Learnmore Jonasi was on stage at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles when he found out the news. A Grammy-winning composer wanted $27 million off him for a joke about The Lion King. That’s the version Vice reported, anyway: papers served mid-gig. It’s either the worst or the best crowd-work prompt a comic could ask for.<\/p>\n
On Friday 10 July, U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton dismissed the case, and the $27 million Lion King lawsuit died with it. It was filed in March by Lebohang Morake, the South African composer known as Lebo M, who sang the opening vocals on “Circle of Life.” Jonasi’s lawyers are now going after Morake for the legal fees. We wrote about the copyright and defamation questions this raised for working comics<\/a> back when it was filed. Back then, the number alone, $27 million, read like a decimal-point error.<\/p>\n Yes, in the sense that matters: the case is dismissed and he isn’t paying anyone $27 million. Judge Staton signed off on 10 July, and Jonasi’s lawyer Bryan Sullivan told Rolling Stone the outcome vindicated his client’s free-speech rights.<\/p>\n “We have always believed this was a frivolous lawsuit in violation of our client’s First Amendment rights.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The dismissal was voluntary, which matters for what comes next. Jonasi’s team say they’ll pursue attorneys’ fees under California’s anti-SLAPP statute. That’s the law built to punish lawsuits that exist mainly to shut people up. He’s already merchandising the result, too – shirts reading “Look, it’s a Lawsuit. Oh, my God,” a gag that only lands if you know the joke that started all of this, which we should probably get to.<\/p>\n The chant that opens “Circle of Life” – “Nants’ingonyama bagithi Baba” – is Zulu. On the One54 Africa podcast, Jonasi offered his own translation: “Look, there’s a lion. Oh, my God.” Morake’s complaint insisted the real meaning is closer to “All hail the king, we all bow in the presence of the king.” He said Jonasi’s version was false and damaging to his life’s work.<\/p>\n Here’s the wrinkle the filings didn’t dwell on: Jonasi grew up speaking Shona in Chimanimani, in eastern Zimbabwe, not Zulu. His was a comic’s translation, doing what a comic’s translation does – deflating something grand into something daft on a podcast. He isn’t a nobody, either. Terry Crews handed him the Golden Buzzer on America’s Got Talent in 2024, and he made the show’s final five before settling in Pittsburgh. That’s a fairly steep drop from Golden Buzzer to $27 million defendant in about eighteen months.<\/p>\n The money side is where this gets uncomfortable for anyone doing topical material for a living. Jonasi didn’t fold because he was wrong; the maths of fighting a well-funded plaintiff nearly folded him regardless. He launched a GoFundMe to cover the legal costs, opening with a line that isn’t a bit at all.<\/p>\n “My name is Learnmore Jonasi, and I am reaching out during one of the most difficult moments in my life. I was recently hit with a $27 million lawsuit by renowned artist Lebohang Morake (Lebo M) over a joke I made about the Lion King’s opening Zulu chant.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Per Complex, Jonasi said the $20,000 needed to fight the claim was beyond his means. Twenty grand, to defend a few seconds of a podcast. That’s the figure any comic doing topical or observational material for door money should sit with, because a suit doesn’t have to be winnable to be ruinous – the defence bill lands regardless of whether the plaintiff has a case, and the crowdfunder was the stopgap that kept the lights on.<\/p>\n California’s anti-SLAPP law is why Jonasi has a route back. It lets a defendant claw back fees when a suit is aimed at chilling protected speech. Plenty of jurisdictions have no equivalent, which is why a British comic in the same spot would be far more exposed. The free-speech question keeps landing on venue owners as well – the Glee chain signed a booking charter<\/a> around exactly this sort of anxiety earlier in the year.<\/p>\n And the crowdfunder is becoming a grim regular fixture. When Leicester Comedy Festival left performers out of pocket, the fix was a hardship fund passing round \u00a35,000<\/a>; when a comic gets sued into the ground, it’s a GoFundMe. Hold that against the \u00a34.24m sitting in Frankie Boyle’s company accounts<\/a> – a handful of names with reserves deep enough to ride out a bad year, and everyone else passing a bucket round the room.<\/p>\n Jonasi’s merch is still up. So is the GoFundMe. And somewhere in a Los Angeles filing cabinet there’s a motion asking a Grammy winner to reimburse a Zimbabwean comic for the privilege of being sued over four seconds of Zulu – if it succeeds, it’ll be the first time “Circle of Life” has genuinely paid a stand-up.<\/p>\nDid Learnmore Jonasi win the Lion King lawsuit?<\/h2>\n
What the joke actually said<\/h2>\n
What it costs to defend a punchline<\/h2>\n
Sources<\/h2>\n