Jada Pinkett Smith has asked a Los Angeles court to dismiss a $3 million lawsuit brought by Bilaal Salaam, a musician with a longtime association with her husband, Will Smith.
The 54-year-old actress said in legal docs obtained by the Daily Mail that Salaam, who is suing her for intentional infliction of emotional distress, made ‘false’ and ‘uncorroborated’ statements, which is her basis for asking the case be tossed.
Salaam was hoping ‘to generate attention as part of an ongoing public campaign of harassment directed at’ the Smith family, who he is fixated with, Pinkett Smith said in court docs.
The Baltimore-born star said the remarks cited in Salaam’s litigation against her were ‘constitutionally protected.’
The Girls Trip star said she had a right to make statements ‘on a matter of intense public interest about her family.’
The Daily Mail has reached out to Pinkett Smith’s representative for further comment.
Jada Pinkett Smith has asked a Los Angeles court to dismiss a $3 million lawsuit brought by Bilaal Salaam, a man who says he was once good friends with her husband, Will Smith. Pictured in LA in November
Salaam in the November 2025 suit said that he and Will Smith had been friendly for four decades.
Things went sideways when Salaam would not provide ‘crisis management’ services for the actor after his shocking attack on Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards, he told the court.
Salaam told the court he declined the job in an effort to dodge having to ‘perform tasks he believed were illegal, unethical, or morally compromising.’
After he rejected the job offer, Salaam said the Smith family embarked on a ‘retaliatory campaign’ against him, which heightened amid news he was penning a memoir about his affiliation with them over the years.
He said in legal docs that an affiliate of Pinkett Smith urged him to ‘end this feud before you get physically hurt’ upon learning of a possible book.
Salaam said in legal docs that prior to Smith’s infamous slap, there was already tension with the family.
Salaam claimed in court docs that the Red Table Talk star was ‘verbally aggressive’ when she approached him at a September 2021 gathering at Regency Calabasas Common, a theater in Calabasas, California, for her husband’s 53rd birthday.
Salaam said in legal docs Pinkett Smith told him he’d wind up ‘missing, or catch a bullet’ should he continue to speak about the Smith family’s ‘personal business’ publicly.
Salaam said that things between him and the Smith family imploded after the 2022 Oscars
Salaam in the November 2025 suit said that he and Will Smith had been friendly for four decades
Salaam claimed Pinkett Smith – who was flanked by an entourage of seven people – ‘demanded’ he sign a non-disclosure agreement to keep him silent about her aggressive overtures in the exchange at the theater.
Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith have been wed since New Year’s Eve of 1997, and are parents to son Jaden, 27, and daughter Willow, 25, while the Oscar-winner is also father to son Trey, 33, with ex-wife Sheree Zampino, 58.
Next month will mark four years since Will Smith’s shocking March 27, 2022 attack on Chris Rock after made a joke about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head.
Rock said, ‘Jada, I love you, G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it!’ in a reference to the 1997 movie which featured Demi Moore with a shaved head. (Pinkett Smith has been diagnosed with alopecia, which causes hair loss.)
Smith then walked onstage and smacked Rock, returned to his seat and shouted at him twice, ‘Keep my wife’s name out of your f***ing mouth!’ to a stunned audience.
Later in the evening – in his acceptance speech after winning the Best Actor Oscar for his role as tennis patriarch Richard Williams in King Richard – Smith apologized to the Academy and other nominees, but made no reference to Rock.
Smith is nearly four years removed from his infamous incident at the 2022 Oscars, in which he slapped Chris Rock after he made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith
Smith has subsequently apologized on multiple occasions over the incident, and resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ahead of being issued a 10-year ban from the Oscars.
In an apology he issued in July of 2022 over the incident in an online clip, Smith said his spouse ‘had nothing to do with’ his attack on Rock.
‘I made a choice on my own from my own experiences, from my history with Chris,’ he said. ‘I want to say sorry to my kids and my family for the heat that I’ve brought on all of us.’
He added: ‘I’ve reached out to Chris and the message that came back is that he’s not ready to talk, and when he is he will reach out. So I will say to you, Chris, I apologize to you. My behavior was unacceptable, and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk.’
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