Understanding big Update on That Jada Pinkett Smith Lawsuit

Jada Pinkett Smith claims the man who alleges she threatened him over Will Smith is lying. The Set It Off staple filed court docs obtained by TMZ demanding the lawsuit be tossed out.

Bilaal Salaam, a former friend of her husband Will Smith, sued Jada in November 2025 for intentional infliction of emotional distress. He alleges he was friends with Will for 40 years.

Salaam alleges that Jada approached him in September 2021 at a birthday party, where she threatened him, saying if he continued “telling her personal business,” that he would end up “missing or catch a bullet.” He says Jada demanded he sign a non-disclosure agreement so he couldn’t talk about those threats.

In his suit, he claimed the drama started after he refused to help Will with “crisis management” for Will after he infamously slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, which resulted in a 10-year ban from attending the award ceremony. Will took home the Oscar for Best Actor that night for his role as Venus and Serena Williams’ father in the biopic King Richard. Salaam originally requested $3 million in damages.

The Girls Trip star said all of Salaam’s claims were “false, uncorroborated and made to generate attention as part of an ongoing public campaign of harassment directed at” her and her family. She believes that his lawsuit seeks to punish her for her “constitutionally protected speech on a matter of intense public interest about her family.” She alleges that Salaam has a fixation on the Smith family and claimed she did not mention his name when speaking out about the matter. Will has not spoken about the manner at all.

At the time of Salaam’s lawsuit, a source told PEOPLE, “They [Will and Jada] are really mad and say it’s a lot of crap,” with a source calling Salaam “an opportunistic person out to exploit them.” The couple viewed the complaint “as a money ploy to get what they can out of them,” they add. “Naturally, both of them dislike people around them talking out of school.”