Unbelievable Alteration: Amended Suit Deemed Illogical by Critics

In July, a Los Angeles judge dismissed the breach-of-contract complaint of a woman who claimed she was due a $500,000 reward for returning Lady Gaga’s two dogs, stolen at gunpoint from the singer’s dog walker in LA in February 2021. That woman, Jennifer McBride, now 53, whom investigators determined had been romantically involved with the father of one of the dognappers, just got some more bad news. After her lawsuit seeking $1.5 million—the original $500,000 reward, plus $1 million in damages for “mental anguish”—was rejected over the summer by Judge Holly Fujie, McBride had 20 days to amend her filing, per People.

And she did, despite the fact that she’d been sentenced to two years of felony probation for falsely claiming she’d stumbled upon the dogs tied to a pole. In her amended filing, McBride noted she was “in no way involved in the theft,” and that she’d only “taken possession” of the dogs so she could return them to Lady Gaga. The singer’s legal team pushed back, insisting that amended argument “makes no sense.” Per documents from Fujie’s Monday ruling, the judge agreed, finding that “nothing alleged in the [first amended complaint] changes this conclusion.”

Fujie noted in her decision that McBride had “unclean hands” in the 2021 dognapping, which left Lady Gaga’s dog walker, Ryan Fischer, critically injured after one of the attackers shot him, per Rolling Stone. Fujie added that, despite Lady Gaga advertising the reward as “no questions asked,” “a party to a contract who acts wrongfully in entering or performing the contract is not entitled to thereafter benefit from their wrongdoing by seeking to enforce the contract.” The Messenger also viewed the court documents showing Lady Gaga (real name: Stefani Germanotta) is off the hook for the reward. Get more details here on the case, and on McBride’s ties to it. (Read more Lady Gaga stories.)