A (2:03)

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. 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.

B (2:49)

My name is Brian King Joseph, I'm from Los Angeles and I play violin.

A (3:01)

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 gonna 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. 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, thereaf Smith invited plaintiff Brian to play on several tracks on his upcoming album, and their relationship grew even closer. 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 Treble 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 alleges. And that was the van that was responsible for transporting all cast and CRE members of Will Smith's production team and the band, etc. He left it there around 11am when they were dropped off. He requested that management retrieve his bag at 3pm, at which point management indicated they were unable to find it. At 5pm, management returned to plaintiff with the bag which contains his keys. So on or around March 20, 2025, at around 11pm, while staying at a hotel in Las Vegas for a scheduled performance with Will Smith's tour, plaintiff returned to his assigned hotel room. This is after 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. 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 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. He should get documented evidence, right?

B (6:43)

Yes.

A (6:44)

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. Mismanagement. 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. Right. Because then would that get you in trouble with a judge?

B (7:19)

Absolutely. What you've got to sign at the end of a lawsuit, as 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 gotta 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.

A (7:51)

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 20 when he went in his room and found the stuff in his hotel room. And 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. When he requested further reasoning, this person who he was talking to called Tim Miller. Acting on behalf of defendants Will Smith, Treywell productions, redirected the blame for the termination onto plaintiff, replying, 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, or 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. 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.

B (9:19)

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, they're 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. 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 f. E. H. A. The Fair Employment Housing Act. And so even though the second part is about housing, the first part is about employment. You cannot fire, 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 whistleblower act. 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 winded answer. I hope that answered your question.

A (11:03)

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?

B (11:16)

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 respondiat 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. 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 been going through.

A (11:54)

We're going to get there. But directly to what you just said, right? Essentially, that's like a duty of care.

B (11:59)

Absolutely. Absolutely. Same exact theory.

A (12:02)

So this is what the lawsuit says. Next. Plaintiff further pleads on information and belief that defendants 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 Carroll Smith II, Will Smith, was deliberately grooming and priming Mr. Joseph for further sexual exploitation. The sequences 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. Sean, reflect on that, please.

B (12:39)

This is a lawsuit of innuendo, which scares me sometimes. It is making suggestions without getting to the penultimate conclusion. You know, 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, Anushka, 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, okay, 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. So 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 get dismissed on summary judgment because just on its face, and I love this because we always talk about summary judgment initially.

A (13:40)

Just remind everybody what that is.

B (13:42)

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. 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.

A (14:49)

And I understand that with the link to Will Smith, but the retaliation claim surely does have some legs.

B (14:55)

Does it? I mean, remember, you can be terminated for any reason. I could literally see a situation that, like, Judge, it didn't happen. We fired him because he almost cursed. I didn't see.

A (15:04)

Yeah, nice, nice.

B (15:06)

I caught myself a new year. I've changed. We fired him because he's dramatic. We fired him because he's caused trouble at work. Not because the retaliation, but because we have an individual who has gone around making these unfounded allegations and making everybody uncomfortable. Exactly what they said. We terminated you, and we have the right to do that, remember, at Will Employment.

A (15:31)

So the claims, we have retaliation under different codes, but different forms of retaliation. And then we have the sexual harassment in violation of feha, Fair Employment Housing act, which you just explained a bit earlier. But if they are so sure that Will Smith was grooming and priming him for further, they say, further sexual exploitation, then why haven't they filed a claim just for sexual harassment, like in and of itself or just for sexual assault in and of itself?

B (16:00)

Oh, you make me so excited. Because you know where we're going. Because don't forget, we have talked about sexual harassment so many times in the workforce. We have talked about two types of sexual harassment. And so even reading the lawsuit, he is either saying that the atmosphere at this job is so sexually charged that I could not work in this environment, or there was one action that was so big that everybody out there knows that I was sexually harassed. Well, his one action is he went into his hotel room and all of this stuff was all in his hotel room. I don't think anyone would look at that action and say, Will Smith did something that was so pervasive at the workforce that you were sexually harassed.

A (16:39)

But the unfairness of that then, and we do have to touch on this, is the way that this has been reported. And when you see the Headlines attached to it, it reads as, will Smith has been accused of sexually assaulting this person or Will Smith has sexually harassed this person. When it's actually far more nuanced than the way they say it in the lawsuit. Because the claims of sexual harassment in violation of the Fair Employment Housing act is. An employer may also be responsible for the acts of non employees with respect to harassment of employees or its agents if they knew or should have known of the conducts and failed to take immediate and appropriate corrective action. So that's not directly saying you sexually harassed him. That's saying you might have known something happened and you didn't go out there to protect him. But that's not how this has been received and it's not people's fault. If you glance at the headline, you think, oh, Will Smith's done this, this and this to so and so.

