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Russell Greer is a man originally from Salt Lake City, Utah who gained notoriety from his lawsuits against celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, with his first lawsuit against Taylor Swift being documented in the media in 2016. As well as his lawsuits related to the legalization of Brothels in Utah and Nevada. (His actions also have garnered a cult following on social media, including details which the mainstream media has not reported on).
www.dailymail.co.uk
A Utah man is suing Taylor Swift for $7,000 for infliction of emotional distress because she didn't receive his uninvited music submissions.
Russell Greer from Salt Lake City blames Swift's agents for not forwarding his music to her.
He believes he is entitled to the singer's attention.
Mr Greer was allegedly told multiple times the Shake It Off songstress had a 'no unsolicited music' submission policy.
Mr Greer contacted Swift's parents and brother multiple times after he was told the music would not be passed on, according to Fox 13 Salt Lake City.
In one Facebook post, Mr Greer said he believed he was talking to Swift's brother on Twitter who said it would be fine to send his music to her home. Mr Greer said he later discovered the profile was fake.
He also created a Change.org petition titled 'Convince Taylor Swift to Record a Disabled Man's Music'. Mr Greer says he was born with facial paralysis and went through years of speech therapy.
Part of the online petition reads: 'I seek to have Taylor be my voice since I can't physically sing my music.
Taylor Swift's lawyer Greg Skordas said he believes Russell Greer's lawsuit is motivated by his desire to meet the '22' singer in person
Russell Greer claims the fact that Taylor Swift has gone to fans' proms in the past and performed at weddings means he was led to believe she would give his work attention
'I already tried approaching her through her managers, but they were unsympathetic to my story.'
He wrote: 'She created a MISREPRESENTATION that this would be OK thus she caused me to invest thousands of dollars and two years into making a decent song ABOUT HER only to be shafted by her and her agents.'
He also said celebrities 'HAVE A DUTY to act carefully given the positions of influence that they are in.'
In a now deleted video the plaintiff said in the caption: 'Taylor, I sue you to show you I care,’ and so that she will be forced to come to Salt Lake City and ‘com[e] to dinner with me.'
---
www.fox13now.com
SALT LAKE CITY -- A Utah man sued pop star Taylor Swift, claiming negligence on behalf of her agents after he wrote her a song and it was ignored.
Greer says he spent a lot of time and money to write a song for Swift and her agents never passed it along to her.
He's was asking for $7,000 in damages, but Swift's local lawyer, Greg Skordas, wanted the case to be thrown out entirely.
Right off the bat, Skordas argued the small claims court in Salt Lake City has no jurisdiction over his client and Judge Ed Havas agreed.
First, Greer claimed negligence on behalf of Swift's agents for not giving her the song he wrote, something he claims she has accepted from others before.
“Throughout the years I saw her actually accept unsolicited material. That's why I made a big deal out of this,” Greer said.
However, Judge Havas said that doesn't mean Swift has a duty to accept Greer's song.
Judge Havas also said Greer's claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress doesn't have a legal basis if Taylor Swift didn't owe anything to Mr. Greer.
Greer disagrees with the ruling.
“"Honestly his ruling goes against all logic,” Greer told Fox 13.
Greer told Fox 13 that other fans have been shown respect by Swift in the past and he expected the same treatment.
“I saw some girl write a letter to her and she goes to her wedding," he said. "I spend two years writing a decent song about her, and I get treated like a criminal."
Greer is not giving up, and he said he wants to file this case in federal court.
---
www.cityweekly.net
In addition, Greer filed a lawsuit against Ariana Grande in 2017, claiming that he was harassed by staff at a concert. The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice and Greer was fined by the court for filing the lawsuit in bad faith after it was revealed that he had originally stated on Facebook that he had had a wonderful time at the concert, and later changed his story. The full audio and transcript of the Ariana Grande Lawsuit is available:
---
More recently, Russell has filed lawsuits seeking to legalized brothels in Utah, and has tried to insert himself as a defendant into lawsuits which the legality of Brothels in Nevada - claiming that brothels are his only option for intimacy due to a facial paralysis disability. Greer allegedly filed a business license application in Salt Lake City to start his own brothel. His application was accepted by mistake, but later denied when the city learned his intention was to start a brothel:
www.kunr.org
A federal lawsuit was filed earlier this year by an anti-legal brothel lawyer, claiming sex trafficking is rampant in the businesses. While brothel owners deny this, the suit aims to ban brothels in Nevada. Now, a prospective defendant is looking to add himself to the suit. KUNR Reporter and Host Bree Zender spoke with News Director Michelle Billman about this latest wrinkle.
