Violinist Alleges Sexual Harassment, Retaliation Tied To Will Smith Tour

Will Smith has been named in a civil lawsuit filed by a tour violinist alleging sexual harassment, retaliation and wrongful termination connected to Smith’s 2025 “Based on a True Story” album and tour. Smith has denied the allegations through his attorney.

An electric violinist who worked with Will Smith during the entertainer’s recent return to music has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court accusing Smith and his company of sexual harassment, retaliation and wrongful termination — allegations Smith has denied through his attorney.

The plaintiff, Brian King Joseph, is a classically trained violinist who gained national attention after finishing third on Season 13 of “America’s Got Talent.” In the complaint, filed this week, Joseph alleges he was hired to perform on Smith’s 2025 “Based on a True Story” tour and to contribute to the album of the same name, before being dismissed after reporting what he described as a serious safety incident during a March tour stop in Las Vegas.

Joseph did not publicly name Smith when he first discussed the situation on social media. In a Dec. 27 Instagram video posted days before the lawsuit was filed, Joseph said he had been hired for “a major, major tour with somebody who is huge in the industry,” but explained that he could not share details at the time because the matter had become legal.

“Some things happened that I can’t talk about yet,” Joseph said in the video. “But getting fired or blamed or shamed or threatened or anything like that simply for reporting sexual misconduct or safety threats at work is not OK.”

Joseph added, “I know that there are a lot of people out there who are afraid to say something. If that’s you, I see you.”

 

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Smith and Treyball Studios Management Inc. are named explicitly in the lawsuit. Legal filings, unlike social media posts, require plaintiffs to identify defendants and allege specific conduct under penalty of perjury.

According to the complaint, Joseph and Smith began a professional relationship in late 2024 after Joseph performed at two shows in San Diego. Joseph alleges he was later invited to perform violin parts on tracks for Smith’s album and asked to join the European and United Kingdom leg of the tour.

The lawsuit centers on an incident Joseph says occurred in March while the tour was in Las Vegas. According to the complaint, Joseph misplaced a bag containing his hotel room key and later returned to his room to find what he alleges was evidence of an unauthorized entry with a sexualized intent. The filing states that Joseph discovered a handwritten note addressed to him by name that read, “Brian, I’ll be back no later [sic] 5:30, just us,” followed by a hand-drawn heart.

The complaint further alleges that items left behind in the room included wipes, a beer bottle, a red backpack, an earring and a bottle of HIV medication bearing another individual’s name, as well as hospital discharge paperwork belonging to someone Joseph did not know. Joseph alleges the presence of the note and belongings led him to believe the room had been entered in anticipation of a sexual encounter without his consent.

Joseph claims he feared the unknown individual would return to his room and reported the incident to hotel security, representatives for Smith’s team and local authorities using a non-emergency police line, according to the lawsuit. Hotel security found no signs of forced entry, the complaint states. Joseph requested a new room and returned home the following day.

Several days later, Joseph alleges, he was informed by a representative for Smith’s company that his services were no longer needed and that the tour was “going in a different direction.” The complaint further alleges that Joseph was accused of fabricating the hotel incident and that his termination was retaliatory.

Joseph alleges the experience caused emotional distress, reputational harm and economic loss, and that the stress contributed to anxiety, post-traumatic stress and other health issues. He is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well as attorney fees, in an amount to be determined at trial.

Smith, through attorney Allen B. Grodsky, has denied the allegations. In a statement provided to media outlets, Grodsky said Joseph’s claims are “false, baseless and reckless,” adding that they are “categorically denied” and that Smith will “use all legal means available” to contest them and “ensure that the truth is brought to light.”

Smith has not commented personally on the lawsuit.

Beyoncé Is Now a Billionaire, According to Forbes

Beyoncé is shown in promotional imagery for “Cowboy Carter,” the country-influenced album and tour era that helped propel her to billionaire status, according to Forbes. She now joins her husband, Jay-Z, as one of the few musicians to independently reach a 10-figure fortune through music ownership, touring and long-term control of their work. (Courtesy Photo: Blair Caldwell/Parkwood Entertainment)

For years, the question around Beyoncé wasn’t whether she had already crossed the billionaire line — it was when the accounting would finally catch up to the reality.

On Monday, Forbes made it official, estimating Beyoncé’s net worth at $1 billion, a milestone reached not through a single windfall, but through a methodical, decades-long consolidation of power, ownership and cultural relevance.

According to Forbes, Beyoncé becomes just the fifth musician to amass a 10-figure fortune, joining her husband Jay-Z, Taylor Swift, Rihanna and Bruce Springsteen. But the distinction matters less for the number itself than for how she got there — by treating music not as a product to be licensed away, but as infrastructure to be owned.

The final push came through a bold, unlikely pivot. In 2024, Beyoncé released “Cowboy Carter,” a genre-bending country album that challenged industry gatekeeping while opening a new commercial frontier. What followed was the most successful concert tour in the genre’s history, a global run that reasserted her dominance as a live performer while expanding her audience beyond traditional pop boundaries.

For almost any artist, the 2023 “Renaissance World Tour” — which grossed nearly $600 million — would have marked a career peak. Instead, Beyoncé used it as a prelude. The “Cowboy Carter Tour” in 2025 leaned into spectacle and scarcity, staging a limited run of stadium mini-residencies that turned each stop into a destination event. The tour grossed more than $400 million in ticket sales, with an additional $50 million in merchandise, according to Forbes estimates, and delivered unusually high margins because Beyoncé’s company, Parkwood Entertainment, handled production in-house.

THE CARTERS: TWO PATHS TO A BILLION

Beyoncé

• Net worth: $1 billion (Forbes)
• Primary driver: Music ownership + touring
• Structure: Parkwood Entertainment (fully integrated)
• Core assets:
  • Full control of catalog
  • Stadium tours with in-house production
  • Film, visual albums, live-event IP
• Signature strategy: Vertical integration
• Wealth model: Artist as infrastructure

Jay-Z

• Net worth: $2.5 billion (Forbes estimate)
• Primary driver: Diversified investments
• Structure: Roc Nation + private equity stakes
• Core assets:
  • Music catalog
  • Spirits (Armand de Brignac, D’USSÉ stake history)
  • Early tech investments (including Uber)
• Signature strategy: Portfolio diversification
• Wealth model: Artist as investor

Why it matters: Together, Beyoncé and Jay-Z are the only married couple in music history to independently reach billionaire status — not through celebrity alone, but through ownership, leverage and long-term control in an industry that has historically denied Black artists all three.

Source: Forbes

That control traces back to a pivotal decision in 2010, when Beyoncé founded Parkwood and brought nearly every aspect of her career under one roof. The company manages her music, tours, films and visual projects, absorbing upfront costs in exchange for long-term ownership and backend participation.

“When I decided to manage myself, it was important that I didn’t go to some big management company,” Beyoncé said in a 2013 interview. “I felt like I wanted to follow the footsteps of Madonna and be a powerhouse and have my own empire.”

In an industry that has historically profited from Black creativity while denying Black artists ownership, Beyoncé’s billion-dollar valuation represents not just commercial success, but a rare reversal of that equation.

From the surprise release of “Beyoncé” in 2013 to the HBO-backed visual album “Lemonade” in 2016, she repeatedly reframed albums as events rather than inventory. Her 2018 Coachella performance — later released as “Homecoming” — drew hundreds of thousands of concurrent viewers and culminated in a Netflix documentary reportedly valued at $60 million.

More recently, Beyoncé expanded into adjacent industries with mixed but strategic results, including a hair care brand (Cécred), a premium whiskey label (SirDavis), and Ivy Park, her apparel partnership that was discontinued in 2024. Forbes notes that while these ventures contributed to her wealth, the core of her fortune still comes from music — specifically ownership of her catalog and the unmatched earning power of her tours.

In 2025 alone, Forbes estimates Beyoncé earned $148 million before taxes, making her the third-highest-paid musician in the world. That success came despite album-equivalent sales that lagged behind several streaming-era peers, underscoring a modern reality: touring now accounts for the vast majority of top-tier artists’ income.

Across entertainment, few enterprises are more lucrative than a stadium-filling musician in the post-pandemic era. Beyoncé has been at the forefront of that shift, scaling productions once considered unsustainable and then rewriting the economics to make them viable.

In recent written interviews, she has said “Renaissance” and “Cowboy Carter” represent the first two parts of a planned genre trilogy. She has also signaled that future touring will be more selective, structured around her children’s schedules.

