Key Takeaways
- Timbaland sued former managers Gary Marella and Bruce Seckendorf for alleged fraud and breach of contract, accusing them of unauthorized payments and financial mismanagement.
- He alleges Marella pocketed excessive commissions from VERZUZ and catalog deals, while Seckendorf missed mortgage and tax payments that pushed his home toward foreclosure.
- Marella blames Timbaland’s overspending for his financial troubles and says their roughly nine-year partnership generated about $75 million in business.
Timbaland has filed a lawsuit against two of his former managers, alleging fraud and breach of contract.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the superproducer filed a 65-page complaint on Friday (October 30) in Los Angeles Superior Court against his former manager, Gary Marella, along with his former business manager, Bruce Seckendorf.
Timbaland (real name Timothy Mosley) began by claiming that Marella "stole millions in unauthorized commissions, fees, and reimbursements," funneled money from the four-time Grammy winner to compensate his employees and "falsified financial records and communications to conceal unauthorized payments."
The producer also alleges that Seckendorf "failed" to regularly pay his mortgage and federal taxes and "and allowed his home to reach the brink of foreclosure."
The suit explains that after receiving a foreclosure notice last year, Timbaland contacted Seckendorf, who was unable to "clearly explain why his office had failed to make the mortgage payments without informing Mosley."
Timbaland sought independent legal guidance, with a team of legal and financial experts allegedly discovering "unauthorized payments, concealed credit-card arrangements, falsified communications, undisclosed liabilities, and purported loans Mosley had never knowingly agreed to."
The complaint goes on to state that the defendants allegedly failed to pay 12 months in arrears on behalf of Timbaland, instead prioritizing "nearly $900,000 in payments to Defendants and attorneys they engaged in five months.” The managers were fired in 2025.
Timbaland launched VERZUZ with Swizz Beatz in 2020 and alleges that Marella retained $500,000 in two separate instances involving $5 million payments towards the venture. The producer also claims Marella received $775,000 on a deal for Hipgnosis, who acquired Timbaland’s catalog in 2019, than his 10 percent commission would have needed.
Marella, who began working with Timbaland alongside Seckendorf, has been met with financial misconduct claims before, but argued that the producer is trying to "shift responsibility for his own overspending and financial decisions onto someone else."
"When I began managing him in 2017, long after producing his biggest hits, he was already broke and in debt, had spent all of his money, and was living in a rental," the businessman claimed. "His financial problems did not begin with me. I came in to help rebuild his business."
"Over approximately nine years, we generated roughly $75 million in business. Despite that, Tim continued spending beyond his means, ultimately having to sell his home last year due to his actions and move into a rental in Coral Gables. Those were the consequences of his own financial decisions, no one else."