B (17:27)

So when people hear this, it clicks in their mind, oh, another high profile celebrity is sexually harassing somebody who works with them. Another high profile celebrity has done something he's not supposed to do. And that's the problem with this lawsuit because I did the same thing you said when you said, hey, we're going to talk about the Will Smith lawsuit. I'm just like, oh, I wonder what Will Smith did to somebody. And then you read it and you're waiting for the bombshell allegation and it doesn't come through it.

A (17:52)

And just as a reminder, you know, I told you at the beginning of the program, Will Smith's lawyer has issued a statement. He says, 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. Those legal means, as you, Sean, have just spoken about, could potentially be a motion for a summary judgment. Judge, please decide whether you think this should go before a jury and potentially just throw it out.

B (18:18)

I'm saying now, I'm not a betting man. Yes, I am. This lawsuit will be thrown out. I don't think this lawsuit will ever see a trial.

A (18:25)

You are a betting man because you take your folks to Las Vegas at Christmas and you all play the slot machine.

B (18:31)

Yeah, I better say, I am not a betting man. Yes, I am. But if I were a betting man, I would bet that this lawsuit never sees a trial.

A (18:40)

How much.

B (18:43)

In pounds or dollars?

A (18:45)

In pounds.

B (18:47)

Dollars in pounds.

A (18:49)

Give me the watch. I'll take your watch if you're wrong. I'll take your watch if I'm Wrong.

B (18:53)

I. I'm saying it now. If I am wrong, Anushka, my Cartier limited edition Santos watch is yours.

A (18:59)

Okay, stop flexing. My.

B (19:01)

My loss. We made a bet. It is yours for my swatch.

A (19:05)

And then 1962, that's a verbal contract and it's recorded. So there you go.

B (19:10)

Of a significant. I'm telling you, this is an awful lot. This is an embarrassing lawsuit to me.

A (19:15)

Well, Sean, thank you so much for coming by and shitting on somebody else's lawsuit.

B (19:22)

Yeah, I hope this lawyer doesn't find me in the streets. Sorry, whoever you're out there.

A (19:28)

Sean, before you go, I think you've brought me another bar question. I feel a little. I feel ambushed and a bit rusty, but I'll go for it.

B (19:38)

A man and a woman had a verbal disagreement in a public park. Enraged, the man picked up a rock and threw it at the woman, intending to hit her. The woman, who was facing away from the man, did not see or hear the rock coming. The rock missed the woman, but struck a tree nearby. The man has been charged with criminal assault. Is the man guilty of criminal assault? A, no, because the woman was not aware of the imminent harmful or offensive conduct. B, no, because there was no actual physical conduct with the woman. C, yes, because the man attempted to commit a battery. D, yes, because the man intended with the intent to cause fear out of imminent bodily harm. By the way, that's what makes the bar so incredibly complicated. Because I guarantee you can think every answer could be right.

A (20:48)

I think it's D, because he picked up the rock to throw it at her, which would be the assault. The battery would be if it actually hit her and she was injured. His intent was there, isn't it? The intent on the part of him rather than whether she was aware of his conduct or not.

B (21:06)

I am going to give you partial credit because you got the right analysis, but you got the wrong answer. But I. It is C. You are correct. So your analysis was flawless. You were almost good.

A (21:17)

Oh, sort of.

B (21:20)

Your first in. That was your first wrong one. But that was partial credit. Cause you had the right answer. You just put D instead of C.

A (21:25)

I don't like this. Doesn't feel good.

B (21:27)

I don't want to be in the bar anymore.

A (21:29)

Yeah, I don't want to do this anymore, man. I want to go back to being a journalist. I know I should say me and Sean are going to be away for the next two episodes because we're going on holiday, not together. I mean, you're more than welcome to come. It's just me and my folks. They love you.

B (21:45)

I'm going to hang out with your mom. I love your mom. Yeah.

A (21:47)

Sean called my mom on her birthday to tell her happy birthday. That was nice.

B (21:52)

I love your mom. If she's listening, I love you.

A (21:55)

She will be.

B (21:56)

Okay. Well, there you go.

A (21:57)

Yeah. So we're gonna be away for the next two weeks and you'll be in the very capable hands of Amber Hack, who is a fabulous journalist who's just done an amazing documentary. So go and check it out. But it won't be me and Sean. We will be putting our Tobys up and chilling out and we'll see you again soon.

B (22:12)

Thank you, Anoushka. Thank you so much for having me.

A (22:16)

That was our resident trial attorney, Sean Kent. And that's it for this episode of Fame under with me, Anoushka Mutandadawati from BBC Sounds. Send me questions on social media. It's Anoushkamd on Instagram and TikTok, and I'll see you in two weeks. I'm Shari Val and I've been investigating fraud for decades. Now I'm shining light on the secret techniques criminals use to steal your money with insight from guest experts and the real people involved in these scams. So you can see the fraudsters coming before it's too late. That's the new series of scam secrets. Listen now on BBC Sounds.