Earlier this month we told you how Bob Hilliard, the lawyer representing Treston Blount—father of the late Ezra Blount, Astroworld’s youngest victim— filed an emergency motion against Travis Scott’s announcement of his new Project Heal initiative alleging that it violated a gag order.
Now, per a court hearing on Monday, Hilliard has further alleged that the “Out West” rapper “used the power of his social media presence to address concert safety” in his publicizing of Project Heal, one of the main arguments at the center of all these lawsuits, according to the AP.
But according to Scott’s lawyer, Stephen Brody, that isn’t the case. Brody argued that even before the inception of the initiative, similar endeavors were “a constant in his [Scott’s] life” and “to suggest somehow that speaking about those charitable initiatives...runs afoul of the publicity order...is certainly not something that would withstand scrutiny.”
Scott’s team has also said that the insinuation that talking about the project violates a gag order should hold no merit as it is his freedom to do so under the First Amendment.
“It is also disappointing that Mr. Hilliard would attack Project HEAL, a series of philanthropic gestures designed to give students and young people a leg up,” said Scott’s spokesperson Stephanie Rawlings Black at the time. “Project HEAL is a continuation of Travis Scott’s longstanding work, including academic scholarships and creative design programs for underprivileged students. Mr. Hilliard’s outburst holds no merit and is just a publicity stunt when the court expressly prohibited the very same actions that Mr. Hillaird has engaged in.”
Since the initial announcement of Project HEAL, additional family members of Ezra Blount have come out against it. Blount’s grandmother Tericia likened to a “PR stunt” and an attempt by Scott to “be the good guy and trying to give his own verdict on safety.”