Liberian-American multimillionaire Richelieu Dennis is sued for defamation by the former CEO of his Essence Ventures

Caroline Wanga, the former chief executive of Essence Ventures, has filed a defamation lawsuit against Richelieu Dennis, the Liberian-born entrepreneur who built a fortune of approximately $350 million through Sundial Brands and now serves as founder and executive chairman of Sundial Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Essence Ventures.

The lawsuit, filed in a New York state court, alleges that Dennis and Sundial Media and Technology Group failed to publicly correct the record after Wanga was widely blamed for problems at the 2025 Essence Festival of Culture, despite having no involvement in planning or executing the event. Wanga served as Essence Ventures chief executive from June 2020 until her formal exit on March 31, 2025, but had been on leave since September 2024, before the festival took place.

Lead counsel Larry Schaefer of the Minneapolis law firm Schaefer Halleen said in a press release announcing the suit that Wanga repeatedly asked Dennis and Sundial leadership to publicly clarify her lack of involvement in the festival amid public criticism and alleged threats directed at her and her family. The complaint alleges Wanga was blamed specifically for the festival's Pan-African programming focus and for the selection of corporate sponsors, decisions the suit claims she had no role in making.

According to the complaint, Wanga and her counsel asked Dennis and Sundial Media and Technology Group chief executive Kirk McDonald to issue a statement correcting what they describe as a false narrative and stopping the backlash directed at Wanga. The release states that Dennis and McDonald declined to issue the statement when first asked and delayed any formal announcement until nearly two months after the festival had concluded.

"This statement did not specifically correct the widely-held view that Ms. Wanga had made or influenced the decisions which negatively impacted the festival and the ESSENCE brand," the press release states. "The statement thus appeared to condone this false narrative."

The suit claims the delay caused lasting financial and reputational damage to Wanga, including cancelled orders and lost business partnerships for WangaWoman, the consulting venture she launched after leaving Essence Ventures.

"The lawsuit is being brought to hold Essence Ventures and Sundial leadership, including Richelieu Dennis and Kirk McDonald, to account for allowing a false public narrative to destroy Ms. Wanga's reputation," Schaefer said. "Essence Ventures and Sundial are supposed to be about elevating Black business and leadership, but this sad story demonstrates that when a scapegoat was useful, Black empowerment went out the window."

Essence responded in a statement posted to LinkedIn, disputing the central premise of the lawsuit. "The core allegation in the complaint is that ESSENCE failed to correct that Ms. Wanga was not directly involved in ESSENCE Festival of Culture 2025," the statement read. "However, notwithstanding any obligation to make such a statement, ESSENCE immediately made clear that she was not involved. For more than 30 years, we have shown up and done the work to build, protect, and elevate the ESSENCE Festival of Culture, because it belongs to something larger than any one person or moment." The statement noted the timing of the lawsuit, filed weeks ahead of this year's festival, and said "the facts will reflect" Essence's support of Wanga "on her journey."

Dennis built his fortune from Sundial Brands, the personal care company behind Shea Moisture that he co-founded in 1991 with his mother, Mary Dennis, and his Babson College roommate Nyema Tubman, after civil war in Liberia and Sierra Leone prevented his planned return home following graduation. The trio began by mixing soaps and lotions using his grandmother's traditional shea butter recipes in a Queens apartment and selling them from a card table on the streets of Harlem. Sundial grew into one of the largest Black-owned personal care companies in the United States, drawing a minority investment from Bain Capital in 2015 at a valuation of approximately $700 million before Unilever acquired the company in 2017 in a deal reported at $1.6 billion, with Dennis and his mother retaining a 51 percent stake at the time of sale.

Dennis used proceeds from the Unilever deal to launch the $100 million New Voices Fund supporting women of color entrepreneurs, and in 2018 led the acquisition of Essence Communications from Time Inc., returning the magazine to Black ownership through the newly formed Essence Ventures. He has since expanded Sundial Media and Technology Group's media holdings, including the acquisition of Refinery29 from Vice Media. He is widely described in Black business media as one of the most consequential Black entrepreneurs of his generation, sometimes referred to as the godfather of Black entrepreneurship, with an estimated net worth of $350 million.

The lawsuit places that reputation under direct legal scrutiny, with Wanga's attorneys framing the case explicitly around whether Dennis's companies lived up to the empowerment mission Essence and Sundial have publicly championed for decades.