A psychiatrist has slapped Dr Dre with a $10 million lawsuit, accusing him of sending a “barrage of threats” including “homophobic rhetoric." According to a suit filed on Wednesday, October 9, in a Los Angeles court, Dr Charles J Sophy, a psychiatrist who claims to have mediated as a marriage counsellor for the rapper and his ex-wife Nicole Young before and during their divorce, maintains that Dre bombarded him with a series of abusive text messages 14 months after the divorce was finalised. 

In the docs, the doctor alleges Dre (Andre Young) of beginning his “campaign of harassment” and intentional infliction of emotional distress in February 2023, as the rapper purportedly then called the plaintiff a “bitch” and a “piece of sh*t” over text, according to TMZ’s reporting. The American record producer allegedly also threatened the marriage counsellor to make him pay. Sophy further says that Dre sent over his associates impersonating FBI agents to threaten his physical safety and send him a warning. In addition to suing the rapper for monetary damages of $10 million, the doctor seeks a restraining order to save him from being subjected to more harassment. 

Dr Charles Sophy vs Andre Young: Lawyers clash

Sophy’s lawyer, Christopher Frost of the firm Frost LLP, said that instead of “treating the mediation process as an opportunity for healing,” Dre chose to “take his frustrations about the mediation out on Dr Sophy.” These “frustrations” eventually “manifest themselves in the form of a nearly year-long sustained campaign of late-night texts, threats of intimidation and violence, and homophobic rhetoric,” as per Billboard. 

On the contrary, Andre Young’s lawyer, Howard King, told TMZ that Sophy filed the suit “only after he failed to pressure Mr Young into dropping efforts to get Dr Sophy punished for dereliction of duties and incredible incompetence. These claims are set forth in detail in a confidential complaint Mr. Young filed in 2023 with the Osteopathic Medical Board of California.”

He asserted that Young’s initial complaint “seeks revocation of Dr Sophy’s license to provide mental health counselling to needy patients. In gross violation of all applicable standards of care, Dr Sophy inserted himself into a contentious divorce while he simultaneously 'treated' not only Mr and Mrs Young, but their children.”

Dre’s attorney also added that Sophy was terminated when he supposedly found out how he was “encouraging” one of their children to “take sides against” the rapper. However, Sophy called out Dre’s accusations about him pushing his son to go the press against him as “baseless and far-fetched”. “Dr. Sophy has consistently rebuffed Medical Board attempts to investigate these claims, but has now filed this desperate suit while the noose of the Medical Board is tightening,” Howard King concluded his statement.

Dre allegedly wrote in an April 2023 text that he wasn’t going anywhere “until you explain to me why you tried to talk [an unnamed person] into saying negative things about me to the media.”

Billboard noted that since some of Dre’s threats were based on the doctor’s sexual orientation, they violated a California hate crime statute.

Dr Dre and Nicole Young's failed marriage

Sophy’s lawsuit establishes that Dre and his then-wife Nicole reached out to him in 2018 for a “joint psychotherapist-patient relationship.” He not only provided them with marriage counselling but also stuck with them along with their attorneys as the divorce case began. Nicole Young filed for divorce from the rapper in 2020, putting an end to a 24-year-long marriage. She cited allegations of abusive behaviour as the reason for the separation. Meanwhile, the record producer denied those claims. The former couple ultimately finalised their messy divorce in December 2021 with a $100 million settlement. 

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