{"id":366176,"date":"2026-03-26T12:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T12:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/366176\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T12:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T12:36:09","slug":"comedian-responds-after-lion-king-composer-sues-him-for-27-million-over-viral-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/366176\/","title":{"rendered":"Comedian responds after Lion King composer sues him for $27 million over viral joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

A comedian has been sued for $27 million over a viral joke about The Lion King song ‘Circle of Life’.<\/p>\n

Lebohang Morake, the composer of the chant, is suing Learnmore Jonasi<\/a>, real name Learnmore Mwanyenyeka, for allegedly damaging his reputation.<\/p>\n

During a February episode of One54<\/a>, the Zimbabwean stand-up said the hosts were not singing the lyrics correctly, adding that the phrase ‘Nants\u2019ingonyama bagithi Baba’ was Zulu.<\/p>\n

“Don’t mess up our language like that,” he said, claiming that the lyrics meant: “Look, there\u2019s a lion. Oh my god!”<\/p>\n

Co-host Akbar said: “You’re joking. That is not what that means! This whole time I thought it was like this like this beautiful, majestic.”<\/p>\n

Jonasi joked it was ‘exactly what it means’.<\/p>\n

However, Disney\u2019s<\/a> official translation of opening phrase ‘Nants\u2019ingonyama bagithi Baba’ is: “All hail the king, we all bow in the presence of the king.”<\/p>\n

\"'Circle‘Circle of Life’ was written by Elton John and Tim Rice (Disney)<\/p>\n

Morake\u2019s lawyers said in the complaint that ‘ingonyama’ can literally translate to ‘lion’, but is used in the song as a ‘royal metaphor’ that invokes kingship, and that Jonasi intentionally misrepresented ‘an African vocal proclamation grounded in South African tradition’.<\/p>\n

The complaint also accuses Jonasi of presenting his translation ‘as authoritative fact, not comedy’ so it shouldn\u2019t get the First Amendment protections afforded to comedians.<\/p>\n

Taking to Instagram, the comic confirmed in a video that ‘I am officially getting sued for telling a joke’.<\/p>\n

After sharing a clip of the podcast, he said: “And that’s why I’m getting sued for $27,000,000. And to make matters worse, I got served the lawsuit while I was performing on stage.”<\/p>\n

He actually shared the moment he got served on Instagram. The below video contains strong language:<\/p>\n

With his set interrupted, Jonasi asks ‘What is this?’ as he’s handed a yellow piece of paper.<\/p>\n

He tells the crowd: “Oh s**t I just got served. Oh s**t. Oh my God.<\/p>\n

“This is for… I did a joke about The Lion King. I’m paying for that s**t now. F**k The Lion King.<\/p>\n

“Listen, I now have anxiety, a gluten allergy, I’ve got served – I’m now American! Any lawyer?”<\/p>\n

Clearly a little taken aback to be slapped with a lawsuit mid-set, Jonasi has since had more time to collect his thoughts, and has even started a GoFundMe<\/a> for his legal costs (more than $10,000 has already been raised).<\/p>\n

“Right now, I’m looking for a lawyer, man,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"LebohangLebohang Morake, the composer of the chant, is suing Learnmore Jonasi, for $27 million (Oupa Bopape\/Gallo Images via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“I need a very good lawyer. If you know anybody out here that is willing to help me, please, please reach out to me.<\/p>\n

“I can’t believe I’m getting sued for telling a joke. What kind of stupid world do we live in? This world is stupid.”<\/p>\n

How a war of words on social media ended up as a $27 million lawsuit<\/p>\n

Judging by their respective social media posts, Jonasi and Morake attempted to talk things out privately, which escalated to Instagram videos denouncing each other, and now to legal action.<\/p>\n

On 14 March, Jonasi shared a video explaining that Morake approached him and accused him of ‘disrespecting his work’.<\/p>\n

Jonasi said he told Morake he was actually ‘a big fan of yours, I actually love the song’.<\/p>\n

\"JonasiJonasi was served on stage (Instagram\/@learnmore_jonasi)<\/p>\n

Going on to say his comments were just a ‘joke’, he said he offered to collaborate with Morake on a video to ‘educate people’, adding: “Personally, I had no idea [the lyrics] had a deeper meaning.”<\/p>\n

He then said ‘everything changed’ when Morake called him a ‘self-hating n***o’, saying: “I\u2019m not going to talk to this person. He called me an idiot.”<\/p>\n

Morake responded with his own video the following day. He said: \u201cIf I offended anyone by using the word I used describing this young man, I apologise.”<\/p>\n

He refused to back down though, explaining: “He\u2019s insulting my work that has been inspirational to people around the world for over 50 years. Then insulting my culture.”<\/p>\n

In Morake’s telling, the private conversation between the pair broke down after Jonasi vowed to keep telling the joke.<\/p>\n

\"JonasiJonasi is selling merch to pay for his legal costs (Instagram\/@learnmore_jonasi)<\/p>\n

He also complained it was unclear on One54 that Jonasi’s comments about the ‘Circle of Life’ were a joke, accusing the comedian of ‘making a mockery of my work’.<\/p>\n

He added: “You are riding a huge wave of going viral on negativity.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s unfortunate that this has gone this far, and I hope this being my last comment will make it shut down. I wish you well.”<\/p>\n

That’s unlikely to happen now, with Jonasi vowing to fight the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

LADbible has contacted Disney and representatives of Jonasi for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A comedian has been sued for $27 million over a viral joke about The Lion King song ‘Circle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9618,93,1043,61,60,270,278,43,1433],"class_list":["post-366176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-disney","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-music","tag-news","tag-viral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}