BILLMAN: Tell me about this man who is seeking to be added as a defendant.
ZENDER: Yeah, so his name is Russell Greer. He lives in Salt Lake City. He’s attempting to add himself as a defendant in this federal lawsuit, and he says that legal brothels are the only place that he can pursue a romantic and sexual relationship. He says because the muscles in his face are paralyzed, that takes him out of a typical dating pool.
Greer started seeing sex workers a few years ago in Utah, where it is illegal. He said to me over Skype that fear of being arrested brought him to the [legal] brothels here in Nevada:
“It really boosts my self-esteem. It is nice to be with someone who listens to you and who will touch [you.] There’s meaningful touching. You know, having a fun time.”
As Greer says, this provides him with an opportunity for intimacy that he doesn’t normally have. And by adding his name to this particular lawsuit, he wants to preserve the state’s brothel system so that he can continue to do that.
That being said, Greer has faced criticism online over alleged misogynistic comments on social media. He has also sued Taylor Swift in the past.
The lawsuit was dismissed, but his decision to sue her also drew criticism online and questions around his views of women.
ZENDER: A couple of years ago, he filed a business license application in Salt Lake City. He wanted to start his own brothel. The business license was first accepted by mistake, but then was retracted when they found out he was wanting to start a brothel. He sued the state of Utah. The case was dismissed, but he did want to take it to the supreme court [in an attempt] to try to legalize brothels everywhere, really. He compared it to the same-sex marriage case, where a couple was denied a marriage license, and then they sued and took it all the way to the supreme court, and then it was legalized back in 2015. So, he was aiming for that similar projectory for this suit, but not much has been brewing about the suit since then.
---
www.cityweekly.net
"I just wish people understood what it's like to be me," Russell Greer says. When the 25-year-old rides Trax in downtown Salt Lake City, he occasionally hears a passenger comment on his facial paralysis. He has Mobius syndrome, which means he can't move his eyes from side to side or close his lips.
"What's wrong with his face?" someone asks. He has to rein in his urge to lash out. "I'm not that kind of a person," he says. "That's why I like paying for sex. It helps calm me." He says he suffers from anxiety and depression, and has found intercourse to be healing. "It's really a shame the only legal place is Nevada."
His only choice—other than taking Amtrak or a plane to Nevada, where prostitution is legal in some counties—is to illegally pay for sex in Salt Lake City.
In a February 2016 City Weekly profile, Greer discussed his inability to get dates, and the comfort he sought from sex workers. After Nevada became prohibitively expensive—and he alleges one brothel worker robbed him of $4,000—he turned to Utah. That opened him up to all sorts of problems—from potential STI exposure, to what he calls fraud by women who misrepresent themselves in online ads, or theft and violent assault by them or their male companions. Then there's the threat of arrest and prosecution for soliciting.
So he decided to open a brothel, which Utah law does not permit. On Oct. 18, 2016, Greer—a paralegal recently in the spotlight for unsuccessfully suing singer Taylor Swift—filed a lawsuit against city, county and state officials, including Gov. Gary Herbert, for violating his constitutional rights by upholding laws that make sex work illegal. State officials at the various governmental agencies declined to comment on pending litigation.
"There are those who are unable to find partners their entire lives due to things beyond their control, and therefore live in loneliness and never experience intimacy," he wrote in his complaint. "[He] felt that paying for intimacy would help him feel loved and help him cope with his disability and his depression after counseling and medicine proved to not be effective."
His co-plaintiff in the lawsuit is a Salt Lake City-based sex worker identified as Tricia Christie (there are no listings under that name in Utah's district and justice court database). Greer paid Christie $500 for sex at her downtown apartment.
He says Christie agreed to be co-plaintiff initially, then stopped taking his calls and blocked his number. A call to her number provided by Greer went unanswered. While Christie did not sign off on the complaint, he included her "to make the point people are willing to do this illegally rather than challenge the laws," he says. Greer has broken the law in Utah repeatedly by soliciting sex, although he says his acts of "necessity" stopped in March 2016. He might appear to be exploiting Christie for his own interests, but, he says, "I'm trying to set an example of not just her but other people. You either follow the law or you don't."
