A ‘Lion King’ Composer Sued a Comedian Over a Joke. Now He Owes $40K in Legal Bills.

A composer who worked on The Lion King’s iconic “Circle of Life” must now repay nearly $40,000 in legal bills after filing a failed lawsuit against a comedian who joked about the song on a podcast.

Comedian Learnmore Jonasi had demanded reimbursement from South African musician Lebo M after the composer quickly dropped his lawsuit over the viral comedy bit.

Jonasi had argued the case was frivolous from the start and aimed at infringing his First Amendment rights.

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28) ruling, Judge Josephine Staton granted that request, citing California’s so-called anti-SLAPP law aimed at deterring lawsuits that threaten free speech.

“Defendant succeeded in his objective and prevailed on his anti-SLAPP motion,” the judge wrote.

“He is therefore entitled to attorneys’ fees and costs.” Filed in March, the unusual lawsuit centered on “Nants’ingonyama bagithi Baba,” the famous chant heard at the start of “Circle of Life” — the first track on the chart-topping 1994 soundtrack to The Lion King.

Lebo M (Lebohang Morake) wrote and performed that element of the song, which translates into English as “All hail the king, we all bow in the presence of the king.” In a February appearance on the podcast One54 Africa, Jonasi (Learnmore Mwanyenyeky) joked that the chant actually translates to English as “Look, there’s a lion.

Oh my god.” The clip eventually went viral, earning 116K likes on the podcast’s Instagram and pulling in 337K views of the full episode on YouTube.

Apparently Morake wasn’t laughing.

In a lawsuit demanding $27 million in damages, he accused Jonasi of defamation and other wrongdoing, calling the bit a “fabricated, trivializing distortion, meant as a sick joke for unlawful self-profit.” Jonasi’s attorneys quickly moved to end the lawsuit, arguing that it “targets core First Amendment protections” by trying to “punish” a comedian simply because he had been offended by a joke: “Because the First Amendment is so important in our society, the court should… not allow plaintiff to twist trademark law to suppress free speech.” Rather than fight those arguments, Morake eventually opted to simply drop the case.

But Jonasi’s attorneys refused to let him walk away, demanding that he repay the money the comedian had spent defending the case.

One of the key provisions of California’s anti-SLAPP law is that it empowers victorious defendants to win such reimbursement after beating a lawsuit.