Yes, he was. He tried to say that using and extra “doo” made it completely different. The judge did not agree. He had to cough up a big chunk of dough to Mr. Mercury and company. Check the writing credits.
I was quoting Vanilla from memory, specifically, his MTV interview where he insists that his and Freddie’s are two entirely different compositions.
See for yourself here: It’s MTV’s 12th most outrageous moment.
The great thing about it is that Vanilla himself is so SINCERE. You WANT to believe him.
I heard Brian May (guitar player for Queen) interviewed during the time that “Ice Ice Baby” was getting regular airplay and he said, “Don’t worry, we’re in the process of suing his lilly-white ass.”
After the settlement I heard Brian May say, “We reached a settlement and I just made a sizeable down payment on a little island off the cost of Mexico.”
I don’t know what the settlement was for, but given Queen’s gargantuan success and business savy (they were once the highest paid director of a company in Great Britain), I’d say it was not an insignificant amount.