Zac Brown Loses Court Battle as Judge Rules Confidentiality Agreement Unenforceable in Case Against Ex-Wife Kelly Yazdi

Zac Brown Band

A big win for his ex-wife.

Late in 2023, Zac Brown and his wife, Kelly Yazdi, announced that they were getting a divorce, just 4 months after the couple had tied the knot in a private Nashville ceremony. The Zac Brown Band frontman had been married to jewelry designer Shelly Brown, the mother of his five children, for 12 years before the couple divorced in 2018. He then reportedly became engaged to Yazdi in 2023. They got married in August 2023, had their wedding party/reception in November, and then split in December.

When the two announced their divorce, they released a joint statement that made it appear as though their decision to split was amicable.

“We are in the process of divorce. Our mutual respect for one another remains. We wish each other the best and will always appreciate our time together. As we navigate this personal matter, we simply request privacy during this time.”

But then, things took a turn for the worse, and Zac Brown filed a lawsuit against her in May of 2024, claiming that she was defaming him with an Instagram post about being in a controlling and abusive relationship. Zac was not named in the post.

Yazdi made a statement in response to the lawsuit, saying that she has been afraid to speak up on the matter, but wants to set the record straight. She also says that Zac asked her for a divorce over Zoom, just 9 days after their wedding party.

9 AFTER THEIR RECEPTION. OVER ZOOM. Ouch…

The legal battle has been ongoing for over a year, with a judge denying a request from Brown for a temporary restraining order to require Yazdi to immediately remove her post from Instagram.

For some backstory on the lawsuit, in his complaint against Yazdi, during their relationship, Yazdi served as social media coordinator and eventually moved up to vice-president of Brown’s company, Zac Brown Collective, Inc., and signed an Employee Agreement which also contained a Confidentiality Agreement which sought to restrict Yazdi from sharing information she had access to or learned as a result of her employment with the company.

Brown alleged that Yazdi violated those agreements by forwarding work emails from her company email address to her personal email, which she says were so that she could use them in her divorce from Brown. And in addition to his complaints about her Instagram post about being in an abusive relationship (though he wasn’t mentioned by name), he also accused Yazdi of alluding to unreleased songs that he was working on in her Instagram posts.

There’s been a lot of back and forth in the lawsuit, so that’s the short version of it. But this week, the court handed Yazdi a big win and ruled that the Confidentiality Agreement in her contract was unenforceable, while also restricting the definition of “Confidential Information” in the Employee Agreement.

In an order, a copy of which has been obtained by Whiskey Riff, the court found that the restrictions in the Employee Agreement related to confidential information were vague and overbroad, ruling that Georgia law “does not authorize an employer to designate all information of its affiliates and their “contractors, consultants, and advisors” as confidential to protect broad swaths of information of third parties.”

In its ruling, the court said:

“[S]uch information could arguably include information concerning personal, cordial and commonplace conversations with virtually anyone, irrespective of whether such information relates to ZBC’s business or was learned by Ms. Yazdi as a consequence of her employment with ZBC as opposed to information learned by Ms. Yazdi simply by virtue of her marriage to Mr. Brown.”

So what does that mean in plain English? Well some of the documents are sealed, but basically it sounds like Zac was trying to say that the Employee Agreement meant that anything Yazdi learned about him during their relationship was “confidential information,” despite the fact that her contract was with the business and not directly with him. The judge struck that down, finding that a company can’t claim that information about all of its affiliates (in this case, Zac and members of his band) is confidential just because she works for his company.

And the court also ruled against Brown when it comes to the Confidentiality Agreement contained in her Employee Agreement, finding that the entire Confidentiality Agreement is unenforceable:

“[T]he Confidentiality Agreement seek to protect any and all information, including personal, non-business-related information, irrespective of whether such information was learned as a consequence of the employment relationship. Such broad restrictions are facially unenforceable.”

Basically, Zac can’t hide behind a confidentiality agreement that his ex-wife signed with his company to prevent her from revealing anything about him, even things that she learned about him as a result of their marriage and not her employment with his company.

The court did find that portions of the Employee Agreement related to confidential information are enforceable, meaning that the case will continue, though the agreements have been severely limited in scope.

While Brown hasn’t commented on the ruling, Yazdi posted a video to social media praising the court’s order:

“The judge made it very clear that celebrities do not get special treatment and that they are not above the law.

This means Zac Brown is now 0 for 3: The TRO against me, denied. The preliminary injunction, withdrawn. His contracts, unenforceable as written.

Zac’s choice to drag me through lawsuits and use his PR machine to spin false narratives about me has only resulted in a loss after loss for him. But I know you guys know the saying, karma is a…”

As of right now, the case is set to go to trial on September 15 in a Georgia federal court. We’ll see whether Zac chooses to go to trial after his latest loss, but something tells me he’s not going to give up even after the setback.