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Apparently, Kevin Hart still hasn’t escaped his cheating scandal that began in 2017, when a sex tape was leaked that reportedly showed the actor and comedian getting his sneaky link on with actress and model Montia Sabbag.
Now, Hart is facing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by his former friend Jonathan “J.T.” Jackson, who claimed Hart made baseless allegations regarding his alleged role in filming the sex tape and extorting the Soul Plane actor over it. According to the suit, Jackson is accusing Hart of welching on a settlement agreement by refusing to issue a public apology for the accusation in the manner that he agreed to.
From the Los Angeles Times:
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Jackson accused the “Get Hard” actor of not using the “meticulously negotiated” and agreed-upon wording from their 2021 settlement when he addressed the scandal in an Instagram post that same year, resulting in a $12-million breach of written contract lawsuit. The civil lawsuit, which lists Hart, Hartbeat LLC and several Does among the defendants, also accuses them of fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The 23-page complaint, obtained Wednesday by The Times, said Hart was contractually obligated by their July 2021 settlement to use “specific verbiage” that would “publicly exonerate” the Navy veteran, professional bowler and actor, who was entangled in legal issues in the wake of the scandal.
“The wording of Hart’s statement — which was meticulously negotiated and detailed in the Contract — was absolutely crucial to repairing and remediating the severe damage inflicted upon Plaintiff’s reputation by the baseless extortion allegations that Hart aggressively promoted and publicized,” the complaint said.
In January 2018, the year after Hart’s sex tape was leaked, Jackson’s L.A. home was raided by law enforcement investigators with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, who reportedly held the 47-year-old and his wife at gunpoint while investigating the allegation of extortion, which Jackson believes Hart initiated. The charges were eventually dropped by prosecutors, but Jackson claimed that his “reputation was unjustly tarnished due to a series of malicious actions by the defendants.” Jackson also sued the prosecutors last December, according to the Times.
The actions by Hart and his production company, Hartbeat, that Jackson says hurt his reputation include the 2019 release of Hart’s Netflix docuseries Don’t F— This Up.
More from the Times:
The docuseries mentioned extortion and alleged that Jackson had been involved in the creation and dissemination of a sex tape that showed Hart and a woman who was not his wife getting intimate in a Las Vegas hotel room. (Both Jackson and Hart were also sued for $60 million by model Montia Sabbag, the woman who purportedly appeared with Hart in the tape, but that lawsuit was ultimately dismissed, and Jackson was cleared of all allegations.)
Jackson’s lawsuit states that in their original written settlement, Hart agreed to “pursue and advocate for the dismissal of all criminal charges” against Jackson and make a public statement exonerating him. Hart was allegedly supposed to declare officially that criminal charges against Jackson had been dropped, that Jackson had been cleared completely of any involvement in extortion, and that the whole saga had cost Hart “a valuable friendship.” Hart was also required to say he had “lost someone close to me that I loved and still have very much love for or high levels of love for and I’m proud to say that all charges against JT Jackson have been dropped and he is not guilty and had nothing to do with it and this matter at hand that once was so tough to deal with and so heavy for me and my household is now put to bed.” (To be fair, a lot of that was kinda extra. How are you going to sue someone into saying you were once a valued friend of theirs whom they “loved”?)
But Hart allegedly violated the terms of the settlement when an Instagram video he posted in October 2021 that “blatantly broke” their agreement and “manipulate[d] the narrative,” not because he didn’t state what he was supposed to state, but because he didn’t word his statement correctly.
“J.T. Jackson has recently been found not guilty, and those charges have been dropped against him, and I can finally speak on what I once couldn’t,” Hart said in his statement. Hart did mention that their friendship “was lost,” but he failed to mention that Jackson “had nothing to do with” any extortion plot.
“Hart’s statement deviates significantly from the agreed-upon verbiage in several crucial aspects,” Jackson’s attorney, Daniel L. Reback, argued. “First, Hart’s stipulated verbiage explicitly required him to state that ‘all charges against [Jackson] have been dropped and he is not guilty and had nothing to do with it.’ However, Hart’s actual statement lacks the explicit declaration of Plaintiff’s innocence or non-involvement. Also, Hart’s agreed-upon statement was to acknowledge the incident’s heavy impact on the loss of a valuable friendship due to the legal matter, but Hart’s actual statement focuses entirely on Hart himself ‘moving on’ and does not directly acknowledge the significant personal and professional toll on Plaintiff as outlined in the Contract.”
Jackson’s suit seeks $12 million as well as punitive damages to be determined at trial and reimbursement for legal costs and court fees. The suit also seeks injunctions requiring the defendants to exonerate him and remove “all the false statements” from Don’t F— This Up.