Will Smith accused of predatory behaviour

0:00Will Smith:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30Will Smith:Now at Menards.

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1:16Brian King Joseph:Hello and welcome back to Fame Under Fire from BBC Sounds with me, Anushka Matanda-Dowarty. And today I'm joined again by our resident trial attorney, Sean Kent. Hi, Sean. Hey, Anushka. How are you guys doing? I'm doing good. I don't know if we filled everyone in on what you did with the trip to Mexico. Can you just make everyone really jealous and hate their bosses for a second?

1:36Will Smith:So every year at the end of the year, we take our firm. We call it Kentmas, not derivative use of Christmas. We take our firm, we call it Kentmas. We allow them to take themselves along with a significant other, whoever they want. And we took the entire firm down to Cancun, Mexico. We paid for the flights, their rooms, their food, had a mariachi band. snorkeling, just everything they can do for about a week. It's my little reward for a bunch of hard work.

2:02Brian King Joseph:You do that every year.

2:02Will Smith:Sorry out there, bosses, if I'm making you look bad.

2:04Brian King Joseph:Yeah, well, no, I just wanted to take this opportunity to tenure my resignation at the PPC. Come on. I'm going to South Carolina, maybe.

2:13Will Smith:You got to put up with me for 360 days.

2:16Brian King Joseph:But, you know, Sean, I know you've missed having a lawsuit a week to read about a celebrity, so I bring you what you want. We have this Will Smith lawsuit. This was requested quite a few times by some of the listeners. Thank you to everybody who is texting me on Instagram and TikTok. I see them. We get round to them. And you found the coverage of the Will Smith lawsuit quite confusing. So did I. I was seeing different things everywhere I looked. And then when I read the lawsuit, it kind of made sense why people found it confusing. Sean, I'll just walk you through it, yeah?

2:44Will Smith:Yeah, good by me.

2:45Brian King Joseph:Okay, so this is a civil lawsuit. Reminder, not criminal, civil. So we have a plaintiff. In this case, it's Brian King Joseph, and he's saying he suffered damages at the hands of Will Smith and his company, Trayball Productions. And there are some other people listed as defendants, but they're Jane and John Doe. So, Sean, just remind us that's keeping their anonymity, right?

3:06Will Smith:That is absolutely keeping their anonymity, not mentioning their names inside of the lawsuit because you're technically not filing against them. You could have listed their names, but for some reason they chose to do it that way.

3:15Brian King Joseph:Now, the plaintiff, Brian King Joseph, he's suing for retaliation and sexual harassment. And he alleges that he experienced this at the hands of Will Smith and his company. Some of you guys are going to be aware of what that is because we have spoken about retaliation and sexual harassment quite a lot, particularly on the Blake Lively Justin Baldoni case. But we will break it down in this episode for you. Just before we get into that, Will Smith, his company, they deny all of these allegations. His lawyer told us Mr. Joseph's allegations concerning my client are false, baseless and reckless. They are categorically denied and we will use all legal means available to address these claims and to ensure that the truth is brought to light.

3:53Brian King Joseph:So flat out denial from Will Smith. But this is how the story goes. Brian King Joseph is a professional violinist and he rose to fame on America's Got Talent.

4:02Will Smith:My name is Brian King Joseph. I'm from Los Angeles and I play violin.

4:13Brian King Joseph:And let me tell you, Sean, this guy can play the heck out of a violin. So he gets noticed for this. Obviously, if you don't know America's Got Talent, you go on, you show your talent. The nation watches. They vote you in. They vote you out. He was spotted on there, they say, by Will Smith. And he was brought on board to take part in Will Smith's global tour, which is called Based on a True Story. And it was touring in 2025. Now, Sean, to keep it simple, I'm going to call Brian King Joseph Brian for this or the plaintiff. You guys know what plaintiff means. You're all experts, but we're going to call him Brian from now on.

4:43Brian King Joseph:And I will not be calling Will Smith Willard because it just makes me laugh and feel like Uncle Phil. So this is what it says in the lawsuit. In or around December 2024, plaintiff performed at Smith's San Diego show and was subsequently invited by Smith to be more involved with the performance. Smith expressed to plaintiff that he was a valued member of the group and slowly provided plaintiff with additional stage time and features during the course of his show. So happy days in the beginning. Thereafter, Smith invited plaintiff Brian to play on several tracks on his upcoming album, and their relationship grew even closer.

