The group, comprising "one of [the musician's] ex-girlfriends" and "feminist musicians who spoke out in support", are seeking to raise £9000 to help draft their defence, with any money raised over this amount going to the next round of legal costs. At the time of writing over 360 people have donated more than £7200.
"In 2016 we each independently made a number of public statements about [the musician]'s behaviour towards women," reads a statement on their fund profile. "This was in protest against unacceptable behaviour in the music community, a cause we all speak about regularly, and to promote safety. Soon afterwards, we received letters from [the musician]'s solicitor and came together as a group in order to support each other. The nature of this legal battle means that we are already limited in what we can share with you, and we would encourage our supporters not to publish anything more than is in this statement for the time being... we will be defending our statements as we believe they were in the public interest."
The "well-known musician" is demanding "compensation, legal costs, removal of our statements, apologies, and agreement not to repeat these allegations, or similar ones, even when they concerned our own experiences."
The group are being represented by Bindmans LLP, a firm with "expertise in defamation claims", but legal aid is not available for defamation cases.
