50 Cent has filed a defamation lawsuit against his ex Daphne Joy over her public accusations that he raped and physically abused her, calling them a “calculated onslaught” of false claims designed to destroy his reputation.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in Houston court, the rapper (real name Curtis Jackson) says Joy (Daphne Joy Narvaez) made her allegations in retaliation after the rapper sought legal action to gain sole custody of their son after suing Sean. “Diddy” Combs who accused Joy of being a “sex worker”.
50 Cent's lawyers say the allegations against him were nothing more than an attempt to “damage his personal and business reputation, harm Jackson's commercial and business interests, adversely affect his custody case and prevent him from seeing his son”.
“As Narvaez apparently intended, Jackson has been subjected to widespread public ridicule, hatred and contempt,” his lawyers wrote in the complaint, which they obtained Advertising sign. “Jackson is bringing this defamation action … to vindicate his rights and protect his reputation from Narvaez's calculated attack.”
Included in Monday's lawsuit is a letter the rapper's lawyers sent to Joy last month, demanding she remove the posts and issue a retraction. They say he responded by asking for “millions of dollars” and for 50 Cent to drop his custody case in exchange for the post being removed.
“Narvaez refuses to remove or remove the defamatory post unless he complies with extortionate demands, including the payment of large sums of money and the forfeiture of his dignified custody lawsuit,” Jackson's attorneys wrote.
Joy was not immediately available for comment.
The controversy dates back to March, when Joy was named in a wide-ranging sexual assault lawsuit filed against Sean “Diddy” Combs by Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones. In that complaint, Jones alleged that Combs had “bragged” about paying Joy and other women a “monthly stipend” for sex.
Days later, Joy posted a scathing statement about Jackson on Instagram: “Let's put the real focus on your true evil actions of raping and physically abusing me,” she wrote at the time. “You are no longer my oppressor and my God will handle you from now on.”
In his lawsuit Monday, Jackson says Joy's blistering accusations were a response to his decision to “pursue legal action” to seek custody of their 11-year-old son Shire in the wake of the lawsuit against Diddy. “Upon learning of the troubling allegations in the Combs lawsuit, Jackson reasonably concluded that it was not in his child's best interest for Narvaez to have full custody,” the lawsuit states.
Courts have made it harder for “public figures” like a famous rapper to sue for defamation. They must prove that someone like Joy made her statements with “actual malice” – meaning she knew they were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. But in Monday's complaint, 50 Cent's lawyers say Joy's “unequivocally false” statements meet that difficult standard.
“Narvaez knows that Jackson did not rape or physically abuse her, yet she knowingly posted the false statements to her nearly 2 million Instagram followers,” the 50s' lawyers wrote. “Narvaez posted the defamatory post and refuses to take it down, out of pure hatred and ill will towards Jackson.”
