Stacie Orrico, a singer who had a string of Christian pop hits in the early 2000s, has filed a lawsuit alleging she was sexually abused by her manager starting at age 14.
Orrico is suing her former manager, Britt Ham, as well as Universal Music Group (UMG), which owns her onetime record label ForeFront Records under the umbrella of Capitol Christian Music Group.
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“The Christian music industry disregarded signs of abuse and then abandoned her when the abuse surfaced,” reads the lawsuit, filed on Tuesday (Jan. 6) in Los Angeles. “After years of therapy and personal struggle, and an attempt to reconcile her religious upbringing and the hell she was put through at the hands of her abusers, plaintiff now brings this action to seek accountability for the abuse, exploitation and profound harm she suffered.”
Orrico was discovered in 1998 at a Christian music competition judged by Ham and Eddie DeGarmo, a member of the Christian rock duo Degarmo & Key and cofounder of ForeFront Records. DeGarmo signed Orrico to ForeFront a year later, when she was 13 years old, and Ham became her manager.
The lawsuit claims Ham began abusing Orrico when she was 14 years old. She alleges he first kissed and groped her at a Los Angeles hotel during a trip to promote her 2000 debut album Genuine, which hit No. 6 on Billboard‘s Top Christian Albums chart.
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“Plaintiff was confused [and] ashamed, but grew increasingly close to her abuser who impressed the importance of secrecy and the need to act Christian and wholesome in public,” the lawsuit reads.
Orrico says the abuse continued for years, and that she and Ham eventually had sex when she was 17 years old in 2003. This allegedly occurred during a promotional trip to Los Angeles for Orrico’s self-titled sophomore album, which went No. 1 on Top Christian Albums and produced the Billboard Hot 100 entries “Stuck” and “(There’s Gotta Be) More to Life.”
According to the lawsuit, DeGarmo and other ForeFront executives knew about the abuse but did not intervene or report Ham to law enforcement. Orrico alleges that the company “prioritized reputational and financial interests” over her safety.
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The lawsuit says Orrico fired Ham as her manager in 2004 and left ForeFront in 2007. She alleges that her music career “came to an abrupt end” because of Ham’s abuse, and that she faced emotional consequences for years.
“As a direct and proximate result of the defendants’ acts, plaintiff suffered and has continued to suffer many harms including but not limited: anxiety; depression; stress; panic attacks; interpersonal relationship dysfunction; muscle cramping; sensitivity to noise; artistic and creative impairment; performance anxiety and spiritual harm,” reads the lawsuit.
Orrico is now seeking financial damages for sexual abuse, sexual battery, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She’s suing under the California Child Victims Act, which extended the state’s statute of limitations for claims of childhood sexual abuse.
A rep for UMG declined to comment on the lawsuit on Thursday (Jan. 8). Contact information for Ham could not be located, and DeGarmo did not immediately return a request for comment.
