First Access lawyers warn that Lil Peep lawsuit could leave music companies as ‘full-time babysitters for artists’

First Access Entertainment has laid out its defense in a US-based legal case regarding the tragic death of rapper Lil Peep, aged 21, in November 2017.

Medical practitioners ruled the death of Peep, real name Gustav Elijah Ahr, as being caused by an accidental overdose of Xanax and fentanyl.

In October last year, the mother of Ahr, Liza Womack, filed a lawsuit against First Access Entertainment (FAE), the management and label services company co-founded by Sarah Stennett and Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries in 2015.

Womack’s suit alleged that, throughout 2017,  Ahr was “stressed, overwhelmed, burnt out, exhausted and physically unwell”, and that First Access was partly responsible, even complicit in, the artist’s drug-taking – something Stennett’s company has strenuously denied.

Now, as first covered on Rolling Stone, First Access has provided an extensive legal response to Womack’s allegations as part of a demurrer document filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court on December 23.

The crux of FAE’s defense is summed up by its lawyers’ suggestion that the firm “did not owe an independent duty of care to Mr. Ahr, breach such a duty, or cause his death…”