CRADLE OF FILTH frontman Dani Filth has publicly responded to a lawsuit filed by six former bandmembers and collaborators, denying any wrongdoing on the band's part.
The dispute traces back to August 2025, when guitarist Marek "Ashok" Šmerda and keyboardist Zoe Marie Federoff announced their departures from CRADLE OF FILTH. In October 2025, Šmerda and Federoff filed a legal complaint in Arizona; the complaint was amended the following month to add four more plaintiffs — guitarists Richard Shaw and Paul Allender, keyboardist Lindsay Matheson and Sasha Baxter, a model who appeared in the band's music videos. Allender had two separate stints in CRADLE OF FILTH, from 1992 to 1995 and 1999 to 2014, while Matheson was a member from 2013 to 2020.
According to the complaint, the plaintiffs allege unpaid royalties, compensation they describe as too low relative to their workload, contracts they characterize as "psychopathic," unpaid studio time across three albums released in 2017, 2021 and 2025, unauthorized commercial use of their likenesses in merchandise, and unauthorized use of sigils created by Matheson.
Addressing the situation in a new interview with Hot Metal, Filth said the band largely tried to move past the complaint rather than respond publicly to it until now. "We just ignored it," he said. "We actually, as people, as a band, as me, had done absolutely zero wrong." He characterized the dispute as having been "blown out of proportion," pointing instead to the band's long history of lineup turnover: "Bands evolve... We evolve and move on."
CRADLE OF FILTH, formed in 1991, has built its three-decade run around Filth as the sole constant member through numerous lineup changes, with the band's revolving-door roster long a subject of conversation among fans of the extreme metal scene. The band's most recent studio album arrived in 2025, continuing a run of releases that spans back to 1994's "The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh."