Daryl Hall and John Oates of the musical duo Hall & Oates are enmeshed in a legal battle that has resulted in a restraining order.
Hall, 77, filed an undisclosed complaint and a motion for a temporary restraining order against Oates, 75, on Thursday, November 16, Us Weekly can confirm. The court approved the motion the following day. Little information about the lawsuit is publicly available as the court documents are sealed.
Hall & Oates formed in 1970 and went on to release 18 studio albums. The act boasts six No. 1 singles including “Maneater” and “Rich Girl.” The musicians toured together as recently as October 2022 and released their latest record, Home for Christmas, in 2006. Despite the pair’s success, Hall minimized his working relationship with Oates during an appearance on Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast in September 2022.
“I don’t have a partner. You say John Oates is my partner? … He’s my business partner. He’s not my creative partner,” he said at the time. “John and I are brothers, but we are not creative brothers. We are business partners. We made records called Hall & Oates together, but we’ve always been very separate, and that’s a really important thing for me.”
Hall went on to use the twosome’s 1980 No. 1 hit “Kiss on My List” as an example of their lack of creative collaboration. “I did all those [harmonies],” he said of the track. “That’s all me.”
Despite their differences, Hall emphasized at the time that he and Oates were on good terms. “We are not acrimonious in any way. We’re friends,” he said. “We just have different directions and have had since about 1975.”
One month later, Hall shared more insight into his dynamic with Oates during an interview with Goldmine magazine.
“We’re very different personalities. One of the reasons we became friends is [that] somehow in spite of being opposites, we get along. I’m such an aggressive person and he is not,” Hall said. “He’s a very passive, laissez-faire kind of guy and it serves him well. I think that perhaps he leads a happier life than mine because of it — certainly a less tempestuous life than I’ve lived, so it’s good for him.”
Oates, meanwhile, said during a July interview with UltimateGuitar.com that he didn’t think he and Hall would ever make another record together: “I’d never say no to anything, but I doubt it. I think Daryl and I have moved beyond it, I really do. The future of Hall & Oates is in the past.”
