When Kevin Hart took to Instagram three years ago to discuss his bizarre 2017 sex tape scandal and the related extortion charges filed — and eventually dropped — against his friend Jonathan “JT” Jackson, the superstar comedian said he was happy to “move on” from that chapter of his life.
Now, the precise words Hart used to deliver that seemingly off-the-cuff message to his millions of followers are the subject of a new $12 million breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by Jackson in Los Angeles.
In his new 23-page complaint filed Wednesday and obtained by Rolling stoneJackson claims Hart’s social media post shared on Oct. 27, 2021, was far from spontaneous. Instead, it was the subject of a “carefully negotiated” settlement agreement signed by the parties nearly three months earlier, Jackson reveals. According to the suit, Hart was contractually obligated to use “specific verbiage” that would “publicly exonerate” Jackson, a professional bowler and actor who had a minor role in Hart’s 2014 film Think like a man tooHart would have been required to note not only that the criminal charges against Jackson had been dropped, but that Jackson was completely cleared of any involvement in an extortion plot and that the scandal had cost Hart “a valuable friendship.”
For example, Jackson claims Hart explicitly agreed to say, “I lost someone very close to me that I loved and still have a lot of love for, or a high level 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.” According to Jackson, 47, Hart “openly broke” their agreement.
In his Instagram video, Hart said, “JT Jackson was recently found not guilty, and the charges against him were dropped, and I can finally talk about what I couldn’t before.” Hart noted that their friendship “was lost,” but the statement seemed matter-of-fact. “It’s over, and I’m glad it’s over,” he said of the saga. Hart did not include the line that Jackson “had nothing to do with it.”
“The wording of Hart’s declaration, carefully negotiated and detailed in the contract, was crucial to repairing and remedying the serious harm inflicted on Plaintiff’s reputation by the baseless extortion allegations that Hart aggressively promoted and publicized,” Jackson’s new complaint states. The declaration Hart ultimately delivered, the complaint says, “dilutes that intent by presenting the exoneration more as a conclusion to a chapter in Hart’s life rather than a clear and unequivocal exoneration of Plaintiff.”
A representative for Hart, 45, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Rolling stoneRequest for comment from.
The new complaint, filed by Jackson’s attorney Daniel L. Reback, marks the latest twist in a controversy that began when Hart and Jackson took a trip together to Las Vegas in August 2017. A few weeks later, according to court documents in a related case, Hart’s then-pregnant wife, Eniko Parrish, allegedly received an anonymous message that read, “Unfortunately, your husband Kevin Hart is cheating on you.” The message allegedly included a Dropbox link to an edited video of Hart engaging in an intimate act with a woman in his private suite at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. That evening, Hart posted an Instagram video in which he apologized to his wife and family. He admitted to a “serious lapse in judgment” and vowed that he would “not allow anyone to profit financially from my mistakes.” The message prompted a person using the Instagram account Misterjood to leave a public comment that read, “Give me $5 million or I’ll release the video. No need to make this public.” You had your chance.”
Hours later, on September 17, 2017, the now-defunct website Fameolous.com posted the secretly recorded video. Days later, TMZ reported that the FBI was investigating a multimillion-dollar extortion plot against Hart. That same week, model Montia Sabbag held a press conference with her then-lawyer, Lisa Bloom, to confirm that she was the woman in the video. She maintained her innocence, saying she had nothing to do with the recording or any alleged extortion. (Sabbag later filed a $60 million lawsuit against Jackson and Hart, claiming the men conspired to create and distribute the video to promote Hart.) Irresponsible tour. A judge dismissed Sabbag’s civil claims against Jackson in August 2022, citing Sabbag’s lack of “diligence,” including his failure to obtain Jackson’s records from prosecutors, who had by then dropped their two extortion claims. Sabbag’s remaining claims against Hart would be dismissed in June 2023 when Sabbag’s attorney failed to appear at a final status conference before trial.)
According to Jackson’s new complaint, Hart and his attorneys played a critical role in the events leading up to his arrest. Jackson alleges that Hart’s camp misled investigators about key evidence shortly before more than a dozen armed law enforcement officers broke down his door with guns drawn and raided his home on January 23, 2018. In a separate complaint against members of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office filed last December, Jackson alleges that the search warrant for the raid relied on an earlier search warrant that described Misterjood’s $5 million demand as the alleged extortion attempt. In the warrant, investigators described the demand as a “private message” sent before Hart released his apology video.
