Ramones’ love triangle at center of legal dispute over band’s legacy

The widow of Ramones co-founder and guitarist Johnny Ramone claims Joey Ramone’s younger brother is cutting her out of the iconic punk band’s merchandising deals – and threatening to leak “compromising private footage” the iconic frontman had of her, according to a lawsuit.

Linda Cummings-Ramone, who dated Joey years before marrying Johnny, contends the brother, Mitchel Hyman, just wants to push her out of Ramones Productions Inc., the company in charge of the band’s work.

“Their main objective is to torment Ms. Ramone until she agrees to sell her interests in RPI. Regrettably, [they] appear willing to allow the band’s legacy to decay, in order to benefit their own self-interest,” she said in legal papers.

Instead of guarding the band’s brand and helping to grow it by bringing in new fans, Cummings-Ramone, 63, claims Hyman, and director David Frey, have sabotaged business deals and “effectively shut down” Ramones Productions Inc.

Hyman, a musician who goes by the stage name Mickey Leigh, and Frey “refuse to engage with the Ramones’ record label, its social media creative agency, its merchandising partners, or its long-term business managers” while they “regularly create internecine disputes and unnecessary work that drains the company of funds,” the widow contends in a Jan. 19 Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.

Cummings-Ramone said she’s spent more than $500,000 fighting the pair in various legal disputes.

She and Hyman have been banging heads for years, including at least three expensive rounds of arbitration over everything from her use of the Ramones name to Hyman and Frey’s bid to “unilaterally and covertly” make a biopic about the band without her input.

“To permit defendants alone to tell the authoritative story of the Ramones would be an injustice to the band and its legacy,” Cummings-Ramone insists in the litigation.

Guitarist Johnny Ramone, aka John Cummings, and iconic frontman Joey, aka Jeffrey Hyman, founded the band in 1974 in Forest Hills, Queens, alongside bassist Doug Colvin, who took on the name DeeDee Ramone, and Thomas Erdelyi, who eventually played drums under the moniker Tommy Ramone.

All four founding members are dead, with Johnny and Joey sparring for decades over Linda before Joey’s death of lymphatic cancer in 2001 at age 49. Johnny died of cancer in 2004 at age 55.

Though the influential Ramones weren’t a commercial success — it took 38 years for the band’s April 1976 debut disc to go gold by selling 500,000 copies — in October 2022 Joey Ramone’s estate sold a stake of his music publishing rights for $10 million.

Joey left his 50% shares of Ramones Productions Inc. to his mom, Charlotte Lesher, with whom Cummings-Ramone said she had a good relationship. Hyman, who wrote the 2009 book, “I slept with Joey Ramone: A Family Memoir,” inherited the shares from Lesher upon her death in 2007.

It’s unclear how much the band’s name and music is worth today. Arbitrator Bob Donnelly, who oversaw several of the disputes between Cummings-Ramone and Hyman, wrote in court papers that their constant battles led to the “tepid growth” of the Ramones brand.

“Mickey Hyman and Linda Cummings-Ramone have been entrusted with the exceedingly important mission of preserving the legacy of the Ramones for its existing followers, and to grow this iconic brand to a new world-wide group of music fans,” he wrote in May 2019. “The only way those goals can be accomplished, in my estimation, is for there to be some radical changes made by Mickey, Linda, and their representatives.”

Instead, seven months later, Hyman sued Cummings-Ramone in Manhattan Supreme Court to enforce the arbitrator’s decisions in an ongoing case.

Cummings-Ramone now wants more than $1 million in damages, and for Frey to be removed from his job.

A lawyer for Hyman and Frey vehemently denied the allegations, contending they are based on “distorted facts and mischaracterizations of confidential and irrelevant information.”

“They look forward to being able to present the truth,” said attorney Donna Tobin, who insisted, “there is no sex tape and there has never been any threat by Mr. Hyman to ‘leak’ anything.”

At least one surviving member of the band, Marky Ramone, who joined in 1978 to replace Tommy on drums, thinks Mickey is damaging the band’s good name.

“Between her and Mickey, I see Linda as the only one trying to grow the Ramones’ legacy and trying to bring the band new opportunities and new fans. On the other hand, my experience with Mickey is that he spends too much time focused on harassing Linda and trying to benefit and bring attention to himself,” Marky wrote in an affidavit filed with Cummings-Ramone’s case.