Country trio Lady A and blues singer Anita White, also known as Lady A, have come to an agreement. We just don’t know what the actual outcome is. And until that happens, on my show, The Morning Hodag, I’m still calling them Lady Antebellum.
Billboard reports a settlement was reached in a Nashville court Monday between the group and White wherein both parties asked the judge to dismiss their respective lawsuits.
However, the details of the settlement, including how the name Lady A will be used going forward, have not been made public.
In June 2020, the country group of Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood changed its name from Lady Antebellum to Lady A in response to the racial justice protests taking place around the country in the wake of George Floyd‘s murder to disassociate the act from the name’s reference to the Antebellum South, which encompasses slavery.
“We are deeply sorry for the hurt this has caused and for anyone who has felt unsafe, unseen or unvalued,” the group wrote in an Instagram post announcing the name change. “Causing pain was never our hearts’ intention, but it doesn’t change the fact that indeed, it did just that.”
Soon after, White came forward and shared that she had been performing under the name Lady A for more than 20 years and cited their ignorance to the use of her name as “pure privilege.”
After an initial meeting between the two acts, the group took the moral highground (NOT!) and filed a lawsuit against White, asking the court to solidify their trademark to use the name Lady A. White launched countersued for $10 million, saying some of the money would be used to support her rebranding to a different name, with $5 million to be donated to various charities, support for independent artists and Black Lives Matter.