Jada Pinkett Accused Of Threatening Will Smith's Friend In Lawsuit

At one point, Bilaal Salaam was a trusted associate of Will Smith. He was his self-described “best friend” who worked for the movie star and his family for four decades.

But now, he’s an adversary. First, he claimed that he interrupted Will Smith in a sex act with actor Duane Martin; now he’s suing Jada Pinkett Smith for alleged comments she made in 2021.

Salaam, also known as Brother Bilaal, says that he was at a private birthday party for Smith on September 25 of that year when he encountered Jada in the lobby of the Regency Calabasas Commons. He says the Set It Off star was with “approximately seven members of her entourage.”

Per court documents, Salaam says Jada told him that “if he continued telling her personal business,” that “he’d catch a bullet or end up missing.” She also demanded that he sign a non-disclosure agreement and alleges her entourage followed Salaam to his car, issuing threats until he drove off.

Salaam also says that a mutual friend asked him to join the crisis management team after Will slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, roughly six months after the altercation at the hotel. He refused, saying, according to the lawsuit, that, “plaintiff refused to perform tasks he believed were illegal, unethical, or morally compromising, stating his conscience would not allow him to be involved in any cover-up or deceptive PR campaign.”

The threats escalated after that, coming from various surrogates for Will and Jada, he alleges. He says they escalated when the couple found out he was doing a “whistleblower memoir” and after his comments on Unwine With Tasha K in 2023, when he revealed what he says he saw Martin and Smith doing.

“This story is completely fabricated and the claim is unequivocally false,” Will’s spokesperson said at the time. When Jada was asked about it on The Breakfast Club, she laughed and said the couple would pursue legal action. But they never did.

Salaam says that the lawsuit threat was made to discredit his claims further.

“Defendant never filed a lawsuit,” Salaam says. “The statement was false, reckless, and made with malicious intent to manipulate public opinion and damage Plaintiff’s character.”

Salaam is seeking $3M in damages.

See social media’s reaction to the legal fight below.