Chris Brown is seeking to block any mention of past domestic abuse allegations in his upcoming dog attack trial, including his 2008 assault of former girlfriend Rihanna.
In a lawsuit filed in 2021, Brown’s former housekeeper, Patricia Avila, alleged that her sister was attacked by the singer’s Caucasian Shepherd Ovcharka. While the two-time Grammy winner reportedly called 911 after the incident, Avila claimed she witnessed the dog rip “three to four inches of skin” from her sister’s arm, leaving her with PTSD, anxiety, and panic attacks.
According to new court filings, with the trial set to begin on February 9, Brown is asking the court to stop the plaintiffs and their counsel from “directly or indirectly” bringing up his past incidents or allegations involving domestic violence.
In February 2008, Brown, who was 19 at the time, assaulted Rihanna, then 20, in a car just two days before the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. He has also been accused of attacking former girlfriend Karrueche Tran, as well as several other women, some of whom shared their accounts in the 2024 docuseries Chris Brown: A History of Violence.
The defense argued that “Plaintiffs may attempt to introduce evidence, argument, or references to prior incidents, complaints, investigations, or alleged conduct involving domestic violence or sexual assault by Defendants which bear no relevance to dog ownership, dog bites, or animal attacks.”
Brown’s legal team maintains that such evidence is “irrelevant” under California dog bite law and could lead to “confusion of the issues or an emotional, rather than legal, verdict.”
Earlier this month, reports surfaced that Brown’s $500 million defamation lawsuit against Warner Bros. Discovery and Ample Entertainment over the History of Violence documentary had been dismissed. In her ruling, Judge Colin Leis said an allegation involving Brown allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in 2020 on a yacht owned by Diddy amounted to a “fair and true” account of the woman’s statements and the related judicial records and proceedings.