In Greer's brief, however, he stated he intends to hand over ownership and management of the brothel to an unidentified "educated, classy, beautiful woman," who, he wrote, "could align with the policies of Greer's proposed brothel and help women in them."
Greer frequented a Nevada brothel owned by Dennis Hof, who says Doogan is wrong. His brothels essentially work on rental agreements with independent contractors, and are run on "common sense" rules of the house. He's proud of Greer for taking his fight to the courts. "The guy doesn't have much opportunity with women. He's taken the legal alternative. You've got to give him credit for that."
The very language of the brief is an issue for some. Greer wants "the classiest and most beautiful people" to work at his proposed brothel. Those who don't meet his criteria ("too old, not attractive, they have STDs, etc."), would be referred to talent agencies to find work.
Gina Salazar, a former Salt Lake City sex worker who's now a trafficking victim advocate, is also critical of Greer's ambitions. "He wants to open a brothel so he can get pleasure. He doesn't realize, in his own selfish game, what he's doing to these women.
What drives Greer, as much as his concern about disabled rights, is to quiet the need he has for intimacy. Salazar questions that paying for sex is a way to do that. "I don't think intimacy is made for us to give away or have for sale. It's more than that, and when it's false, then it kills a piece of your soul every time you give your body away."
But Greer says that even paid intimacy is an improvement on an absence of physical affection. "Intimacy is defined as affection, as pleasure. Maybe it's not 'real love,' but when you have nothing, something is everything.
---
More recently - in 2020, Greer was criminally charged and convicted of electronic communication harassment over an incident unrelated to his lawsuits. While details of the crime are available on social media, they haven't been reported on by the mainstream media:
Utah man sues Taylor Swift when her agents don't send his music to her
Russell Greer from Salt Lake City is suing Taylor Swift for $7,000 because her agents did not pass his music along to her. He claims he was misled to believe he would get the pop star's attention.
A Utah man is suing Taylor Swift for $7,000 for infliction of emotional distress because she didn't receive his uninvited music submissions.
Russell Greer from Salt Lake City blames Swift's agents for not forwarding his music to her.
He believes he is entitled to the singer's attention.
Mr Greer was allegedly told multiple times the Shake It Off songstress had a 'no unsolicited music' submission policy.
Mr Greer contacted Swift's parents and brother multiple times after he was told the music would not be passed on, according to Fox 13 Salt Lake City.
In one Facebook post, Mr Greer said he believed he was talking to Swift's brother on Twitter who said it would be fine to send his music to her home. Mr Greer said he later discovered the profile was fake.
He also created a Change.org petition titled 'Convince Taylor Swift to Record a Disabled Man's Music'. Mr Greer says he was born with facial paralysis and went through years of speech therapy.
Part of the online petition reads: 'I seek to have Taylor be my voice since I can't physically sing my music.
Taylor Swift's lawyer Greg Skordas said he believes Russell Greer's lawsuit is motivated by his desire to meet the '22' singer in person
Russell Greer claims the fact that Taylor Swift has gone to fans' proms in the past and performed at weddings means he was led to believe she would give his work attention
'I already tried approaching her through her managers, but they were unsympathetic to my story.'
He wrote: 'She created a MISREPRESENTATION that this would be OK thus she caused me to invest thousands of dollars and two years into making a decent song ABOUT HER only to be shafted by her and her agents.'
He also said celebrities 'HAVE A DUTY to act carefully given the positions of influence that they are in.'
In a now deleted video the plaintiff said in the caption: 'Taylor, I sue you to show you I care,’ and so that she will be forced to come to Salt Lake City and ‘com[e] to dinner with me.'
---
Judge dismisses Utah man’s lawsuit against Taylor Swift
SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah man sued pop star Taylor Swift, claiming negligence on behalf of her agents after he wrote her a song and it was ignored. Russell Greer presented his case in small claims court Thursday evening in Salt Lake City. Greer says he spent a lot of time and money to write a song for
www.fox13now.com
SALT LAKE CITY -- A Utah man sued pop star Taylor Swift, claiming negligence on behalf of her agents after he wrote her a song and it was ignored.
Greer says he spent a lot of time and money to write a song for Swift and her agents never passed it along to her.
He's was asking for $7,000 in damages, but Swift's local lawyer, Greg Skordas, wanted the case to be thrown out entirely.
Right off the bat, Skordas argued the small claims court in Salt Lake City has no jurisdiction over his client and Judge Ed Havas agreed.
First, Greer claimed negligence on behalf of Swift's agents for not giving her the song he wrote, something he claims she has accepted from others before.
“Throughout the years I saw her actually accept unsolicited material. That's why I made a big deal out of this,” Greer said.
However, Judge Havas said that doesn't mean Swift has a duty to accept Greer's song.
Judge Havas also said Greer's claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress doesn't have a legal basis if Taylor Swift didn't owe anything to Mr. Greer.
Greer disagrees with the ruling.
“"Honestly his ruling goes against all logic,” Greer told Fox 13.
Greer told Fox 13 that other fans have been shown respect by Swift in the past and he expected the same treatment.
“I saw some girl write a letter to her and she goes to her wedding," he said. "I spend two years writing a decent song about her, and I get treated like a criminal."
Greer is not giving up, and he said he wants to file this case in federal court.
---
The Price of Intimacy
A disabled man's fight to legalize sex work in Utah veers into stormy waters.
In addition, Greer filed a lawsuit against Ariana Grande in 2017, claiming that he was harassed by staff at a concert. The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice and Greer was fined by the court for filing the lawsuit in bad faith after it was revealed that he had originally stated on Facebook that he had had a wonderful time at the concert, and later changed his story. The full audio and transcript of the Ariana Grande Lawsuit is available:
More recently, Russell has filed lawsuits seeking to legalized brothels in Utah, and has tried to insert himself as a defendant into lawsuits which the legality of Brothels in Nevada - claiming that brothels are his only option for intimacy due to a facial paralysis disability. Greer allegedly filed a business license application in Salt Lake City to start his own brothel. His application was accepted by mistake, but later denied when the city learned his intention was to start a brothel:
New Defendant In Anti-Brothel Lawsuit Is Brothel Client
A federal lawsuit was filed earlier this year by an anti-legal brothel lawyer, claiming sex trafficking is rampant in the businesses. While brothel owners…
www.kunr.org
A federal lawsuit was filed earlier this year by an anti-legal brothel lawyer, claiming sex trafficking is rampant in the businesses. While brothel owners deny this, the suit aims to ban brothels in Nevada. Now, a prospective defendant is looking to add himself to the suit. KUNR Reporter and Host Bree Zender spoke with News Director Michelle Billman about this latest wrinkle.
BILLMAN: Tell me about this man who is seeking to be added as a defendant.
ZENDER: Yeah, so his name is Russell Greer. He lives in Salt Lake City. He’s attempting to add himself as a defendant in this federal lawsuit, and he says that legal brothels are the only place that he can pursue a romantic and sexual relationship. He says because the muscles in his face are paralyzed, that takes him out of a typical dating pool.
Greer started seeing sex workers a few years ago in Utah, where it is illegal. He said to me over Skype that fear of being arrested brought him to the [legal] brothels here in Nevada:
“It really boosts my self-esteem. It is nice to be with someone who listens to you and who will touch [you.] There’s meaningful touching. You know, having a fun time.”
As Greer says, this provides him with an opportunity for intimacy that he doesn’t normally have. And by adding his name to this particular lawsuit, he wants to preserve the state’s brothel system so that he can continue to do that.
That being said, Greer has faced criticism online over alleged misogynistic comments on social media. He has also sued Taylor Swift in the past.
The lawsuit was dismissed, but his decision to sue her also drew criticism online and questions around his views of women.
ZENDER: A couple of years ago, he filed a business license application in Salt Lake City. He wanted to start his own brothel. The business license was first accepted by mistake, but then was retracted when they found out he was wanting to start a brothel. He sued the state of Utah. The case was dismissed, but he did want to take it to the supreme court [in an attempt] to try to legalize brothels everywhere, really. He compared it to the same-sex marriage case, where a couple was denied a marriage license, and then they sued and took it all the way to the supreme court, and then it was legalized back in 2015. So, he was aiming for that similar projectory for this suit, but not much has been brewing about the suit since then.
