File photo: Luke Combs performing at the CMA Fest 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee, on 8 June 2023. Photo: AFP / Getty Images
By Annabel Rackham for the BBC
Country singer Luke Combs has said he is "sick to my stomach" after learning he has been awarded US$250,000 ($402,900) after winning a lawsuit against a fan who sold homemade merchandise.
The star said he had been unaware Nicol Harness had been sued for selling 18 drinks tumblers with his face on them.
Harness said she only learned of the legal action after the ruling, which came days after she was in hospital.
Combs said he called her to apologise and promised to send US$11,000.
That's double the US$5,500 that was initially frozen in her account following the judge's order, meaning she couldn't pay her bills.
The 33-year-old Grammy-nominated singer has now started selling his own tumblers on his official merchandise store, with all proceeds going to Ms Harness.
'So apologetic'
Earlier this year, Combs scored a hit and won single of the year at the Country Music Association Awards for his cover of Tracy Chapman's Fast Car.
He said he first learned of the legal action when he was sent a clip of Harness, from Florida, crying on a TV news interview.
In the report, she said she didn't know she was being sued and later found the notice in the spam folder of her email account.
She heard about the ruling after returning home from hospital, where she had been treated for congestive heart failure, she said.
"It's very stressful. I don't have money to pay my bills," she said.
"I just want this resolved. I didn't mean any harm to Luke Combs. I quit selling the tumbler. I pulled it down. I just don't understand."
Harness was selling the items on Amazon and used her store as her main source of income, which was then cut off as a result of the lawsuit.
She had been inspired to sell the tumblers after attending his show in Florida earlier this year.
After seeing the clip, Combs posted a video on social media to explain: "We have a company that goes after folks - only, supposedly, large corporations operating internationally that make millions and millions of dollars, making counterfeit T-shirts, things of that nature, running illegal businesses.
"And apparently this woman Nicol has got somehow wrapped into that, and that makes me absolutely sick to my stomach."
Combs said he was "so apologetic" and that "talking to her, it makes me sick that this would happen, especially [during] the holidays". He said "no fan should ever have to be involved in anything like this".
He added that he was "not greedy in any way, shape or form".
"Money is the last thing on my mind - and I invited Nicol and her family out to a show this year so I could give her a hug and say sorry in person," he said.
The judgement was reportedly made against a number of counterfeit sellers, most of which were large operations in Asia, according to the Associated Press.
*This story was first published on the BBC.
