Some musicians have a song in their catalog that garners so much love from fans that it becomes a staple in all of their live shows for the foreseeable future. For a living legend like Jeffrey Osborne, that concept can be applied to both his successful career in the 1970s as a member of the group L.T.D. as well as his even more successful stint as a solo star.
Actually, many R&B fans consider his staple to be the 1986 hit “You Should Be Mine (The Woo Woo Song),” specifically due to its extremely catchy chorus that goes, “and you woo woo-woo!”
Now at 75 years old, Jeffrey Osborne relies heavily on the fan-favorite ballad to help bring his shows full circle while currently on his successful 2024 tour. However, a recent performance of “The Woo Woo Song” left two fans feeling, in their own words, so “embarrassed” that it led to an emotional distress lawsuit for one of the most WTF reasons we’ve probably heard in a minute.
“Danielle Buchanan and Maneva Currie filed a complaint in the Superior Court of California on Tuesday against the ‘On the Wings of Love’ singer, 75, and the Greek Theater, the venue where he performed.
They claimed Osborne intentionally inflicted emotional distress on them, and that the Greek Theater displayed negligence and violated the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which provides protection from discrimination by all business establishments in California.
The two women claim that they attended one of Osborne’s concerts on May 6, 2023, at the
Greek Theater when the singer requested that his team find someone in the audience to help him sing his 1986 hit ‘You Should Be Mine (The Woo Woo Song).’
The team ultimately selected Buchanan to sing ‘Can you woo woo woo?’ on the microphone with the ‘camera directed’ at her, which broadcast her face to the two large screens on either side of the stage, according to the complaint obtained by PEOPLE.
Buchanan was ‘smiling and ready’ to sing on camera, and her friend Currie had been recording the moment on her phone when they allege Jeffrey Osborne told the audience and his team, ‘I want a White person.’
Buchanan claimed she had been “shocked, embarrassed and humiliated” by Jeffrey Osborne’s words and tried to make light of the situation by announcing on the mic, “I’m White.” However, his team took the mic away and searched for someone else to give it to. Currie claimed that she had also been “embarrassed and humiliated” by the situation.”
The situation became so“emotionally disturbed” for the pair that the suit alleges they both suffered to “engage socially in their lives for months” and even led to psycho-therapy. Of course, the ladies believe all of this should be compensated with a cool $2 million in punitive damages.