---
The Price of Intimacy
A disabled man's fight to legalize sex work in Utah veers into stormy waters.
"I just wish people understood what it's like to be me," Russell Greer says. When the 25-year-old rides Trax in downtown Salt Lake City, he occasionally hears a passenger comment on his facial paralysis. He has Mobius syndrome, which means he can't move his eyes from side to side or close his lips.
"What's wrong with his face?" someone asks. He has to rein in his urge to lash out. "I'm not that kind of a person," he says. "That's why I like paying for sex. It helps calm me." He says he suffers from anxiety and depression, and has found intercourse to be healing. "It's really a shame the only legal place is Nevada."
His only choice—other than taking Amtrak or a plane to Nevada, where prostitution is legal in some counties—is to illegally pay for sex in Salt Lake City.
In a February 2016 City Weekly profile, Greer discussed his inability to get dates, and the comfort he sought from sex workers. After Nevada became prohibitively expensive—and he alleges one brothel worker robbed him of $4,000—he turned to Utah. That opened him up to all sorts of problems—from potential STI exposure, to what he calls fraud by women who misrepresent themselves in online ads, or theft and violent assault by them or their male companions. Then there's the threat of arrest and prosecution for soliciting.
So he decided to open a brothel, which Utah law does not permit. On Oct. 18, 2016, Greer—a paralegal recently in the spotlight for unsuccessfully suing singer Taylor Swift—filed a lawsuit against city, county and state officials, including Gov. Gary Herbert, for violating his constitutional rights by upholding laws that make sex work illegal. State officials at the various governmental agencies declined to comment on pending litigation.
"There are those who are unable to find partners their entire lives due to things beyond their control, and therefore live in loneliness and never experience intimacy," he wrote in his complaint. "[He] felt that paying for intimacy would help him feel loved and help him cope with his disability and his depression after counseling and medicine proved to not be effective."
His co-plaintiff in the lawsuit is a Salt Lake City-based sex worker identified as Tricia Christie (there are no listings under that name in Utah's district and justice court database). Greer paid Christie $500 for sex at her downtown apartment.
He says Christie agreed to be co-plaintiff initially, then stopped taking his calls and blocked his number. A call to her number provided by Greer went unanswered. While Christie did not sign off on the complaint, he included her "to make the point people are willing to do this illegally rather than challenge the laws," he says. Greer has broken the law in Utah repeatedly by soliciting sex, although he says his acts of "necessity" stopped in March 2016. He might appear to be exploiting Christie for his own interests, but, he says, "I'm trying to set an example of not just her but other people. You either follow the law or you don't."
In Greer's brief, however, he stated he intends to hand over ownership and management of the brothel to an unidentified "educated, classy, beautiful woman," who, he wrote, "could align with the policies of Greer's proposed brothel and help women in them."
Greer frequented a Nevada brothel owned by Dennis Hof, who says Doogan is wrong. His brothels essentially work on rental agreements with independent contractors, and are run on "common sense" rules of the house. He's proud of Greer for taking his fight to the courts. "The guy doesn't have much opportunity with women. He's taken the legal alternative. You've got to give him credit for that."
The very language of the brief is an issue for some. Greer wants "the classiest and most beautiful people" to work at his proposed brothel. Those who don't meet his criteria ("too old, not attractive, they have STDs, etc."), would be referred to talent agencies to find work.
Gina Salazar, a former Salt Lake City sex worker who's now a trafficking victim advocate, is also critical of Greer's ambitions. "He wants to open a brothel so he can get pleasure. He doesn't realize, in his own selfish game, what he's doing to these women.
What drives Greer, as much as his concern about disabled rights, is to quiet the need he has for intimacy. Salazar questions that paying for sex is a way to do that. "I don't think intimacy is made for us to give away or have for sale. It's more than that, and when it's false, then it kills a piece of your soul every time you give your body away."
But Greer says that even paid intimacy is an improvement on an absence of physical affection. "Intimacy is defined as affection, as pleasure. Maybe it's not 'real love,' but when you have nothing, something is everything.
---
More recently - in 2020, Greer was criminally charged and convicted of electronic communication harassment over an incident unrelated to his lawsuits. While details of the crime are available on social media, they haven't been reported on by the mainstream media:
