Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith didn’t wait long to respond to a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by a former associate of the Academy Award winner.
According to PEOPLE, a source close to the Smiths claims that the lawsuit filed by Bilaal Salaam, also known as Brother Bilaal, is “a lot of crap” and that the longstanding couple are angered by it, calling Salaam “an opportunistic person out to exploit them.”
According to the source, the complaint filed against the Smiths is “a money ploy to get what they can out of them.”
“Naturally, both of them dislike people around them talking out of school,” the source told PEOPLE.
In a suit filed on Monday (Dec. 1), Salaam alleges that he was confronted by Pinkett Smith at the Regency Calabasas Commons hotel in September 2021 and was told” ‘by stating that if he continued ‘telling her personal business,’” that he would “‘end up missing or catch a bullet.’” He also claimed that Smith demanded that he sign a non-disclosure agreement “or else” and followed him to his car, continuing to make threats.
“Bilaal has been close to Will for many years but sometime along the way became a blabbermouth which has upset both Will and Jada,” another source told PEOPLE. “Like any other high profile people, they don’t want to hear about their lives in the public arena. Especially in a controversial way.”
The suit by Salaam also alleges that after he declined to assist with crisis management following the 2022 Academy Awards, where Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, he became the subject of a retaliation campaign by people close to the power couple. After Salaam made an allegation that he caught Will Smith in a sexual act with fellow actor Duane Martin, Jada called the accusation “nonsense” during a 2023 interview with “The Breakfast Club.”
“This is a person that tried a shakedown, a money shakedown that didn’t work,” Pinkett Smith said at the time. “We’re gonna take legal action. Because it’s one thing to have your opinion about somebody, versus just making up salacious, malicious stories. So, that’s actionable. So we ‘gon roll with that.”
