There’s trouble in paradise for our favorite female rap trio.
Spinderella, the DJ who has worked alongside the Grammy-winning group that is behind the 90s Black girl anthem “Push It,” has filed a suit against her two groupmates Salt-N-Pepa stating she was swindled out of compensation all the way back to 1999.
According to TMZ, the breach of contract lawsuit filed by DJ Spinderella in federal court in Texas says Spinderella was promised to receive $125,000, which was a third of the royalties for their Best Of album — but did not.
Spinderella, whose real name is Deidra Roper, also claims former bandmates Sandra “Pepa” Denton and Cheryl “Salt” James cheated her out of payments and then fired her ahead of a national reunion tour with New Kids On The Block earlier this year.
In an Instagram post back in May, she shared the news with her fans: “I’m deeply saddened to share with all the #SaltnPepa and #Spinderella fans that I will not be performing on the #NKOTB Mixtape Tour,” she wrote.
“Despite my participation in promoting the tour and being highly publicized as one of the acts, in January 2019 I received a ‘termination’ email from #SaltnPepa excluding me from performances with the group,” she elaborated in the post.
In a 42-page complaint filed Wednesday, Spinderella said she’s been an integral part of the group since her New York audition in the Spring of 1987, at the age of 16, when she was still in high school.
According to the New York Daily News, Spinderella said she performed on the group’s major recordings and was “routinely featured and spotlighted” at live shows, where “she generated significant on-stage excitement and delighted audiences with her captivating musical grooves and remarkable deejay tricks.”
It doesn’t end there. She claims “Salt” and “Pepa” later “duped” her into thinking she would share equally in a VH-1 show about the group’s rise to fame, but Spin says she was left out of the contract negotiation and only received “minimal compensation” for a guest role.
Many may recall that Spinderella is the second deejay to join the iconic Hip Hop group, which first banded in the mid-1980s. The first? Latoya Hanson who was recruited to be the then duo’s elemental disc jockey.
We hope the group works it out for the sake of the culture. What would Salt N Pepa be without DJ Spinderella?!