Kevin Hart Wants His Sex Tape Partner Kept Off the Witness Stand, and the Court Fight Is Getting Ugly
Kevin Hart is doing everything he can to make sure one particular name never gets called in his courtroom, and nine years after one of the ugliest scandals of his career, it is coming back to haunt him in the most public way possible.
The comedian, 47, has filed new court documents asking a judge to block his former assistant Miesha Shakes from dragging Montia Sabbag into their ongoing legal battle. Sabbag is the woman at the center of Hart’s infamous 2017 sex tape scandal, and Hart is now arguing in writing that the only reason Shakes wants her on the witness stand is to embarrass him and stir up a scandal.
According to court documents obtained by TMZ, the filing landed just days after Shakes named Sabbag as a potential witness in the case. Hart’s legal team is calling the move improper, arguing that Shakes never conferred with them about her witness list before submitting it. They want the court to bar any witnesses Hart considers irrelevant, starting with Sabbag.
The case that will not go away
To understand why this fight has turned so personal, you have to go back to December 2023. That is when Hart sued Shakes and YouTuber LaTasha Kebe, known as Tasha K, in Los Angeles. The trigger was a tell-all interview Shakes gave on Tasha K’s channel after leaving Hart’s employ. Shakes had worked for Hart’s companies from 2017 to 2020, and in the interview she spoke openly about his personal life, including claims about his marriage, alleged infidelity, and a gambling problem.
Hart’s lawsuit said the interview violated a nondisclosure agreement Shakes had signed and damaged his reputation. This past June, he asked a judge to order Shakes to pay $50,000 under the damages provision in that agreement. He clearly wants this to end with her paying, not just going away.
Shakes is fighting back on two fronts, and both are designed to hit Hart where it hurts. First, she argues the nondisclosure agreement is invalid because Hart failed to hold up his own obligations under the deal. Second, she says Hart cannot blame her for hurting his reputation when, in her words, his own conduct already did that. Her prime example: the 2017 sex tape.
Why Montia Sabbag matters to the defense
That second argument is exactly why Shakes wants Sabbag in the courtroom. According to the filings, Shakes intends to question Sabbag about the 2017 recording and the investigation that followed it. Her logic is simple: if Hart’s public image was already damaged by his own actions years before she ever gave the interview, then her words could not be the cause of the reputational harm he is suing over.
Sabbag’s own history with Hart is well documented. In 2019, she filed a $60 million lawsuit against him in federal court in Los Angeles, alleging that she had been filmed without her knowledge or consent. Hart denied all allegations of wrongdoing, and the case was eventually dismissed. Still, her name has been attached to the scandal ever since, which is precisely what makes her such a powerful potential witness for the defense.
Shakes is not stopping there. The filings also show that she plans to take the stand herself and wants Hart called as a witness too. If a judge allows it, both sides of this dispute could end up testifying under oath in the same courtroom, which is about as dramatic as celebrity legal battles get.
Hart draws a hard line
Hart’s new filing makes his position clear: he believes only three people actually matter in this case, himself, Shakes, and Tasha K. Everyone else, he argues, should be barred from testifying unless Shakes can prove their testimony genuinely relates to the claims at hand. He is essentially asking the court to shrink the case down to its core dispute and keep the 2017 scandal locked in the past.
Whether a judge agrees is still an open question. So far, no ruling on Sabbag’s potential testimony has been reported, and the case remains ongoing. What we do know is that a 2024 tentative ruling already narrowed the battlefield once: a Los Angeles judge tossed out Hart’s civil extortion claim against Shakes but allowed his breach of contract, invasion of privacy, and defamation claims to move forward.
The roots of all of this go back to that Las Vegas hotel room in 2017. Hart said at the time that he was the target of an extortion attempt involving the secretly recorded video, which was later partially released online. He publicly apologized to his wife, Eniko, acknowledging he had made a serious error in judgment. The legal fallout stretched across years, with most of those cases eventually ending. But the story itself has never fully gone away, and now it may walk back into a courtroom through a side door.
What happens next
For now, the ball is in the judge’s court. If the request is granted, Sabbag stays out of it, and the trial stays focused on the NDA, the interview, and whether Shakes broke her word. If it is denied, one of the most notorious chapters in recent Hollywood history gets reopened in front of a jury, with Sabbag describing the 2017 episode in a legal setting and Hart potentially taking the stand himself.
Either way, this is no longer just about an ex-employee’s interview. It has become a referendum on Hart’s past, his credibility, and how much of his own history a courtroom can hold against him. Nine years after the tape, the scandal he tried to bury is still doing damage, and this time he may have to face it from a witness box.
Further reading
- TMZ: Kevin Hart’s Sex Tape Partner Could Be Dragged Into His Court Battle
- Baller Alert: Kevin Hart Sex Tape Partner Could Testify Against Him
- Mia Goth Just Filed for Divorce From Shia LaBeouf After 10 Years, and the Custody Ask Says It All
- Joe Manganiello Just Accused Sofia Vergara of Ridiculing the Dog That Saved His Life, and Her Response Was Ice Cold
- Miley Cyrus Just Set an All-Time Billboard Record, and It Is the Kind No Artist Wants
