Wes Campbell, co-founder of Newsboys, has filed a lawsuit against 31 individuals and entities he alleges conspired to put him and Newsboys out of business in the Christian music world.
The complaint filed April 17 in United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee on behalf of himself, Newsboys and several related entities runs 200 pages and lays out the underbelly of business dealings of the Christian recording and concert business. It alleges loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
Julie Roys
Named defendants include the Christian group Mercy Me, World Vision, Julie Roys and her news website, The Roys Report, and the Christian music tour promoter LiveCo/TPR. Named plaintiffs in the suit are Campbell, two of his companies, Newsboys as a group and Newsboys Touring.
The gist of the complicated filing is an accusation that LiveCo colluded with World Vision and others to shut out Campbell’s companies and Newsboys from booking events and airtime and that Roys and her publication defamed Newsboys in a report on alleged sexual abuse.
That article was published amid a larger investigation into Newsboys lead singer Michael Tait, who confessed in June 2025 to excessive drug use and sexual promiscuity with men. The original Roys Report story on Tait, followed by his confession, led to a cascading series of bad news for the boy band and for Campbell, who resigned from the board of the Gospel Music Association.
Michael Tait of Newsboys performs during the 49th Annual Dove Awards on October 16, 2018, at Allen Arena in Nashville. (Photo by Jamie Gilliam/Icon Sportswire via AP Images)
The Newsboys lost their recording contract and Campbell was sued for defamation by Randall Schrum, former pastor of Campbell’s parents’ church, Hilltop Fellowship House of Prayer in Primm Springs, Tenn.
The new lawsuit brought by Campbell and Newsboys does not address or deny the allegations and confessions related to Tait, but focuses on one single ancillary part of the reporting.
A woman named “Nicole” for purposes of protecting her identity alleged that during a 2014 pre-Christmas tour through 12 Midwestern cities, Tait drugged her and then watched as she was assaulted by Newsboys lighting technician Matthew Brewer in a third-floor hotel room in Fargo, N.D.
The new lawsuit contends that sexual encounter was consensual and nothing in The Roys Report article was accurate. Nicole and four witnesses told The Roys Report the incident was covered up by Newsboys tour manager Steve Campbell, who is Wes Campbell’s brother.
The lawsuit alleges the first of two articles “spread through the Christian community” and “told a devastating but false story. Members of the Christian community reacted to the article as if the story it told was factual. But this complaint demonstrates that the story the article told was not true.”
The suit says The Roys Report articles were “fueled by competitors with anticompetitive motives. These actions were not isolated, but part of a coordinated scheme involving anticompetitive misconduct, misappropriation of confidential information, contractual breaches, and the dissemination of statements known to be false.”
Part of the collusion charges relate to how nonprofit groups like World Vision sponsor Christian concert tours with lucrative funding deals.
The Roys Report articles, the lawsuit says, “cannot be understood apart from the anticompetitive battle that was going on between … Wes Campbell and his companies and … Waterland, a Dutch venture capital hedge fund. … Waterland was the primary antagonist behind the anticompetitive battle in which the defamatory articles were to play a large part.”
Julie Roys issued a statement in response to the lawsuit: “The threat of this kind of ungodly retaliation is precisely why the truth about Michael Tait and the Newsboys remained buried for so long. But The Roys Report has never refused and will never refuse to report a story due to fear. Our coverage was carefully reported, based on multiple independent sources and corroborated before publication. We stand by our articles and will defend against these baseless claims through the proper legal channels.”
LiveCo, one of the companies owned by Waterland, told RNS it “completely disagrees with the characterization of our practices presented in this filing. We didn’t engage in any wrongful conduct. … We look forward to presenting a vigorous defense to these allegations and providing the court with the accurate and honorable facts of our business history. Our focus remains on our mission, and we are confident that the truth of our operations will be vindicated through the legal process.”
World Vision has not commented on the suit.
Related articles:
Michael Tait issues ‘confession’ confirming abuse and drug reports
Former Newsboys frontman Michael Tait accused of sexual assault
Police begin investigation into Michael Tait’s alleged sexual assaults
Two more men accuse Michael Tait of sexual assault
Update: Michael Tait now accused of drugging a woman for rape