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Comedian and actor Kevin Hart is suing his ex-assistant Miesha Shakes and blogger Tasha K. for defamation after they allegedly made numerous false claims against him in an interview.
Hart is seeking a restraining order and injunction alleging extortion attempts have been made against him.
Despite previous requests, Tasha K. has yet to remove the video of the interview from the internet which he claims claims threatens his reputation and career.
Kevin Hart also accuses her of contacting him before publishing the interview and offering to not release it if he paid her $250,000. Instead of paying, he sent her a cease and desist letter, which she ignored.
Shakes, who worked for Kevin Hart from August 2017 to October 2020, was, according to the cease and desist letter, was forbidden from discussing her former employer due to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) she had signed.
Hart now claims, “Shakes made statements about me that were simply false, including that I supposedly made a secret video recording of a sexual encounter and faced criminal charges regarding that supposed incident. I did not record any such video, and I have never faced criminal charges in connection with that alleged incident or any related matters.”
In 2017, a sexually suggestive video of Kevin Hart appeared online over which he claimed the woman in the video, Montia Sabbag, was using to try and extort money from him.
He would go on to publicly apologize to his wife and kids following the video’s release.
Sabbag later filed a $60 million lawsuit against the comedian claiming that Hart and a man who was later arrested for extortion, J.T. Jackson, planned the whole thing to get more publicity for Hart and his upcoming comedy tour.
The comedian countered by claiming Jackson also attempted to extort him over the video taken in a room at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas.
Hart claims that the statements made by Shakes threatens his livelihood which “depends in large part on my reputation and the public’s perception of me. That perception is of particular concern in light of the fact that I am involved in a number of family-oriented projects, such as the Jumanji franchise, Fatherhood, Captain Underpants, the Secret Life of Pets, and others.”
He also says that his endorsements “depend in part on a public perception of my reputation, respectability, and character.”
As part of the NDA, Hart agreed to pay Shakes $30,000 per year as well as her health insurance for three years following her employment.
In return, she agreed to disclose confidential information learned during her employment or exploit Hart’s name without his written consent.