Kelly Yazdi is speaking out after her estranged husband, Zac Brown, attempted to seek an emergency temporary restraining order against her last month.
“On May 24th, the federal district court judge denied Zac Brown’s attempt to get a gag order to silence me from posting a poem about broken relationships,” Yazdi, 33, began in a lengthy statement via Instagram on Monday, June 3. “Remarkably, Zac’s response to having his motion summarily denied was to issue a press release doubling-down on his defamatory attacks on me, accusing me of using the lawsuit he filed against me as an ad hoc press release, and vowing to press his meritless lawsuit forward. Because it appears, for now, that Zac intends to do just that, it is important to know that I am not a willing participant in that agenda.”
Brown, 45, filed a lawsuit on May 17 against Yazdi, demanding she take down an Instagram post that allegedly tarnished his image. According to the Zac Brown Band frontman, he claimed his estranged wife’s post broke a confidentiality agreement that she signed during their relationship. The emergency order would force her to take down the post, per court documents obtained by NBC.
While addressing the filing on Monday, Yazdi went on to say that she hasn’t issued a press release “on the circumstances of our pending divorce – only Zac has done so,” adding that she hasn’t used her “far more limited platform to defame or humiliate” the musician.
“Yet barely a month after filing for divorce, that is precisely what he did to me when he recut our wedding video into a music video which replaced my images with a lookalike model popping pills, and distributed the video to the entire world,” she wrote. “Nor did I initiate a lawsuit to air my grievances, where they would be obvious tabloid fodder – only Zac has done so.”
Yazdi noted that she hopes that the former spouses can “resolve our separation and eventual divorce like adults, in private and with respect for each other,” but she won’t be “threatened or intimidated into submission.”
She added, “If Zac continues to pursue his ill-fated quest for a court injunction to silence me, or again publicly defames me or accuses me of dishonesty, I will meet him in court fully loaded with the truth about what has happened over the course of our relationship.”
Yazdi concluded, “In the meantime, I await my apology from Zac, and take solace knowing that the federal courts in this country remain committed to protecting free speech – even when the adversary is a celebrity with virtually unlimited resources and a very large megaphone.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Brown’s team for comment, but did not hear back at the time of publication.
Brown, who shares five children with his first wife, Shelly Brown, previously issued a statement to Us after filing his lawsuit against Yazdi.
“After much deliberation, I took the steps necessary to enforce an agreement between us to maintain personal and business affairs in confidence and to protect my family from online harassment and speculation,” the “Chicken Fried” singer told Us on May 19. “My only hope is for us to keep private matters private and to move forward with the mutual respect we had agreed to show one another when we parted ways.”
That same day, Yazdi responded in a statement posted via Instagram, writing in part, “No one — not even Zac Brown with all of his money, power, celebrity, and lawyers – may silence my right to freely express myself through art or, although I have to date declined to do so publicly, to speak about the circumstances of our pending divorce.”
Brown and Yazdi, who began dating in 2022, secretly wed in August 2023 and separated four months later.
“We are in the process of divorce. Our mutual respect for one another remains,” the now-estranged couple said in a December 2023 statement. “We wish each other the best and will always appreciate our time together. As we navigate this personal matter, we simply request privacy during this time.”
