Avicii Estate Sued by DJ’s Longtime Manager Over ‘Character Assassination’ in Netflix Doc

Avicii’s estate is facing a lawsuit for allegedly suggesting in a Netflix documentary and two books that manager Ash Pournouri was a “manipulative slavedriver” who overworked the Swedish dance music icon and drove him to suicide in 2018.

Pournouri sued the Avicii estate on Tuesday (Dec. 16) in Stockholm District Court. The lawsuit, obtained by Billboard and translated from Swedish by the service DeepL, alleges the estate has violated the terms of a 2016 agreement that ended an eight-year professional relationship between Pournouri and the DJ (Tim Bergling).

According to Pournouri, this agreement barred Bergling and his heirs from publicly discussing Pournouri or disparaging the manager. But he says Bergling did just that in the 2017 Netflix documentary Avicii: True Stories, as did the DJ’s estate in two authorized biographies published after his 2018 death (2021’s Tim: The Official Biography of Avicii and 2024’s Avicii: The Life and Music of Tim Bergling).

“This has mainly been done by misrepresenting Arash Pournouri, among other things, as a person who ruthlessly pushed Tim Bergling to the limit and exploited his career for personal gain,” reads the translated lawsuit. “The image of Ash Pournouri portrayed in the documentary and books is completely inaccurate and amounts to character assassination.”

True Stories, which included participation from Bergling, chronicled the star’s career and eventual decision to separate from Pournouri and retire from touring in 2016. According to Pournouri’s lawsuit, Bergling falsely implied in documentary clips that Pournouri pressured him to keep working despite mental and physical health struggles.

“In fact,” Pournouri’s lawyers write, “Ash was very positive about Tim’s decision to stop touring and saw it as a much needed and welcome turning point.”

Pournouri also alleges that recordings of himself were featured in True Stories without consent or key context. There’s a clip, for example, of Pournouri speaking in Swedish with English subtitles reading, “Tim is going to die. With all the interviews, radio tours and everything, he’s going to fall down dead.”

Much has been made of this statement, given Bergling’s struggles and eventual suicide. But according to Pournouri, these subtitles are a mistranslation of the Swedish phrase “he will die,” which he says is a common idiom “used to convey excitement or intensity.”

Pournouri alleges that he was also portrayed falsely as overworking Bergling in both the 2021 and 2024 biographies. According to the lawsuit, the books were approved by the Bergling’s heirs and relied on interviews with Bergling’s friends and family, as well as documents supplied by the estate.

As a result of all this, Pournouri says, the public now believes an “absurd and false” narrative that he drove Bergling to his death. Pournouri alleges the opposite is true. The lawsuit says they had no contact for two years before the suicide, adding, “Ash Pournouri is convinced that Tim Bergling would not have committed suicide if Ash Pournouri had still been present in his life.”

Pournouri posted a lengthy statement on Instagram the day his lawsuit was filed. In the post, he said the goal of the case is to “correct an inaccurate and incomplete public narrative.”

“This is not an intent to attack. It’s just time to let the facts speak,” Pournouri wrote. “Although I have suffered considerable harm, any damages awarded go directly to real charitable causes. I take nothing personally. This is about the record, not profit.”

A rep for the Avicii estate did not immediately have a comment on the lawsuit.