Kevin Hart sued by ex-friend Jonathan Jackson for $12M over breach of contract in 2017 sex tape scandal

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Kevin Hart will face some legal heat after his former friend Jonathan ‘JT’ Jackson filed a $12 million lawsuit against him.

According to the lawsuit, the comedian breached their 2021 written settlement agreement by which Hart was supposed to exonerate him of “baseless extortion allegations” involving the ‘Jumanji’ star’s 2017 sex tape and cheating scandal.

What did Jonathan Jackson's lawsuit say?

As per the lawsuit, they both signed a settlement agreement in July 2021 "which required Hart to pursue and advocate for the dismissal of all criminal charges against [him] and make a public statement exonerating him."

Jackson earlier faced an extortion investigation involving a tape showing Hart with a woman, later identified as actress Montia Sabbag. She, too, denied any attempt to extort Hart during the investigation.

Sabbag did file a $60 million lawsuit against Hart and Jackson, accusing them of conspiring to create the scandal to hype the comedian’s Irresponsible Tour, but the lawsuit was dismissed in June 2023.

Jonathan Jackson was previously arrested for attempted extortion

Meanwhile, Jackson who is suing Hart now, was earlier charged with one count each of attempted extortion and extortion by threatening letter, among others.

However, the prosecutors later dropped the entire criminal case against Jackson, who still claims it was Hart and his lawyers who helped in initiating a raid at his residence and the charges he faced, reports USAToday.

"In the aftermath of the scandal, false extortion claims were filed against [Jackson], resulting in [Jackson] being wrongly accused," Jackson said in a statement, as per court documents. 

"Although Hart did not personally accuse [Jackson] at this stage, he contributed to the initiation of these false claims," it added.

Hart "claimed to have received an extortion email" on April 27, 2018, from someone "demanding 20 bitcoins to prevent the release of the sex tape, which had already been publicly released eight months earlier,” Jackson said in his lawsuit. 

Jackson claimed that the alleged email was a key factor in his subsequent arrest.