Reality TV personality Gloria Govan is currently embroiled in a legal dispute with Silver Leaf Events. The company has filed a lawsuit claiming that the “Basketball Wives” star and her RLNTLSS Brands entity have breached their contract, committed fraud, intentionally misrepresented facts, and conspired to engage in unfair business practices.
The lawsuit asserts Govan never signed a contract, and had the group working on good faith.
Who’s Suing Govan
Amanda Tingler, the owner of Silver Leaf Events, alleges in the complaint that she was introduced to Govan in January 2023, and subsequently entered into a professional arrangement through which her company would produce multiple episodes of a video project for Govan’s cannabis business.
According to Silver Leaf’s proposal, the company was being hired to handle videography and postproduction for $15,000. A contract reportedly officially was in place by April 2023.
The lawsuit says that Govan, 38, agreed to pay the rate for the services.
“[Silver Leaf] worked on the project through the end of April while regularly collaborating with GLORIA GOVAN and getting things ready with the brands and production team for filming,” the complaint read, according to RadarOnline. “[Silver Leaf] filmed the content for the project, as directed by GLORIA GOVAN, on April 19, 2023. That morning, prior to filming, [Silver Leaf] sent GLORIA GOVAN a text message reminding her to sign the contract and to please send payment immediately.”
The Oakland native reportedly told the company that she’d give the contract and money to them, but she didn’t. Instead, she allegedly had the company wait for weeks for her to deliver the payment. The company claims to never have received payment from the “A Mixed Girl’s Favorite Recipes” author.
The executives at the company told Govan, who has an estimated net worth of $5 million, that they were starting to have concerns about getting paid. Yet again, according to the complaint, she reassured them that she would be paying them, promising to send them the money through a wire.
Still, she never did, the lawsuit claims, according to RadarOnline.
“GLORIA GOVAN messaged [Silver Leaf] back saying that she was going to send money on Zelle for $7500.00 of the amount that was owed for production of the first episode,” the claim alleges. “Again, Defendants sent no payment for this amount to [Silver Leaf]. GLORIA GOVAN then stated that she could only send $1,000.00, but she would send more in “installments” as they moved forward with the project.”
The production company finally stopped working on Govan’s project in May 2023, citing her non-payment as the reason for the halt.
According to the lawsuit, Silver Leaf believes Govan deceived Tingler and made her company bear expenses for their business and did so without any intention of paying for the work done or the production costs.
Now they are asking the court to award them $30,000 in damages.
Where Govan stands on the lawsuit may not be clear to the public, but her attention does seem to have another focus: on the state of cannabis in California.
“It’s a shame that California cannabis brands, operators, and retailers are shuttering their doors after 5+ years of being in business,” she wrote on her LinkedIn page. “It’ll be 6 years of legal in this state next month and we don’t have much to show for it. I would hope that other states could learn from our mistakes but I fear we are repeating the same patterns.”
As the comments rolled in, she engaged other cannabis business owners, talking about taxes and what should be done in other states as they move to end the prohibition of the Schedule 1 drug.
While she is relatively active on social, she has not publicly addressed Silver Leaf’s claim.
Govan was wedded to Matt Barnes from 2012 to 2016, during which time the couple had twin sons, Carter and Isaiah. Following their divorce, the father obtained full custody of the children, according to the Daily Mail. Now she is married to another basketball star, Derek Fisher.
