A violinist who performed on tour with Will Smith has filed a lawsuit against the actor-musician and a management company, accusing them of retaliation, sexual harassment and wrongful termination.<\/p>\n
According to a complaint filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County court, violinist Brian King Joseph was fired shortly after reporting to police an alleged intrusion into his hotel room, in which materials and a note addressed to him were left in his room while he was away.<\/p>\n
CNN has reached out to Smith\u2019s representatives and to a contact affiliated with Treyball Studios Management for comment.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s attorney has denied the allegations, according to a statement given to PEOPLE on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Joseph\u2019s allegations concerning my client are false, baseless, and reckless,\u201d attorney Allen B. Grodsky said, according to PEOPLE. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the suit, Joseph was hired in late 2024 for Smith\u2019s \u201cBased on a True Story: 2025 Tour\u201d and other performances.<\/p>\n
Joseph and Smith developed a close relationship leading up to and during the tour, the suit claims, with Smith telling Joseph at one point, \u201cYou and I have such a special connection, that I don\u2019t have with anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit centers on an incident in March 2025 in Las Vegas. The suit alleges someone had \u201cunlawfully\u201d entered Joseph\u2019s hotel room and left wipes, a beer bottle, a backpack, a bottle of HIV medication and hospital discharge paperwork with another person\u2019s name unknown to him, and a note that read: \u201cBrian, I\u2019ll be back no later [sic] 5:30, just us (drawn heart), Stone F.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fearing the unknown individual would return to \u201cengage in sexual acts,\u201d Joseph says he notified hotel security and Smith\u2019s representatives, took photos of the items and requested a room change, according to the complaint. He also called a local police nonemergency line to report the incident.<\/p>\n
Hotel security found no signs of forced entry into the room, according to the suit, and said the only individuals with access to his room would have been with the management team who booked the room.<\/p>\n
According to the suit, instead of investigating, tour management later accused Joseph of fabricating the claims and terminated his employment. The lawsuit states he was told the tour was \u201cmoving in a different direction,\u201d but another violinist was soon hired to fill his role.<\/p>\n
Joseph believes Smith was involved in the decision to fire him, according to the suit, and claims Joseph was being \u201cdeliberately\u201d groomed and primed \u201cfor further sexual exploitation.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time of his termination, the suit claims the incident resulted in severe emotional distress, PTSD and economic loss.<\/p>\n
Joseph shares video message hinting at legal case<\/p>\n
Last week, the violinist posted a video on Instagram alluding to the incident on tour and the legal dispute.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarlier this year, I was hired to be a performer on a major, major tour with somebody who is huge in the industry. So I was excited, you know, proud of myself for getting the opportunity,\u201d Joseph said. \u201cUnfortunately, some things happened, and I can\u2019t get into the details of exactly what that was, because it\u2019s already a legal issue right now, but the reason why I\u2019m speaking out about this is because getting fired or getting blamed or shamed or threatened or anything like that \u2013 simply for reporting sexual misconduct or safety threats at work \u2013 is not OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joseph captioned the video as an \u201cImportant PSA\u201d and encouraged his followers to \u201cstay safe out there and always stand up for your beliefs and what is right no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that there\u2019s a lot of other people out there who have been afraid to speak up, and I understand, and if that\u2019s you, I see you,\u201d the violinist added in his video message.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore updates to come soon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A violinist who performed on tour with Will Smith has filed a lawsuit against the actor-musician and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-355385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}