Vegas Visit at Center of Will Smith Sexual Harassment Suit

Will Smith’s comeback from one scandal led him right into another — one with Las Vegas at the center of it.

According to a lawsuit first detailed by the Los Angeles Times, Smith is being sued for alleged sexual harassment and wrongful termination by electric violinist Brian King Joseph, a former contestant on Season 13 of America’s Got Talent who briefly performed on Smith’s “Based on a True Story” tour last year.

Joseph alleges he was dismissed after a March 20 performance with Smith at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay, shortly after reporting a disturbing incident in his hotel room.

In a complaint filed December 30 in Los Angeles Superior Court, Joseph says he returned to his Mandalay Bay room that night to find a handwritten note addressed to him and a bag that had gone missing earlier from Smith’s tour bus — a bag that had contained his room key. Inside, he claims, were wipes, a beer bottle, an earring, and hospital discharge papers and a bottle of HIV medication under a stranger’s name.

According to the lawsuit, Joseph also said he found “a handwritten note addressed to Plaintiff by name, which read ‘Brian, I’ll be back no later [sic] 5:30, just us (drawn heart), Stone F.,’”

Joseph says he photographed the items, sent the images to Smith and his management firm, Treyball Studios, and reported the incident to police while requesting a new room. The lawsuit states that Mandalay Bay security found no signs of forced entry, and Joseph returned home the next day.

The complaint further alleges that Joseph and Smith spent time alone, during which Smith made comments suggesting an intimate connection.

Several days later, Joseph claims, a Treyball representative informed him he was being removed from the tour and allegedly told him that “everyone is telling me that what happened to you is a lie” and that he had “made the whole thing up.”

Joseph’s attorney, Jonathan J. Delshad, argues in the filing that Smith’s alleged comments and the items found in the hotel room indicate “a pattern of predatory behavior rather than an isolated incident.”

Smith’s attorney, Allen B. Grodsky, has publicly rejected the allegations, calling them “false, baseless and reckless” in a statement to the media, and stating that Smith “categorically denies” them.

Joseph addressed the matter indirectly in a December 26 Instagram post, writing that he could not share details because of the ongoing legal case but that “being fired or getting blamed or shamed or threatened… simply for reporting sexual misconduct or safety threats at work, is not okay.”

The lawsuit seeks punitive damages, attorney fees, and additional compensation to be determined at trial.