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Comedians Tiffany Haddish and Aries Spears are denying child sexual abuse claims made in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
The plaintiff’s mother, Trizah Morris, “has been trying to assert these bogus claims against Ms. Haddish for several years,” the actress’ lawyer Andrew Brettler said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Every attorney who has initially taken on her case – and there were several – ultimately dropped the matter once it became clear that the claims were meritless and Ms. Haddish would not be shaken down. Now, Ms. Morris has her adult daughter representing herself in this lawsuit. The two of them will together face the consequences of pursuing this frivolous action.”
Spears’ attorney told the New York Post: “He isn’t going to fall for any shakedown.”
A 22-year-old woman named only as “Jane Doe” in the lawsuit claims in the filing that Haddish and Spears convinced her when she was 14 and her then-7-year-old brother, known as “John Doe,” to film sexually suggestive video sketches starting in 2013, including one called “Through a Pedophiles Eyes” that was allegedly uploaded to “Funny or Die” before being removed in 2018.
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In the sketch, Haddish allegedly played the boy’s mother and Spears portrayed a pedophile.
Host Tiffany Haddish attends the 2018 MTV Movie And TV Awards at Barker Hangar on June 16, 2018, in Santa Monica, California.
(Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for MTV)
Funny or Die said it immediately removed the video after it became aware of it.
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“Funny Or Die found this video absolutely disgusting and would never produce such content,” the comedy website told TMZ. “We were not involved with the conceptualization, development, funding, or production of this video. It was uploaded to the site as user-generated content and was removed in 2018 immediately after becoming aware of its existence.”
The plaintiff met Haddish through her mother who knew the comedian from stand-up comedy, according to the Post, and she and her brother called her “Auntie Tiff.”
Stand-up comedian, actor and voice artist Aries Spears visits FOX 29’s ‘Good Day’ at FOX 29 Studio on August 25, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(Photo by Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images)
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In one alleged video, the two kids were instructed by Haddish to start “moaning and making sexual noises as they both ate [a] sandwich [from opposite ends] in a manner that simulated the act of fellatio,” the filing claims.
“Haddish verbally explained what was expected of Plaintiff Jane Doe and then showed Plaintiff Jane Doe how to give fellatio, including movements, noises, moaning, and groaning,” it said.
In 2014, the lawsuit claims Haddish and Spears filmed “Through A Pedophiles Eyes” with the boy, which allegedly “shows Spears lusting over the 7-year-old child and molesting him throughout the video. Haddish was present during the filming of the entire video and aided, abetted, and watched Spears sexually molest a child.”
The filing also claimed that Spears told the children’s mother the video had been deleted after she asked to see it even though it was allegedly posted to “Funny or Die.”
Tiffany Haddish attends the red carpet of the movie “The Card Counter” during the 78th Venice International Film Festival on September 02, 2021, in Venice, Italy.
(Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
The lawsuit claims Haddish originally told the kids’ mother the video would be something to help him get on Nickelodeon. The filing said the mother wasn’t aware of the subject matter of the video.
The pair are accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress, sexual battery, gross negligence, sexual harassment and sexual abuse of a minor and Haddish is additionally accused of breach of fiduciary duty, negligent supervision/failure to warn and constructive fraud, according to the Post.
The children have been “traumatized for life” and have depression and anxiety issues as a result of the alleged abuse, the lawsuit states.
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It also says the 22-year-old Jane Doe has never dated because of her alleged trauma.
“She is scared she will be taken advantage of again and led down a path of false trust like the path that Haddish led her down,” the lawsuit says of Jane Doe, adding that Joe Doe “stays in his room at home and places band-aids over the cameras on his electronics for fear of being watched or recorded.”
