Mariah Carey Liquor Brand Sued

Two years ago Mariah Carey launched her Black Irish cream liqour brand [click here if you missed that]. 

Now Mariah's business partner is being accused of not paying their PR team...

From The Blast

Mariah Carey‘s alcohol brand is being sued by a publicity company that they weren’t paid for thousands of dollars in services.

In exclusive court documents obtained by The Blast, a California company, Calhoun run by Katie Calhoun — a media relations expert with 20+ years of industry experience — sued Carey’s business partner (the parent company of Black Irish) — for allegedly not paying for its services.

The Queen of Christmas launched the Black Irish Liqueur line in 2021 with a range of cream liqueurs, explaining that the name was a representation of her Irish and Black roots.

Calhoun, who provides public relations and marketing services for wine and spirits brands, alleged that her company was approached by Herzog in September 2022, asking her to help promote the brand, only to later fail to pay for her services.

“Herzog leveraged his family connection to Calhoun’s existing client to establish business credibility with Calhoun, and he thereafter made representations to Katie that he and Carey were business partners who together through Defendant SB owned the Black Irish brand,” an excerpt of the document reads.

The filing continues, “Herzog deliberately made these representations to induce Katie into extending the business credit and business goodwill of her company, and to induce Calhoun into immediately begin working to promote the Black Irish brand without first having a written contract in place.”

Despite the lack of a contract, Calhoun and her team got to work in October 2022 and incurred “out-of-pocket fees,” claiming Herzog kept promising she would be paid “soon.” They eventually signed a contract in November 2022 with Herzong promising to pay $5,000 a month. The contract also requested “SB to reimburse the company for out-of-pocket expenses within 30 days after submission of an expense report.”

The lawsuit accuses Herzog of struggling to make the $5,000 per month payment often lying to Calhoun, telling her to “check in the mail.”

“All the while, Herzog made representations that he was good for the money, that his business partner, Carey, is good for the money, and that payments were forthcoming. These representations were false. Herzog made these representations to induce Plaintiff to continue its work on promoting the Brand for free meanwhile Herzog had no intention of making any further payments to Plaintiff for the retainer fee or to reimburse Plaintiff for any of the very significant out-of-pocket costs,” it reads.

The lawsuit launched five causes of action against the “All I Want For Christmas” songstress’s company including Breach of Contract, Intentional Misrepresentation, Negligent Misrepresentation, Conspiracy, and Common Counts of Goods and Services Rendered.” Calhoun and her team are seeking, compensatory Damages in an amount of no less than $44.226.56.