Mötley Crüe’s Vince Neil demands Facebook account back

Vince Neil, lead singer of the rock band Mötley Crüe, has gone to court to force an Oregon woman to relinquish control of his social media accounts.

In a lawsuit filed Friday in Clark County District Court, Neil claims Kristy Sinsara is making unauthorized posts that the public and his fans believe are being made by him.

“Sinsara maintains control over the accounts because she is using them to trade on Neil’s fame and celebrity as a means of promoting Sinsara and her works,” the complaint alleges.

In a telephone interview Wednesday evening, Sinsara denied the allegations and said she suspects the lawsuit stems from her dispute with Neil’s girlfriend, Rain Hannah.

“This is not a Vince thing,” Sinsara said. “This is a Rain Hannah thing.”

Sinsara said she gave Neil the password for his Twitter account when he asked for it, but he never asked for the password to his Facebook account.

“The only social media account he really uses is Twitter,” Sinsara said. The account has more than 330,000 followers.

Sinsara said she gave the Facebook password to Slaughter bassist Dana Strum, Neil’s tour manager, but refused to give it to Hannah out of concern for Neil.

She said Neil never paid her to manage his social media accounts. Instead, she said, he agreed to help promote her as a social media strategist.

“He held up his end of the agreement,” Sinsara said.

According to Sinsara’s website, she is editor-in-chief of Living Echo Social, an online magazine that discusses relationships, and an author of three self-help books.

The website’s “about me” section also states, “I was once a social media strategist by trade, and managed a handful of high profile clients’ social media accounts, including Mötley Crüe’s front man, Vince Neil.”

Before Neil met Sinsara, he established Facebook and LinkedIn accounts to advance his social media presence and interact with fans, according to Neil’s lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims Sinsara approached Neil in Nevada and offered to manage his social media accounts.

“Neil agreed to give Sinsara access to and administrative control over his accounts, but Neil retained ownership of the accounts,” the complaint says.

After gaining control of the accounts, the lawsuit alleges, Sinsara changed the passwords and email contact information for them.

“For a period of time Sinsara created content for Neil’s accounts,” the complaint says.

Late last year, the lawsuit alleges, Neil terminated the agreement and asked Sinsara to return control of the accounts to him.

The lawsuit claims Sinsara wrote the following to Neil on Dec. 11:

“Here’s the deal. I have a book coming out in a week. I’m going to pay myself for all of my hard work by using Vince’s account to promote it and then I am walking away from all of this. So in two weeks, I will give you everything (all access)-and should have the FB passwords by then, and you can take me off of it ALL! It’s ALL YOURS.”

But Sinsara “continued to trade on” Neil’s celebrity and fame, according to the lawsuit, and wrote on Feb. 12:

“I just posted on Vince’s Facebook page that I will no longer be working with him as of March 1st, and gave myself a final shout out (as payment) for the last 1.5 years of building his image on social media. As of then the security lock down will be done and I’ll change the email and password to whatever you’d like.”

On Feb. 16, according to the complaint, Neil served a formal legal demand on Sinsara to return control of the accounts.

“Even though Sinsara agreed to relinquish control over the accounts on December 26, 2014 and again on March 1, 2015, she has and continues to maintain control over the accounts and makes unauthorized posts on the accounts,” the lawsuit says.

The document claims the unauthorized posts are causing Neil “irreparable damage.”

In her interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Sinsara said she has “absolute access to Facebook” but has not posted anything on Neil’s behalf since January.

“The last time I posted something was with his approval,” she said.

Sinsara said she does not have the password to Neil’s LinkedIn account.

“This whole thing is being spun into an absolute lie,” she said.

Contact reporter Carri Geer Thevenot at cgeer@reviewjournal.com or 702-384-8710. Find her on Twitter: @CarriGeer.