Kevin Hart Wins Battle to Force $12 Million Sex Tape Lawsuit into Private Arbitration

The man who says Kevin Hart falsely implicated him in a sex tape extortion plot and then failed to “publicly exonerate” him as promised in a settlement agreement can no longer pursue his $12 million breach of contract lawsuit against Hart in open court, at least for now, a judge has ruled.

In a decision signed Thursday, Los Angeles County Judge Daniel S. Murphy ruled that plaintiff Jonathan Jackson forfeited his right to sue Hart in a public forum when he added a clause to their settlement that agreed to private arbitration.

Jackson had appeared in court Wednesday with his lawyer, Daniel Reback, to argue that the ratification of the entire settlement, including the arbitration clause, was contingent upon Hart publicly exonerating Jackson of any extortion related to Hart’s highly publicized 2017 sex tape scandal. According to Jackson, Hart promised to post a lengthy, “meticulously negotiated” statement on social media as a precursor to their contract that would “resolve all issues” without any “monetary compensation.” Reback said the contingency was outlined in a clause that he underlined for emphasis in the final settlement signed in August 2021.

“Mr. Jackson insisted to me that the agreement have a … clause where if Mr. Hart did not perform verbatim the words that we negotiated, that all promises by Mr. Jackson are rendered null and void, including this promise to arbitrate. That’s the whole reason why I included this … clause,” Reback argued in court Wednesday. The lawyer also claimed Jackson was fraudulently induced into signing the contract. He repeated the allegation that Hart sent a fabricated email to the District Attorney to falsely implicate Jackson in an extortion crime. (Hart’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the judge’s decision and the claim about the allegedly fabricated email.)

“This is not a typical agreement where we delegate everything to the arbitrator. There were specific carve-outs where if Mr. Hart does not perform precisely according to this verbiage we carefully negotiated, all bets are off,” Reback said.

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“This was an agreement to arbitrate any disputes, and this is a dispute, and it belongs in arbitration,” Hart’s lawyer, Donte Mills, told the judge. “Clearly the plaintiff in this matter is set on trying to embarrass my client and file anything they can come up with that’s derogatory.”

“None of plaintiff’s arguments invalidate the arbitration clause itself,” he wrote in his ruling. He said the court case is now on hold pending the outcome of the arbitration.

Jackson filed his underlying breach of contract lawsuit in July. He confirmed he joined Hart on the August 2017 trip to Vegas where a video of Hart in bed with a model was recorded in Hart’s hotel room, but he was adamant he did not extort Hart. (Portions of the sex tape were published on the now-defunct website Fameolous.com but later taken down.)

Jackson was arrested in April 2018 and charged with extortion in the case. The charges were ultimately dropped. According to Jackson, Hart concocted the fake email that demanded 20 bitcoins to prevent the release of the more of the recording. He claims Hart “instigated” the theory to prosecutors that Jackson was behind the extortion. He also claimed the comedian harmed him again when he released a Netflix docuseries in 2019 that doubled down on the extortion claim even after the extortion charges were dropped. Jackson claimed Hart later reached out to avoid a threatened defamation lawsuit and agreed to deliver the highly negotiated and scripted Instagram video statement that would “publicly exonerate” Jackson.

Jackson, a professional bowler and actor who had a minor role in Hart’s 2014 movie Think Like a Man Too, said Hart was required to note not only that the criminal charges against Jackson had been dismissed but that Jackson was fully cleared of any involvement in an extortion plot and that the scandal had cost Hart “a valuable friendship.” Jackson alleges Hart explicitly agreed to say, “I lost someone close to me that I loved and still have very much love for, or high levels of love for, and I’m proud to say that all charges against J.T. Jackson have been dropped, and he is not guilty and had nothing to do with it.” According to Jackson, 47, Hart “blatantly broke” their agreement.

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In his Instagram video, Hart said their friendship “was lost,” but the statement appeared neutral. “It’s over, and I’m happy that it’s over,” he said about the saga. Hart did not include the line that Jackson “had nothing to do with it.”

Before he issued his ruling, Judge Murphy said Wednesday that the defamation claim included in Jackson’s breach of contract lawsuit might not be covered by the agreement’s arbitration clause. If that event, that claim could return to his court after the arbitration process concludes.