Kevin Hart has emerged triumphant in a $12 million breach of contract lawsuit stemming from a 2017 sex tape scandal, per atlantablackstar.com. Los Angeles County Judge Daniel S. Murphy ruled that Jonathan “JT” Jackson, Hart’s former friend, has forfeited his right to pursue the case in arbitration.
The dispute originated from a controversial Las Vegas incident where Hart was recorded in an intimate encounter with Montia Sabbag, leading to criminal charges against Jackson for alleged extortion in 2018. Though the criminal case against Jackson was eventually dismissed in 2021, the legal drama continued when he filed a civil suit against Hart in July 2024.
At the heart of the controversy was a settlement agreement requiring Hart to publicly declare Jackson’s innocence in the extortion case. Jackson’s legal team argued that Hart “blatantly broke” the agreement by failing to explicitly state that Jackson had “nothing to do with” the sex tape’s release. Instead, Hart posted an Instagram video in October 2021 that merely expressed his desire to “move on” from the incident.
During deposition testimony, Hart made the startling revelation that he had consumed MDMA-laced water on the night in question, claiming an unnamed friend had pressured him into taking the substance. “F– it, I said, and I put it in my drink,” Hart admitted under oath.
The scandal cast a shadow over Hart’s marriage to Eniko Hart, who was pregnant with their first child together at the time of the incident. The couple, who married in August 2016, has since welcomed two children and maintained their relationship despite the controversy.
This latest ruling appears to close another chapter in the lengthy legal saga, though Jackson’s attorney, Daniel Reback, had notably warned during court proceedings, “This is not a typical agreement… if Mr. Hart does not perform precisely according to this verbiage we carefully negotiated, all bets are off.”
•Featured image: Kevin Hart/Amy Sussman/Getty Images
