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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
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DJ Under Fire for Reporting|on Old Al Green Grits Attack

DETROIT (CN) - A Detroit minister who once collaborated with Al Green feels no love and happiness after hearing on the radio that she supposedly threw scalding-hot grits on the R&B legend in 1974.

Green's grits injury is a much-dissected event in the singer's biography. As summarized by the History Channel, the soul crooner had been in the bathtub on Oct. 18, 1974, when ex-girlfriend Mary Woodson burst in and showered him with scalding-hot grits.

Though the events of that day are well settled, a lawsuit filed Monday in Wayne County Circuit Court says the tale was retold inaccurately on the March 9, 2016, installment of "Inside Detroit With Mildred Gaddis," on WCHB 1200's Radio One.

While on the air, on-air personality Greg Dunmore told listeners that "plaintiff Laura Lee 'who used to live in Detroit and moved to Chicago was the one who threw grits on Al Green.'"

Describing herself as a minister of the gospel, Lee notes that she "previously performed collaborative singing with Al Green."

Lee denies that she had anything to do with the grits attack, which occurred at Green's home in Memphis, Tennessee, but says the radio report has left her reputation in tatters.

"As a direct and proximate result of defendants' on-air broadcast of the false statement that plaintiff threw hot grits on Al Green, plaintiff has suffered ... loss of relationship with family and those she ministers to, ... mortification and infamy as a woman of God," the complaint states.

An email to Radio One corporate office asking for comment was bounced back after several tries. Dunmore meanwhile has not answered a message sent to his Facebook account.

Kathy Stinehour, the vice president and general manager for the Radio One Detroit region, did not return an email seeking comment.

Green had already been a born-again Christian for a year before the grits attack, but he is said to have renounced Hollywood stardom in the wake of this incident.

While the attack left Green with third-degree burns, Woodson got hold of a gun Green kept and shot herself to death.

An ordained Baptist minister since 1976, Green, now 70, reportedly still preaches at a church he started in Tennessee.

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