Lady Gaga Fires Back After Winning $100 Million ‘Mayhem’ Lawsuit, Demands Surf Brand Pay Up - VICE
Lady Gaga has fired back at a surf company after previously winning their $100 million lawsuit against her. The company, …Lost, took Gaga to court over the branding around her sixth studio album, Mayhem (2025). Now, in a new court filing, Gaga is asking a judge to order the company to pay her legal bills.
Per Billboard, this started in March 2025. …Lost sued Lady Gaga for $100 million, arguing that her “Mayhem” branding was “substantially similar if not nearly identical” to their trademarked “Mayhem” logo used by surfboard shaper Matt “Mayhem” Biolos. The surf legend says he’s been using the name and imagery on surfboards since the late 1980s.
“We don’t want her money,” Biolos said in a statement at the time. “We want her stuff; We want her to not make any merch with our name on it.” However, a judge ultimately dismissed the lawsuit in August.
The judge ruled that …Lost didn’t successfully prove that Gaga’s use of “Mayhem” was confusing to consumers. The company’s attorney, Keith Bremer, said they “respectfully disagree” with the decision. He also stated they planned to appeal, though as of this writing it does not appear they have.
Now, Lady Gaga is asking to be reimbursed for $232,484 in legal bills she incurred while fighting the lawsuit. She and her legal team have called the case a “publicity stunt.”
In their filing, Gaga’s lawyers say the case was “never a legitimate lawsuit.” Rather, they say it was an erroneous attempt to “capitalize on the fame and popularity of Lady Gaga” by taking her to court for using “a common dictionary word.”
“A litigant should not be permitted to use the federal courts to launch a publicity stunt masquerading as a lawsuit against a high-profile artist,” Gaga’s attorney wrote in the filing. “Nor should it be permitted to wield the machinery of litigation as a device for extracting a settlement that the merits cannot justify. This lawsuit was both.”
None of the parties appear to have issued statements on the new legal fees filing.
