Tiffany Haddish & Aries Spears Accused of Child Sexual Abuse
A Jane Doe and her younger brother allege in a new lawsuit that the comics recruited them into performing inappropriate, sexually suggestive acts in sketches when they were minors.
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Comedians Tiffany Haddish and Aries Spears Accused of Child Sexual Abuse
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A Jane Doe and her younger brother allege in a new lawsuit that the comics recruited them into performing inappropriate, sexually suggestive acts in sketches when they were minors.Laura Bradley
Entertainment ReporterPublished Sep. 01, 2022 5:35PM ET
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During their childhoods, Jane Doe and her younger brother say they called Tiffany Haddish “Auntie Tiff.” The comedian had met their mother through the comedy circuit and used to refer to the siblings as her “niece” and “nephew.” But in a lawsuit filed pro seon Monday night—in which Jane is an anonymous plaintiff on behalf of both herself and her brother, who is a minor—the siblings allege that Haddish and her fellow comic, Aries Spears, recruited each of them to perform inappropriate acts on camera when they were children.
Jane Doe, now 22, and her younger brother John, now 14, have adopted pseudonyms due to their respective ages at the time of the allegations. (Jane, who is also John’s legal guardian, is the plaintiff in the lawsuit both individually and on her minor brother’s behalf.) The siblings’ complaint, which names Haddish and Mad TV alum Spears as defendants, centers on two alleged incidents in which Haddish and Spears allegedly encouraged one of the siblings to perform sexually suggestive acts on camera while underage.
Representatives for Spears and Haddish did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Jane was 14 years old when her alleged video shoot took place, and John was 7. Their mother alleges that she and Haddish met through comedy and bonded over a shared source of strife: “We were both going through a divorce,” the mother told The Daily Beast. “Messy, messy, messy, messy divorces… We just got really, really super, super close.” According to the lawsuit, Haddish called the family for “every birthday and every Christmas.” The siblings’ mother noted that for years, Haddish reliably checked in—whether that be from a movie set or overseas.
In the summer of 2013, when Jane was 14 years old, the lawsuit states that she attended a comedy camp where Haddish appeared as a guest speaker. Around that time, Haddish allegedly told the child that she’d found “a perfect role for her”—her very own commercial. Neither Jane nor her mother knew what the shoot would entail, according to the lawsuit. Only Haddish and Spears, who was also on hand to produce the video, are said to have known the plot.
The clip Spears and Haddish asked Jane to watch in the recording booth allegedly seemed innocuous at first, if a little strange: a group of coeds were arguing over a subway sandwich. But then the coeds began eating the sandwich in a suggestive manner from opposite ends, “moaning and making sexual noises as they both ate the sandwich in a manner that simulated the act of fellatio,” per the lawsuit.
The complaint claims that Spears told Jane “to mimic what she had seen on the screen, including the noises precisely like what she heard throughout the video.” The 14-year-old, who was allegedly “nervous and disgusted,” fell silent until Haddish returned to the room, the lawsuit 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,” the lawsuit states. “At that point,” Jane told The Daily Beast, “I knew a hundred percent what they wanted out of me.” The lawsuit describes Spears allegedly looking on while a “physically, emotionally, and mentally uncomfortable” Jane received this instruction.
“I tried to mimic what they wanted me to mimic, but it still came out just super uncomfortable,” Jane told the Daily Beast. “I knew when I left the booth that I didn’t complete what they wanted me to do.” Haddish paid Jane $100, the lawsuit claims, before sending her home.
At the time, Jane said, she tried to shrug off what had happened. “I didn’t confide to my mom—I didn’t confide to nobody else about how weird I felt at that moment,” she said. A year later, Haddish allegedly approached the children’s mother with a similar pitch, recruiting Jane’s little brother, John, for another video. Although the comedian allegedly told the family John would be filming a sizzle reel for Nickelodeon, the suit alleges the 7-year-old wound up starring in a video posted on Funny or Die and other online platforms, titled “Through a Pedophile’s Eyes.”
A representative for Funny or Die told The Daily Beast in a statement, “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. It was uploaded to the site as user-generated content and was removed in 2018 immediately after becoming aware of its existence.”
I didn’t confide to my mom—I didn’t confide to nobody else about how weird I felt at that moment.
Both siblings allegedly attended the shoot, which the lawsuit claims took place in Spears’ home. Jane said Haddish’s behavior changed once the children arrived at the home, no longer in the company of their mother. “It was like a whole 180 almost,” she told The Daily Beast. “Tiffany had never been mean to me—never raised her voice to me—until this point.”
According to the lawsuit, the children were separated during the shoot. Jane recalls that Haddish told her to remain on a couch downstairs while her brother’s shoot took place upstairs. The Daily Beast has reviewed a recording of the video, in which Haddish plays the boy’s guardian and leaves him with Spears—who plays a pedophile.
John spends most of the video clad only in his underwear as Spears’ character leers at him through two holes cut into a newspaper he pretends to read. During the sketch, the camera zooms in suggestively on the 7-year-old’s buttocks and crotch while he plays. Spears sprays baby oil onto the child’s back and massages it into his shoulders in one scene, and at another point the child plays with a train in a manner that suggests phallic masturbation. In another sequence, Spears smokes a cigarette while observing the child nude in a bathtub and pours water on his feet.
By the time the video ends, the child is peering at his babysitter through a newspaper and rubbing baby oil on his shirtless shoulder. The final line of on-screen text reads: “WATCH WHO YOU LEAVE YOUR KIDS WITH!”
Once filming ended, the lawsuit states, “Mr. Doe called his mother crying, saying he did not want to film anymore.”
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they trying to link Tiffany to Aires