“No amount of money is worth my peace,” she told GQ earlier this year.

The billionaire designation does not close Beyoncé’s story. It confirms what her career has already demonstrated: that she is not simply one of the most influential artists of her era, but one of its most disciplined architects.

Don Bryant, Memphis Songwriter Whose Work Bridged Soul and Hip-Hop, Dies at 83

Don Bryant poses for a press photograph during the promotion of his 2017 comeback album “Don’t Give Up on Love.” The Memphis soul singer and songwriter, whose work included co-writing Ann Peebles’ classic “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” died Dec. 26 after a series of health issues. He was 83. (Matt White, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Don Bryant, a Memphis soul singer and songwriter whose work helped define the sound of Hi Records and whose songs continue to echo through modern R&B and hip-hop, has died. Bryant, the husband and chief collaborator of Ann Peebles, died Dec. 26 after a series of health issues, according to posts shared on his official social media accounts. He was 83.

“Don loved sharing his music and songs with all of you and it gave him such great joy to perform and record new music,” his family wrote. “He was so appreciative of everyone who was part of his musical journey and who supported him along the way.”

Bryant’s legacy is inseparable from one of the most enduring recordings in Southern soul: “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” the 1973 Peebles hit he co-wrote with her and Bernard “Bernie” Miller. Built on spare instrumentation and emotional restraint, the song became a masterclass in atmosphere — intimate, tense and unflinching. Decades later, it took on a second life when its opening rhythm was sampled for Missy Elliott’s debut solo single, “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly),” extending Bryant’s Memphis-born sensibility into the DNA of modern hip-hop.

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Born in Memphis and raised in the church, Bryant learned early that soul music was as much about discipline as expression. His father sang in a gospel group, and rehearsals often took place in the family home. Bryant later recalled listening closely, absorbing harmony and phrasing, then attempting to recreate the sound with his brothers — an informal education that shaped both his voice and his pen.

By the late 1950s, Bryant was already writing songs, some of which were recorded by the Five Royales and bandleader Willie Mitchell. As a teenager, he sang with various vocal groups and began performing regularly, eventually drawing the attention of influential Memphis radio figures who encouraged his move from gospel into secular music.

That determination carried him into Hi Records’ orbit during the 1960s. Bryant recorded as a solo artist, releasing the 1969 album “Precious Soul” and singles that blended country, blues and deep soul without sacrificing grit. 

As Hi’s roster expanded, he shifted behind the scenes, becoming a staff songwriter whose catalog would grow to more than 150 credited songs. Writing for artists including Solomon Burke, Albert King and Etta James, Bryant developed a reputation for adaptability and precision. 

He later explained that studying an artist’s phrasing and delivery helped him tailor material to their voice. “When I was writing for an individual I could always come up with something that would fit them,” Bryant said in an interview with Blues Blast Magazine.

The defining partnership of Bryant’s life began in the early 1970s, when he met Peebles, a young singer newly signed to Hi. “That’s when I wrote ‘99 Pounds’ — that’s the one I wrote especially for Ann when she first came in,” Bryant recalled in later interviews. “To tell you the truth, I fell in love with Ann then, when I heard her sing.” The two married in 1974 and remained partners for the next four decades, creatively and personally.

Bryant wrote or co-wrote many of Peebles’ signature songs, helping her deliver a body of work that balanced sensuality with resolve and vulnerability with strength. His writing favored economy over excess — songs built around mood, tension and emotional truth rather than ornamentation. That restraint is precisely what allowed records like “I Can’t Stand the Rain” to age so well, surviving reinterpretation across genres without losing their core.

For years, Bryant placed his own recording ambitions aside, focusing on Peebles’ career while continuing to sing in church and release gospel recordings. When Peebles suffered a stroke in 2012, her touring life came to a halt. With her encouragement, Bryant returned to secular music late in life, recording “Don’t Give Up on Love” in 2017 — his first non-gospel album in nearly five decades. The record was widely praised not as a novelty comeback, but as the work of an artist who had simply been waiting for the right moment to speak again.

He followed with “You Make Me Feel,” released in 2020, which earned him his first Grammy nomination in the Best Traditional Blues Album category. The recognition arrived when Bryant was 78, a rare acknowledgment of a career that had quietly shaped American music for more than half a century.