Kevin Hart is being sued for allegedly ruining a settlement agreement that was meant to clear the name of a former friend, Jonathan “JT” Jackson, in connection with the events surrounding the comedian's sex tape cheating scandal.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Jackson accused the “Get Hard” actor of failing to use the “meticulously negotiated” and agreed-upon wording of 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 suit, which names 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 agreement to use “specific language” that would “publicly exonerate” the Navy veteran, professional bowler and actor, who has become embroiled in legal trouble in the wake of the scandal.
“The wording of Hart’s statement—which was meticulously negotiated and detailed in the Agreement—was absolutely crucial to repairing and remedying the serious damage inflicted on Plaintiff’s reputation by the unfounded extortion allegations that Hart aggressively promoted and publicized,” the complaint says.
Jackson, 47, was the subject of a home raid in January 2018, in which he and his wife were held at gunpoint by Los Angeles County District Attorney investigators who were looking into allegations of extortion, which he believes Hart started. The charges were eventually dropped by prosecutors (whom Jackson also sued in December), but Jackson claimed his “reputation was unfairly tarnished due to a series of malicious actions by the defendants,” even as Hart and Hartbeat released the 2019 Netflix docuseries “Don’t F— This Up.”
The docuseries mentioned extortion and claimed that Jackson had been involved in the creation and dissemination of a sex tape showing Hart and a woman other than his wife being intimate in a Las Vegas hotel room. (Both Jackson and Hart were also sued for $60 million by model Montia Sabbag, the woman purportedly seen with Hart in the video, but that suit was eventually dismissed and Jackson was cleared of all wrongdoing.)
According to the new suit, Jackson did not receive any money from his settlement agreement with Hart, as he believed their contract “was not intended to seek compensation, but rather was a means to an end” that would clear Jackson’s name. Hart’s public statement, which was required to include agreed-upon language, was crucial to Jackson’s exoneration, according to the complaint, and Jackson signed that contract “with the expectation that it would ultimately restore his reputation and allow Plaintiff to resume his professional life with integrity.”
Jackson alleged that Hart had explicitly agreed in their written agreement to “pursue and defend the dismissal of all criminal charges” against Jackson and to make a public statement exonerating him. Hart, he said, was obligated to say that the criminal charges against Jackson had been dismissed, that Jackson had been completely cleared of any involvement in an extortion plot, and that the legal debacle had cost Hart “a valuable friendship.”
The complaint further said Hart was to say he had “lost someone close to me that I loved and for whom I still feel a great deal of love or high levels of love and I am 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 was once so difficult to deal with and so burdensome for me and my family is now resolved.”
Instead, Hart's Instagram video from October 27, 2021 “blatantly broke” their agreement and “manipulated”[d] “The story,” the complaint said. Hart eventually said that “JT Jackson has recently been found not guilty, and those charges have been dropped against him, and I can finally speak out about what I couldn’t before.” The comedian also said their friendship was “lost” due to the legal process and noted his relief at the end of the legal saga. He did not mention that Jackson “had nothing to do with it.”
“Hart’s plea deviates significantly from the agreed-upon wording in several crucial respects,” Jackson’s attorney, Daniel L. Reback, argued in the complaint. “First, Hart’s stipulated wording explicitly required him to state that ‘all charges against him’ [Jackson] “The case has been dismissed and he is not guilty and had nothing to do with it.” However, Hart’s actual plea lacks the explicit statement of the plaintiff’s innocence or non-involvement. Furthermore, Hart’s agreed plea was to acknowledge the severe impact of the incident in the loss of a valued friendship due to the legal matter, but Hart’s actual plea focuses entirely on Hart himself “moving on” and does not directly acknowledge the significant personal and professional cost to the plaintiff as outlined in the contract.”
In addition to $12 million, Jackson is seeking punitive damages to be determined at trial, costs and attorneys’ fees, and court orders compelling the defendants to exonerate him, as well as the removal of “all false statements” about him in “Don’t F— This Up.”
In a statement to the Times, Reback added: “The facts of the complaint speak for themselves. We are confident that the lawsuit will result in Mr. Jackson’s complete victory and vindication.”
A spokesman for Hart was not available Wednesday to respond to The Times' request for comment.
Hart has spoken publicly about the sex tape saga repeatedly over the years, apologizing to his wife, Eniko Parrish, who was pregnant with their first child at the time the Las Vegas video was allegedly recorded. Amid reports that an unidentified woman allegedly tried to extort him over a video containing sexually suggestive content, Hart apologized to Parrish in a September 2017 Instagram video.
“I have to do better and I will. I’m not perfect and I’ve never claimed to be,” he wrote in the caption of the video. Months later, he confessed to the affair, telling “The Breakfast Club” in December 2017 that he had been “beyond irresponsible.”
“That’s Kevin Hart at his worst. It’s not the best moment of my life,” he said. “That being said, you make your bed and you lay in it. You can’t say what you were thinking, because you weren’t thinking.”
Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this article. report.
