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A 22-year-old woman and her 14-year-old brother allege in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that comedians Tiffany Haddish, 42, and Aries Spears, 47, groomed and sexually abused them during their childhoods.
The siblings — going by the names Jane Doe and John Doe — are suing the pair for reportedly getting them to act in explicit skits when Jane was 14 and John was 7 that, in turn, “traumatized them for life.”
The lawsuit also claims that John was “groomed and molested” by both defendants.
In the lawsuit, Spears and Haddish are both accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress, gross negligence, sexual battery, sexual harassment and sexual abuse of a minor.
Haddish is also accused of negligent supervision/failure to warn, breach of fiduciary duty, and constructive fraud. The lawsuit seeks general and special damages, as well as “any appropriate statutory damages.”
Haddish’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, said in a statement to The Post that the lawsuit contains “bogus” allegations.
He said that the plaintiff’s mother “has been trying to assert these bogus claims against Ms. Haddish for several years. 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.” He added that her mother “has her adult daughter representing herself in this lawsuit. The two of them will together face the consequences of pursuing this frivolous action.”
When contacted by The Post, Spears’ attorney, Debra Opri, responded: “He isn’t going to fall for any shakedown.”
The children’s mom initially was on the comedy circuit when she befriended Haddish, according to a report in the Daily Beast. The lawsuit claims that the kids went on to call “Aunty Tiff” and that she referred to them “as her nephew and niece.”
While at a comedy camp in 2013, Haddish is alleged to have asked their mother if Jane could film a skit, but only she and Spears knew its plot, the lawsuit states.
Jane reportedly shot a video that included a Subway sandwich, in which coeds were instructed to start “moaning and making sexual noises as they both ate the sandwich in a manner that simulated the act of fellatio” from opposite sides of the sub.
“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,” the lawsuit claims.
In 2014, the “Girls Trip” star allegedly approached the children’s mother again to recruit John for what she said would be a reel to get him on Nickelodeon. However, per the lawsuit, John ended up filming a video posted on “Funny Or Die” and other online platforms, titled “Through A Pedophile’s Eyes.”
Haddish played the boy’s guardian in the skit and her character left him with Spears — who played a pedophile, according to the lawsuit.
“The video was entitled ‘Through A Pedophiles Eyes’ and 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,” according to the lawsuit.
“The molestation video was uploaded and published to the website ‘Funny Or Die’ in 2014 and was not removed from the internet until May 2021,” the documents state.
According to a statement from “Funny Or Die” to TMZ, the comedy platform was not involved in making the video. “Funny Or Die found this video absolutely disgusting and would never produce such content. We were not involved with the conceptualization, development, funding, or production of this video,” they said. “It was uploaded to the site as user-generated content and was removed in 2018 immediately after becoming aware of its existence.”