Eventually, the prosecutor’s investigator who requested the search warrant admitted that Misterjood’s post was a public comment, not a private message, and that it had been posted by someone in response to Hart’s public apology video. He was never connected to Jackson. After that revelation, prosecutors dismissed one of the two counts of criminal extortion. They eventually dropped the entire case.
Jackson’s lawsuit filed in December against prosecutors alleges they violated his civil rights, fabricated evidence and engaged in malicious prosecution. The officials responded in March with a motion to dismiss the suit, saying they were entitled to immunity. They also reiterated their claim that electronic devices seized from Jackson’s home during the 2018 raid revealed that Jackson was “in possession of the sex tape and emails related to[Jackson’s]attempt to sell the tape to the media before it was made public.”
According to previous court documents cited in the motion to dismiss, a media outlet received an email from someone trying to sell the video before it was released. The outlet allegedly shared the email with Hart’s team, and in response, Hart’s attorney asked someone to contact the anonymous seller posing as a sex tape broker who wanted to buy the video. Subsequent negotiations ultimately failed. Prosecutors alleged that the email address contacted by Hart’s fake broker was linked to Jackson’s IP address.
For his part, Jackson is adamant that he never committed a crime, did not sell the video, and never extorted anyone. “Despite the allegations and the supposed linkage of the IP address, the facts are that I was not arrested on the day of the raid on January 23, 2018. I was not arrested until April 30, 2018, for a completely unrelated incident involving an alleged extortion email sent to Kevin Hart on April 27, 2018. This delay in arrest casts doubt on the strength and reliability of the evidence initially claimed by the DA’s office, particularly if any IP addresses were linked,” Jackson said in an email to Rolling stone.
Jackson’s new complaint alleges that “false accusations” were the basis for his arrest. It claims, among other things, that Hart “pretended” to have received an email on April 27, 2018, from someone demanding 20 bitcoins to stop more footage from the sex tape from being released. The alleged email — sent seven months after the scandal broke — was reported to prosecutors and cited by a district attorney’s investigator as the reason for Jackson’s arrest. Jackson alleges in his new complaint that the copy of the email eventually shared by prosecutors indicates that it was “fabricated.” He claims that analysis by two experts determined that it was created using Microsoft Word on May 17, 2019, more than a year after the alleged extortion attempt.
In his complaint, Jackson claims that his career and reputation have suffered profound harm as a result of the failed lawsuit. He claims that statements made in Hart’s docuseries “Don’t F**K This Up,” a six-part reality show chronicling Hart’s life that premiered on Netflix in December 2019, have caused even more harm. In the series, which is still streaming, Hart reflects on the sex tape scandal and the end of his friendship with Jackson. He said it was “hard to talk about” the incident, lamenting the loss of “someone you really trusted and loved. It hurts.”
The series aired after all charges against Jackson were dropped, but Hart’s longtime friend and fellow comic Will “Spank” Horton still appears onscreen to summarize prosecutors’ failed theory of the case: “My guess is he put a camera in the room, filmed the act, went home, edited it, and then sent him an email or ransom note like, ‘Look, I’ll release this video if you don’t pay me.’ I think it was like $10 million or something,” Horton says. (After the series aired, Jackson began preparing to eventually file a defamation lawsuit against Hart, leading to the 2021 settlement that is now at the center of Jackson’s breach-of-contract lawsuit.)
Jackson claims the now-dropped criminal charges and the high-profile Netflix series, allegedly watched by millions, have caused lasting harm to his career and well-being. “The continued availability of this content continues to perpetuate the false narrative, causing ongoing harm to Plaintiff’s professional and personal life,” the complaint states. Jackson, a Navy veteran, alleges the fallout has “exacerbated” his service-related post-traumatic stress disorder and “caused significant mental health issues.”
Jackson is suing Hart and his company Hartbeat Productions for breach of written contract, fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He is seeking at least $12 million in actual damages as well as punitive damages to be determined at trial.
“This ordeal has caused profound emotional distress and significant professional setbacks for my wife and me. It is extremely unfortunate that someone I considered my brother, my pots and pans for 16 years, we are now on opposite sides of the fence,” Jackson said in a statement sent to Rolling stone“Despite everything, I still wish him well. But it’s been three years since Kevin promised to help me clear my name, to no avail. So here we are. Through this trial, I want to restore my reputation, demand accountability, and ensure that such injustices do not happen again.”