My Chemical Romance had always planned to stop using Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders uniforms after just three concerts, and a headline-grabbing lawsuit from the cheer squad played no role in that decision, the band’s manager says in new court filings.
The cheerleaders sued last month, demanding a restraining order after the band’s backup dancers wore look-alike uniforms during shows at the Hollywood Bowl — the grand finale of a dystopian rock opera celebrating the 20th anniversary of the band’s The Black Parade album.
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The case ended just days later, reportedly after My Chemical Romance promised not to use the costumes at future shows. But in a sworn statement filed in court Thursday (Oct. 29), the band’s manager, Brian Schechter, said that had always been the plan and was not a response to the lawsuit.
“From the outset, the Finale — with its elaborate sets, full cast, and resolution of the story told during the 2025 and 2026 tours — was planned to be performed only on Oct. 21, 23, and 24, 2026, and on no other date,” Schechter wrote in the Oct. 29 declaration.
“All of these decisions were made nearly a year before I first learned, on Oct. 22, 2026, after the Finale’s first performance, that [the cheerleaders] objected to it,” Schechter wrote. “The Finale was last performed on Oct. 24, 2026, because of those earlier decisions that it was the last performance of that three-part story, not because of any objection by plaintiff.”
In an emailed response to Billboard, Alex Spiro, lead counsel for the Cowboys Cheerleaders, flatly dismissed the idea that the band had already been planning to stop using the uniforms long in advance: “Sure they were,” he writes. “They waved the white flag.”
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The Black Parade, the band’s 2006 magnum opus, reached the top of the Billboard 200 this week after an anniversary reissue. My Chemical Romance spent the past two years touring ahead of the looming milestone, culminating in the trio of theatrical concerts at the Hollywood Bowl last month. The shows, which told a satirical story about the “United States by Draag,” featured one scene in which the Cowboys Cheerleaders, armed with rifles, engaged in a faux-firefight on stage.
The cheerleaders’ parent company, Pro Silver Star, sued over that performance on Oct. 23, claiming the use of the look-alike uniforms infringed its trademark rights. Arguing fans and social media users had believed it was the real Cowboys Cheerleaders on stage, the case sought an immediate restraining order legally barring the band from using the uniforms at two final Bowl shows and any future dates.
Legal experts told Billboard the lawsuit faced long odds in court, since My Chemical Romance’s performance was likely protected by the First Amendment. But just days later, news broke that the band had agreed to not use the uniforms in future shows. TMZ, which broke the news based on anonymous sources, said the band had “folded” and that the cheerleaders had “won big.”
But in Thursday’s filing, Schechter said the lawsuit had nothing to do with the decision. He said the final two Hollywood Bowl shows had always been normal tour dates, not the elaborate “Finale” stage show — meaning the Cowboys cheer uniforms never would have appeared anyway. And he said there had never been a plan to use the costumes at other future dates.
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“[In 2025], the band and I decided that the Finale would be performed only on the three original dates,” Schechter wrote in the declaration. “The Oct. 30 and 31, 2026, performances and the band’s remaining performances on its worldwide tour are not performances of the Finale and will not include any cheerleader characters or cheerleader costumes.”
The filing came with an attached exhibit, showing the actual email sent by the band’s lawyer (David Byrnes of the law firm Ziffren Brittenham LLP) the day before the news of the quick resolution broke.
“I write to let you know that there’s no need to proceed with the petition for a TRO attached to your email,” Byrnes wrote. “The Black Parade shows are finished and My Chemical Romance will not be performing any remaining shows on its current tour with dancers in the cheerleader costumes your client objects to.”
The new filings came during a brief moment last week when it appeared that Live Nation — the promoter of the Black Parade shows and thus a co-defendant in the cheerleader lawsuit — would continue to fight the case. The concert giant legally transferred the lawsuit to federal court, then filed a full brief arguing why the judge should refuse to grant the cheerleaders a restraining order.
“This is a trademark case about a musical group’s artistic expression and the First Amendment,” Live Nation’s lawyers write. “Plaintiff asks this court to use trademark law to line edit theatrical staging at a Los Angeles concert because plaintiff dislikes the way the show parodied one of the most famous uniforms in the United States.”
But on Monday morning (Nov. 2), that case ended, too, after the cheerleaders and Live Nation filed a joint motion telling the judge that they had reached an agreement for the “dismissal of this action, in its entirety.”