Even the best musical partnerships can die: Chad Hugo has filed a lawsuit against former Neptunes partner Pharrell Williams for lost wages and other issues stemming from their multi-decade relationship.
“Williams engaged in self-dealing, concealed material information, and…diverted revenues owed to plaintiff,” wrote Hugo’s attorney, Brent J. Lehman, in the suit. “Such willful, fraudulent, and malicious conduct warrants the imposition of punitive damages.” In a subsequent email to Billboard, Lehman claims that “Mr. Hugo had no choice but to seek substantial compensation and accountability in court.”
Hugo’s suit is seeking as much as $1 million as part of the release of N.E.R.D.’s final record, 2017’s No One Ever Really Dies. Hugo’s lawyers say he also hasn’t received money from the N.E.R.D. merchandising arrangement since fall 2023, and is owned upwards of $575,000 for that “segment” alone.
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This lawsuit follows a separate legal dispute in 2024, where Hugo accused Williams of “fraudulently” trying to obtain legal control over the Neptunes name and trademark. (That dispute is still working its way through a federal trademark tribunal.) This new filing “broadens” the scope of that original claim, with Hugo now saying that Williams is “withholding royalties and refusing to hand over documents that would help Hugo figure out how much he’s owed.”
Wrote Lehman in the suit, “Plaintiff has not received his appropriate share of royalties in connection with The Neptunes and N.E.R.D.’s album sales and released music, as well as distributions from touring income, and various merchandising deals.”
Per his lawyers, Hugo actually began trying to sort out these financial issues as early as 2021 (when The Neptunes were still working together, and as they were set to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in June 2022). At the time, Hugo was trying to obtain “monthly statements, books and records, and royalty statements,” including sending demand letters that were met with “limited” and/or “incomplete” documents.
Added Lehman, “Defendant Williams’ persistent failure to provide [financial records] constitutes a breach of the operating agreement. Plaintiff [Hugo] has been deprived of the transparency necessary to evaluate buyout proposals, confirm the calculation and categorization of distributions owed to him…and assess revenues.”
For his part, Williams hasn’t said all that much about the proceedings. When the first dispute went public in 2024, Williams’ reps downplayed the process, claiming (per Billboard) that they were involving Hugo in addressing the “share in ownership” of the Neptunes name. Then, in September 2024, Williams claimed that the duo were no longer on speaking terms, adding, “I love him, and I always wish him the absolute best, and I’m very grateful for our time together.”
The suit also notes that as of December 2025, Williams’ legal team had “promised to produce documents” outlining the financial standing of the company established around the Neptunes name. No documents were ever produced, and Williams own representation later claimed that they were “having difficulty accessing the documents but acknowledged that such documents exist.”
It’s a sad development for one of popular music’s most dynamic production duos. The duo of Williams and Hugo began working together in the early ’90s, garnering immediate attention for their infectious and inventive style (and establishing Virginia as a musical hub for the new millennium). They’re best known for working with everyone from Snoop Dogg and Justin Timberlake to Nelly and Gwen Stefani, and played a major part in breaking acts like Clipse. Alongside Shay Haley, Hugo and Williams’ N.E.R.D. band released five studio albums to varying levels of acclaim.
