MC Hammer Sued Over Unpaid Car Payments For Land Rover, Bank Says He Owes $76K
MC Hammer is facing a lawsuit claiming he’s failed to make car payments on a Land Rover and has refused to allow the car to be repossessed.
In a case filed last week in California court, JPMorgan Chase Bank claimed the “2 Legit 2 Quit” rapper (Stanley Burrell) and his U Can’t Touch This LLC still owe $76,732.79 on a $114,376.90 loan he took out to purchase the vehicle in 2023, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by Billboard.
As a result of Hammer’s “default” on the agreement, the bank says it has “demanded possession” of the car, but that the star has “not surrendered the vehicle.”
A rep for Hammer could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.
Despite a legendary career as a rapper and dancer — featuring smash hits like “U Can’t Touch This” and “2 Legit 2 Quit” and cultural ubiquity via his distinctive “Hammer pants” — the MC has long been dogged by financial problems.
Six years after releasing the chart-topping Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em, Hammer filed for federal bankruptcy protection in 1996, claiming only $1 million in assets to pay more than $10 million in debts, including hundreds of thousands in unpaid taxes and even a $500,000 loan from NFL star Deion Sanders.
At the time, Hammer told the newswire UPI, ‘It’s time to stop the bleeding and get on with my life. It’s time for me to close out old business and stop being the lottery for people who see Hammer as this big celebrity with a bottomless pit of dreams for people.”
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The case dragged on for years, including a judge’s 2002 ruling refusing to discharge Hammer’s debts because of his alleged failure to comply with the bankruptcy settlement. In 2005, a court-appointed administrator put his publishing catalog up for sale, eventually selling it for $2.7 million the next year.
The IRS sued Hammer in 2013, claiming he still owed nearly $800,000 in unpaid taxes from 1996 and 1997 that hadn’t been covered by his bankruptcy case. The feds later won a ruling in 2015 ordering Hammer to pay $798,033 for those years.
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