The-Dream, Hitmaker for Beyoncé and Rihanna, Is Accused of Rape

Terius Gesteelde-Diamant, a top songwriter and producer for Beyoncé, Rihanna and other stars under the name The-Dream, has been accused of rape and sexual battery in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday by a former protégée.

Chanaaz Mangroe, who performed as Channii Monroe, says in her suit that in 2015, Mr. Gesteelde-Diamant used promises to promote her career to entangle her in an abusive relationship in which he repeatedly forced her to have sex, strangled her and once made a video recording of an intimate encounter and threatened to show it to others.

As The-Dream, Mr. Gesteelde-Diamant is one of the most powerful producers behind the scenes of the music industry, an eight-time Grammy winner who helped make some of the biggest pop and R&B hits of the last two decades, including Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” Justin Bieber’s “Baby” and Mariah Carey’s “Touch My Body.” He has forged a particularly close creative bond with Beyoncé, credited as a writer and producer on her signature female-empowerment anthems like “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” and “Break My Soul,” and working on each of the superstar’s studio albums since 2008.

But Ms. Mangroe’s suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, portrays Mr. Gesteelde-Diamant as an abusive Svengali-type figure, dangling the promise of fame and success before an aspiring artist while controlling her life, forcing her into unwanted sex and physically abusing her.

The suit also accuses Mr. Gesteelde-Diamant of sex trafficking, a claim that has been cited in a number of recent civil lawsuits — including against Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul known as Diddy or Puff Daddy — over accusations of harboring or transporting a victim of sexual assault by fraud or coercion. Ms. Mangroe’s suit cites the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act, a California law that allows people to bring sexual assault cases even if the statute of limitations for incidents they allege have expired.

“What Dream did to me made it impossible to live the life I envisioned for myself and pursue my goals as a singer and songwriter,” Ms. Mangroe said in a statement. “Ultimately, my silence has become too painful, and I realized that I need to tell my story to heal. I hope that doing so will also help others and prevent future horrific abuse.”