Both Tiffany Haddish and Aries Spears have found themselves in legal hot water. On Thursday evening, The Daily Beast published a lengthy report that identified Haddish and Spears as key figures in child sexual abuse lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County. The lawsuit alleges that Spears and Haddish “groomed” and “assaulted” a seven-year-old and a 14-year-old child on camera. After the claims put forth in the lawsuit became public, Tiffany Haddish’s legal representative, Andrew Brettler, issued a statement.
“Plaintiff’s mother, Trizah Morris, has been trying to assert these bogus claims against Ms. Haddish for several years,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
“Every attorney who has initially taken on her case — and there were several — ultimately dropped the matter once it became clear that the claims were meritless and Ms. Haddish would not be shaken down.
The first incident of alleged abuse identified in The Daily Beast report centers around an encounter in 2013. A 14-year-old child, using the pseudonym Jane, attended a comedy camp where Haddish appeared as a guest speaker. After meeting Tiffany Haddish, the comedian informed the teenager that she had found the “perfect” role for her in a commercial. When the plaintiff arrived to film the commercial, she says that Spears and Haddish told her to stand in a recording booth and watch a video. The video reportedly began with two people arguing over a sandwich before they began to eat it in a suggestive manner. The lawsuit claims that the two people in the video ultimately began “moaning and making sexual noises as they both ate the sandwich in a manner that simulated the act of fellatio.” First, Spears allegedly told Jane “to mimic what she had seen on the screen.” Then, Tiffany Haddish allegedly reiterated similar instructions.
“I tried to mimic what they wanted me to mimic, but it still came out just super uncomfortable,” Jane told The Daily Beast.
“I knew when I left the booth that I didn’t complete what they wanted me to do.”
The lawsuit also identifies a separate incident involving Jane’s younger brother, who is identified as John. Spears allegedly told the children’s mother that he would be appearing in a Nickelodeon reel, but he ended up as the focus of a video called “Through a Pedophile’s Eyes” that was reportedly posted on Funny Or Die.
“Funny Or Die found this video absolutely disgusting and would never produce such content. We were not involved with the conceptualization, development, funding, or production of this video. It was uploaded to the site as user-generated content and was removed in 2018 immediately after becoming aware of its existence,” a Funny Or Die representative stated.
The lawsuit states that the video was filmed at Aries Spears’ home while Tiffany Haddish was present. Spears was allegedly set to play the role of a pedophilic babysitter while Haddish played the role of a guardian. After arriving at the home, the children were separated and John was asked to stand in his underwear and play while the camera zooms in “on the 7-year-old’s buttocks and crotch.”
“Spears sprays baby oil onto the child’s back and massages it into his shoulders in one scene, and at another point the child plays with a train in a manner that suggests phallic masturbation,” the report reads.
Ultimately, the video allegedly ends with the following message written across the screen: Watch who you leave your kids with. Once the filming was complete, the lawsuit states that the seven-year-old child came downstairs to where his sister and Haddish were.
“[He was] red in the face, crying his eyes out, just bawling out in tears. And I’m immediately scared, because I don’t know what happened to him,” Jane stated.
Shortly after filming was complete, the children’s mother received a call from her son as he was crying. As she sought more answers as to why her song was crying, Tiffany Haddish allegedly told her that “acting [wasn’t] for him.” The children’s mother continued to push to see the footage of her son from that day, but Spears allegedly declined to show it to her and eventually told her that it had been deleted.
“All the trauma, all the memories, all the anxiety and depression and guilt and shame and fear—I feel like all of those emotions were triggered when this video situation came to a head,” John and Jane’s mother told Bossip.
“To find out that she had violated such a sacred trust—I trusted her with my children—that is what pushed me over the edge.”