5:15Brian King Joseph:Smith and plaintiff began spending additional time alone, with Will Smith even telling Brian, quote, you and I have such a special connection that I don't have with anyone else, and other similar expressions indicating his closeness to the plaintiff. I just want you to remember that quote, guys. Keep that stuck in your mind because it comes back up at the end. now in or around March 2025 Brian joined Will Smith for the leg of his tour in Las Vegas Nevada the defendant Smith Trayble Productions booked rooms for Brian and the rest of the band and crew members with each individual room number and confirmation code being sent on a spreadsheet to cast and crew no other individuals besides the crew and hotel staff would have had access to Brian's personal room now Brian left his bag which contained his key in the van that's what he Ledges and that was the van that was responsible for transporting all cast and crew members of Will Smith's production team and the band etc he left it there around 11 a.m when they were dropped off he requested that management retrieve his bag at 3 p.m at which point management indicated they were unable to find it at 5 p.m management returned to plaintiff with the bag which contains his keys so on or around March 20th 2025 at around 11 p.m while staying at a hotel in Las Vegas for a scheduled performance with Will Smith's tour, plaintiff returned to his assigned hotel room.

6:36Brian King Joseph:This is after he's got his bag, he's got his key back, he's going to his hotel room, he opens the door and he found evidence suggesting that an unknown person had unlawfully entered the room. That is what he's alleging. According to hotel security staff, it says there was no signs of forced entry into the room and the only individuals with access to the room would have been part of defendant's management team, part of Will Smith's management team who booked the room for Brian. This information was documented by phone calls between plaintiff and hotel security. The evidence that he says he finds in his room that shows he thinks somebody's been in there without his knowledge included a handwritten note addressed to plaintiff by name, which read, quote, Brian, I'll be back no later than 5.30.

7:18Brian King Joseph:Just us with a love heart that was drawn, signed Stone F. Among the remaining belongings were wipes, a beer bottle, a red backpack, a bottle of HIV medication and another individual's name, an earring and hospital discharge paperwork belonging to a person unbeknownst to plaintiff. Plaintiff feared that an unknown individual would soon return to his room to engage in sexual acts with him. So this is the issue. He's come in his room and he's found this. This is what Brian alleged happened. Now, I can hear you saying to me, as you do many, many times, if this has happened, he should call the police.

7:53Brian King Joseph:He should get documented evidence, right? In this case, Brian says he notified security at the hotel and people who work for Smith, obtained photo documentation, requested a room change and called the local non-emergency police line to report the incident. Followed the instructions given by Smith's management, he filed a full written incident report with hotel security, communicated with hotel management and offered to provide all information to defendant. He made clear that his only concern was safety and that he did not wish to receive any special treatment or compensation. Sean, they wouldn't put in the lawsuit that he did all of these things corroborating evidence if they didn't have it.

8:29Brian King Joseph:Right. Because then would that get you in trouble with a judge?

8:32Will Smith:Absolutely. What you've got to sign at the end of a lawsuit is we've talked about before two different things. It's called a verification. One, a lawyer has an affirmative duty not to lie and put things in front of a court and not to bring forth frivolous lawsuits. And two, once you bring a lawsuit, you've got to take it to your client and have them sign a verification attesting that everything that the lawyer wrote in the lawsuit is also true. So, yeah, you would get in trouble on both ends of the spectrum for putting incorrect or information that you knew or reasonably should know could be incorrect.

9:03Brian King Joseph:So according to this lawsuit, there's quite a lot of corroborating physical evidence that Brian did find this stuff in his room, particularly photographic evidence. If he says he obtained a picture of it and he spoke to the police force, the hotel security and Will Smith's management team. So he says after this, on around March 23rd, he reaches out to someone on Will Smith's team to speak about the next leg of the tour. But that person began blaming him for the incident that transpired on March 20th when he went in his room and found this stuff in his hotel room. It says, quote, rather than being protected against further assault and for attempting to understand plaintiff's complaint, plaintiff was shamed by defendant and told that he was being terminated.

9:42Brian King Joseph:When he requested further reasoning, this person who he was talking to called Tim Miller, acting on behalf of defendants, Will Smith, Trayville Productions, redirected the blame for the termination onto plaintiff, replying, quote, I don't know. You tell me because everyone is telling me that what happened to you is a lie. Nothing happened and you made the whole thing up. So tell me, why did you lie and make this up? Now, Brian says he, Tim Miller and anybody on the production side of things, didn't make any effort to verify if the safety concerns were true or not. One call to hotel security would have been sufficient.

10:13Brian King Joseph:Instead, defendant was intent on firing him because he reported the attempted sexual assault. So this is where we get to the retaliation element of the lawsuit. Brian is saying that he was fired because he reported what happened to him. Sean, can you just define like what is the bar for retaliation?

