Life v Death presents a remarkable array of artistic strategies offering healing and hope to those struggling with depression / suicidal thoughts through selected works of music, film, performance art, and storytelling.
Billy Yeager is an award-winning singer- songwriter, discovered by Grammy Award Winner Bruce Hornsby in 1991. Yeager went on to become an award-winning independent filmmaker, producing, directing, acting and composing the soundtrack in all of his films (see IMBD).
In 2005, Billy and his wife, Anais, began a serious search for truth, not only in their lives, but through their art, music and films.
In 2009, the Yeagers relinquished their comfortable lives in Palm Beach, Florida, and embarked on a spiritual journey that took them into the Mojave Desert for over 4 years, where they produced and directed their film called Jesus of Malibu.
In 2013, the Yeagers were discovered by Maltese Productions and a documentary film was produced about their lives.
The documentary, called The Film That Changed The World, won Most Inspirational movie award at the Red Dirt International Film Festival.
The Yeagers are also activists; many of their music videos depict the suffering and injustice around the world among the greed and vanity of today’s society.
In 2016, the Yeagers began planning a series of benefit concerts that were going to raise money to provide wheelchairs to landmine victims in 3rd world countries.
In 2017, in complete violation of their Code of Ethics, NPR (National Public Radio) published and broadcasted to over 150 million people severely defamatory statements against Billy Yeager, destroying the Yeagers’ Benefit Concerts (To learn more read the statement of the case HERE.)
Billy Yeager was never contacted (for neither the article nor the radio broadcast); his manager was never contacted; not a single person of the 100s of professional people in the music and film industry that Billy Yeager had worked with for over 40 years was ever contacted.
For months, Billy was mocked and scorned all over social media; he was even compared to Charles Manson.
The Yeagers contacted NPR’s Legal Counsel and demanded NPR to remove the defamatory article and tell the truth.
For over three weeks, NPR’s Senior Associate General Counsel Ashley Messenger was in correspondence with Yeager and his wife. Billy and Anais sent numerous files, including articles, videos and excerpts from The Film That Changed The World.
Admitting that they were wrong by stating they had “misunderstood,” NPR concocted an unethical, appallingly unheard of approach to “fix it”: NPR offered Billy Yeager “the opportunity” to write his own story, and “tell our audience about your career, your highest ideals and artistic vision, your desire to change the world,” yet at the same time censored him, informing Billy what he could and could not say, “due to liability” (in their own words.) NPR never offered Billy the chance to go on the radio, and they refused to remove the article from NPR’s website because this would make them liable.
Suffering from emotional distress, Billy continued to become more and more depressed and tried to commit suicide and ended up in the emergency room. Anais wrote a 14,000 letter to Ashley Messenger informing NPR that due to their wrongful actions they had severely damaged her husband and almost killed him.
In violation to their Code of Conduct, NPR refused to take accountability. NPR was never concerned about the injustice and damage caused to Billy and Anais, or about telling the truth to their audience; they were only concerned about themselves.
The Yeagers took up their own case without a lawyer and fought for over 3 years to achieve justice. Beginning in the district court, through the 10th circuit, all the way to the Supreme Court, they were denied the chance to present the truth and defend their rights. As activists, the Yeagers were not only fighting for their reputations, but for the American people; most people are not aware of how and why the media gets away with outright lying.
A law implemented by the Supreme Court in 1964 has allowed the media to obtain so much power. Not only did Billy Yeager not obtain justice, but he never even got his day in court to present his case before a jury. Denied his 9th, 10th and 14th Amendment Rights, Yeager was even more devastated; his taxes had been used to destroy his life and the justice system had not served him any justice. (Over $1 Billion from U.S. taxpayers dollars are given to NPR and PBS every year.)
To this day, NPR continues to hide; they have never had the courage to speak up because they know they are wrong.
As hard as this was to accept, the Yeagers knew that they must continue to fight and let the world know of this great injustice and the failure of the American justice system, including the Supreme Court justices who all looked the other way, and the American defamation law — In other countries such as England, Billy Yeager would have received the opportunity to defend his life, because the law is concerned with the truth. In the United States a journalist will be protected no matter how false and damaging his words are unless the person defamed can prove actual malice, which as many judges and justices have stated is almost impossible.
Although Billy is still healing, he and Anais know that they are not alone; after researching the statistics of suicide they decided to use their artistic talents to help others who go through depression and suicidal thoughts.
The Yeagers believe in goodness, truth and justice, and also that music and film can bring power and healing.
