Zac Brown has scored a legal victory that will force his ex-wife, model and actress Kelly Yazdi, to return confidential business records she took amidst her divorce from the Zac Brown Band frontman in 2024.
Brown and Yazdi have been feuding in Atlanta federal court for years over sensitive financial and strategic documents belonging to Zac Brown Collective (ZBC), the company that controls Brown’s music rights, merchandise sales and wine brand, Z. Alexander Brown. Following a bench trial, Judge William M. Ray II ruled in Brown’s favor and entered a permanent injunction against Yazdi on Jan. 12.
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“Unfortunately, the court cannot accept Ms. Yazdi’s assurances that she will not disclose the confidential information she possesses,” wrote Judge Ray. “Indeed, her very conduct in secretly taking confidential documents from ZBC when she knew she was leaving the company, coupled with her apparent animosity towards Mr. Brown reflected in her continuous social media posts, speak strongly to the possibility that she may act to harm Mr. Brown.”
The judge ordered Yazdi to immediately return the business records to Brown and barred her from disclosing any information from the documents going forward. In a statement shared with Billboard on Monday (Jan. 26), Brown’s lawyer Brad Beckworth said they’re “grateful for the court’s careful attention to the facts and law.”
“The evidence at trial showed that Ms. Yazdi betrayed Zac’s trust, took critical confidential information that didn’t belong to her, and used it to attack him publicly for her own gain,” added Beckworth. “The permanent injunction should put an end to it.”
Yazdi is appealing Judge Ray’s injunction. In a statement to Billboard, her attorney Josh Belinfante said they “respectfully disagree” with the ruling.
“Mr. Brown’s team knows that Ms. Yazdi already destroyed the responsive emails she sent herself, which is something she offered to do after Mr. Brown lost his first motion to restrain her from speaking,” said Belifante. “As her lawyers, we will continue to defend her rights before the courts, including her rights not to be subject to a contract she refused to sign.”
Brown and Yazdi began dating in 2021 after meeting in Hawaii. Yazdi soon started working for Zac Brown Collective, first as a social media coordinator and then as executive vp.
The pair married in August 2023, but the union was short-lived; Brown initiated a divorce less than four months later. In early 2024, with divorce proceedings underway and Yazdi preparing to leave her job at Zac Brown Collective, she forwarded nearly 200 documents from her work email to her personal account.
Brown sued Yazdi in May 2024 over the documents, which included confidential financial valuations for Brown’s music catalog and wine brand, employee salary information, contractual terms for endorsements, touring data and music marketing plans. Brown alleged that Yazdi breached a confidentiality clause in her employment contract by taking these files.
Yazdi denied any wrongdoing, maintaining that she needed the documents for the divorce proceedings but never intended to share them publicly. But in his Jan. 12 ruling, Judge Ray said Yazdi has already used the records to “fuel her public attacks on Mr. Brown.”
The judge pointed to a series of 2024 social media posts on Yazdi’s accounts about butterflies — apparently a reference to Brown’s then-unreleased 2025 collaboration with Dolly Parton, “Butterfly.” According to Judge Ray, Yazdi’s posts featuring butterfly imagery, a butterfly-themed poem and the hashtag #ButterfliesDontBelongInNets coincided with the song’s original marketing dates specified in documents she had forwarded to herself.
“If Ms. Yazdi further uses or discloses any of the confidential information she took from ZBC, plaintiffs would suffer considerable harm, including salary disputes and loss of trust with employees, the loss of goodwill and business opportunities, damage to Mr. Brown’s and ZBC’s reputations, and harm to plaintiffs’ business dealings and relationships with third parties,” wrote the judge.
Judge Ray ultimately concluded that Yazdi did indeed breach her employment agreement, and an injunction is necessary to protect Brown’s business interests. The singer did not seek financial damages, meaning the injunction is the final step in the case before an appeal.
The former couple finalized their divorce in 2025. Brown is now engaged to jewelry designer Kendra Scott.
This story was updated on Jan. 26 at 6:39 p.m. ET to add a statement from Yazdi’s attorney.