10:31Will Smith:Well, this lawsuit is brought in California. What's similar to almost every state in the United States is we have what's called at will employment. And so what at will employment basically means is you work at the will of your employer, meaning an employer can fire you for any reasonable reason they want and you can quit for any reasonable reason you want. You work at will. So a lot of times when we're advising people like we want to terminate an employee, we say just fire them. Don't give them a reason. Why do we say that don't give them a reason? Because that gets to the second part. You can fire somebody for any reason.

11:06Will Smith:However, you cannot fire them if it is something that could be conceived as illegal. What does that mean? The retaliation like you just talked about in California. we have what's called the FEHA, the Fair Employment Housing Act. And so even though the second part is about housing, the first part is about employment. You cannot fire or terminate somebody for doing something fair, meaning you sexually harass your employee and then fire them because they're going to report you. You see your employer doing something illegal and then they fire you so you don't turn them in. It's also known as our Worcester Blower Act.

11:43Will Smith:And so what Brian is basically saying in his lawsuit is, yes, you have a right to fire me. Yes, you can fire me for any reason, but you cannot fire me because I'm reporting that you have engaged in a crime. Therefore, you have violated the FEHA, and that's where my cause of action is, and that's why I am suing you guys, because I have been sexually harassed, I reported sexual harassment, and because I have reported this, because I have hurt Will Smith's reputation, y 'all have terminated me. Very long wouldn't answer. I hope that answered your question.

12:16Brian King Joseph:No, that makes sense. But when he reported it, there's no indication in the lawsuit that in his report he blames Will Smith or anybody in the production team. It's just that he reported it. So does that still apply?

12:29Will Smith:Yes. And that goes to another theory. And it's not I don't know if it's mentioned in the lawsuit. I'm not sure it is, but usually they are. It's called respondeat superior. It's a Latin phrase that basically means you are the boss or responsible for the people beneath you. So if one of your agents, Will Smith, has broken into my room and put HIV medication and threatened a sexual assault or done something, you are responsible for that person. And therefore, their actions are your actions. And I'm bringing a lawsuit against you and everybody around you because somebody must have done it. Now, don't ask me what I think of the lawsuit itself, but that is the theory that he's be going through.

13:06Brian King Joseph:We're going to get there, but directly to what you just said, right? Essentially, that's like a duty of care.

13:12Will Smith:Absolutely. Absolutely.

13:13Brian King Joseph:Same exact theory. So this is what the lawsuit says next. Plaintiff further pleads on information and belief that defendant's conduct goes beyond a mere failure to protect an employee's safety or dispute over a claim. I want you to pay attention to this bit. The facts strongly suggest that defendant Willard carol smith the second will smith was deliberately grooming and priming mr joseph for further sexual exploitation the sequence of events smith's prior statements to plaintiff and the circumstances of the hotel intrusion all point to a pattern of predatory behavior rather than an isolated incident

13:47Will Smith:sean reflect on that please this is a lawsuit of innuendo which scares me sometimes it is making suggestions without getting to the penultimate conclusion. You know what I mean? It's saying, well, this must have happened and this must have happened and this must have happened without any proof whatsoever. And that is one of the concerns, because when I read the lawsuit, and I don't know about anybody else, when you read it, the next phrase was, and what? It's sort of like watching a movie without a conclusion. You're like, OK, the meat never comes out of it. nothing happened in his room that could be tied into Will Smith or more importantly to anyone not named Stone F.

14:30Will Smith:And even if let's go one step further and he can tie anything that happened into that room to Will Smith. The next question is, what are your actual damages? As we always talk about, I don't think he can even get to tie anything into Will Smith. And I think this lawsuit will be dismissed on summary judgment because just on its face. And I love this because we always talk about summary judgment.

14:53Brian King Joseph:Just remind everybody what that is.

14:54Will Smith:Summary judgment is what ends up happening. I'm sorry, I should have explained. Sometimes a judge can make a decision on a case on its merits and says there's no reason for this to go to a jury. A jury in the United States of America makes decision of the facts on the case. They try to decide who is telling the truth. A judge can make a decision based simply on the law. The law says this. So what will end up happening is Will Smith's team will go to a judge and bring what's called a motion for summary judgment. Your Honor, we want you to decide this case on the pleadings, on the lawsuit, on what we have right here.

15:33Will Smith:As a matter of fact, the reason I say this is Will Smith's team could, and this is why I like this case for an example of summary judgment, could literally go to the world and say, we believe every single thing that he mentioned in his factual allegations happened. So what? We didn't do it. You know what I mean? Like it could be there is no proof. There's no tying in that anyone under Will Smith's umbrella had anything to do with it. I mean, he's making a huge jump.