Mindy McCready Sues National Enquirer Over Drug-Use Claims

Country singer claims she’s lost more than $50 million due to tabloid’s unflattering coverage

To paraphrase a Mindy McCready song, a girl's gotta sue when a girl's gotta sue.

The troubled county singer filed a lawsuit against the National Enquirer on Friday, claiming that the tabloid made numerous false statements about her drug use and custody fight for her five-year-old son Zander.

Read the full lawsuit here.

In the suit, McCready (born Malinda Gayle McCready) cites a June 2011 article published first on the Enquirer's website and then in the print edition, which claimed, among other things, that McCready had failed eight court-ordered drug tests, had failed to show up at a custody hearing for Zander and is under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

Not only are those claims false, the suit asserts, but the magazine's source for its claims was McCready's mother, Gayle Inge, who was at the time engaged in a bitter custody battle with the singer over Zander. The Enquirer knew that, the suit asserts, and thus should have known that Inge is "a non-credible source for truthful and unbiased information."

(The suit also takes issue with the Enquirer's "use of purposely misleading typeset.")

McCready's suit doesn't list specific damages, but it does claim that the Enquirer's coverage has cost her "in excess of $50,000,000 by way of lost opportunities."

McCready's struggles with substance abuse are well documented, most prominently through a stint on the reality series "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew."

The Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc. — which is also named in the suit — did not immediately respond to The Wrap's request for comment.

Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.
 

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