aims to "maliciously defame" her

Soundgarden and Vicky Cornell are once again embroiled in a legal battle. The surviving members recently filed a lawsuit against Chris Cornell's widow, accusing her of locking them out of the band's social media account, changing the password to Soundgarden's website, and leaving the profiles in “a state of neglect.” They're asking a judge to order Vicky to either share the passwords or write a final social media post that states: “Soundgarden has temporarily suspended its official social media accounts due to pending litigation.”

Ahead of the April 16 hearing, Vicky's Lawyer Marty Singer slammed the band for aiming to "maliciously defame" and "harass" his client and her children.

“Ms. Cornell’s forthcoming motion will expose the truth about the Soundgarden‘s supposed social media accounts. Ms. Cornell created the social media accounts; grew the accounts by allowing them to trade on Chris‘ then-existing, popular accounts; devoted her personal time and money in growing these accounts as Soundgarden displayed absolutely no interest in social media (unless it was to promote their solo projects)," he wrote in a statement. "Ms. Cornell has overseen these accounts for close to a decade. The fact that Soundgarden is unaware of the usernames and passwords for their alleged ‘own’ accounts confirms their utter lack of involvement in creating, growing and maintaining their alleged accounts."

"Soundgarden solely wants the social media accounts in order to maliciously defame Ms. Cornell, provoke her online stalkers (as Matt Cameron has done continuously) and to instigate third-parties to harass Ms. Cornell and her minor children," he continued. "Moreover, while they now claim a sense of urgency, Soundgarden‘s claim are a stale repacking of the claims that they filed in the Florida court in May of 2020.”

The suit he's referring to claimed that Vicky had taken control of the band's social media and was using it to "denigrate the band and surviving band members," among other things, and was dropped in July.

Former manager Ron Lafitte issued a statement standing up for Vicky, which was posted on the Chris Cornell Instagram account's story.

“During my six years working with Chris Cornell and Soundgarden, Chris and Vicky always controlled all of Soundgarden‘s social media accounts, both directly and through their own personal social media representative," Lafitte wrote. "At no time were any other members of Soundgarden involved, and this was true both before and after Chris died. Because of this, Soundgarden‘s attempt to seek an injunction in connection with the social media accounts is surprising to say the least.”

The lengthy legal battle began in December 2019, when Vicky initially sued the surviving members over unreleased recordings.

This article was first published on iheart.com and is republished here with permission