Lauryn Hill is managing two significant legal developments at once. The New Jersey Division of Taxation has filed two active liens against the Grammy-winning singer, and separately, her former Fugees bandmate Pras Michel has voluntarily dropped the lawsuit he filed against her in 2024. The two matters are unrelated but together paint a complicated picture for one of hip-hop’s most celebrated figures heading into the spring.
New Jersey filed nearly $900,000 in tax liens against Hill
According to official state records, New Jersey filed two separate liens against Hill. The first covers an unpaid debt of $133,246. The second is for $758,912.02. Both remain active in the state’s system.
A spokesperson for Hill said she entered into a repayment plan with the state to resolve income tax liabilities that arose after the cancellation of a planned tour, describing the tour’s collapse as something that greatly affected its cash flow. The canceled tour appears to be connected to the Fugees reunion planned for 2024, which was called off just days before the first scheduled performance.
The liens arrive more than a decade after Hill faced federal tax consequences on a much larger scale. In 2012, she pleaded guilty to three counts of tax evasion after prosecutors accused her of failing to file returns on $1.8 million in earnings between 2005 and 2007. She was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Connecticut in October 2013. The new state liens suggest that tax compliance has remained an ongoing challenge in the years since.
Pras drops his fraud lawsuit against Hill
On a separate legal front, Michel filed paperwork this week to voluntarily dismiss the civil lawsuit he brought against Hill in 2024. Attorneys for both sides confirmed the dismissal in a court filing, though neither party offered a public explanation for what led to it.
Michel had accused Hill of exploiting his mounting legal troubles to pressure him into signing onto the 2023 Fugees reunion tour under terms he characterized as unfair. His attorneys argued that Hill took advantage of his financial desperation at a time when he was paying substantial criminal defense bills, using a cash advance to secure his agreement to a deal he would not have accepted under normal circumstances. Hill denied those claims, saying Michel had left out critical facts, including that she had helped ensure he received a $3 million advance for his legal expenses, money she said he had not repaid.
The dismissal was filed without prejudice, meaning Michel retains the legal right to refile the same claims at a future date if he chooses to do so. Whether that happens may depend significantly on what occurs in his criminal case. Michel was convicted in April 2023 on 10 counts related to an illegal foreign lobbying scheme connected to Malaysian financier Jho Low, who was the central figure in the billion-dollar 1MDB embezzlement scandal. Michel was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison and ordered to forfeit $64 million. He is currently appealing that conviction and seeking to remain free during the appeals process, though such requests are rarely granted.
The Fugees’ long road back
Michel, Hill and Wyclef Jean formed the Fugees in the 1990s, producing some of the most commercially and critically successful music of that era. After the group dissolved in 1998, all three pursued solo careers and largely remained separate for years before attempting multiple reunion efforts. Those efforts have repeatedly stalled, and the combination of Michel’s criminal conviction, Hill’s tax issues and the civil dispute between two of the group’s three members has made any sustained collaboration difficult to sustain.
With the lawsuit now dismissed, at least one of those complications has been formally set aside, even if the underlying tensions that produced it remain unresolved.
