Smokey Robinson Countersues His Accusers

Smokey Robinson

Motown legend Smokey Robinson filed a $500 million cross-complaint for defamation and elder abuse against four former housekeepers who accused him of sexual harassment and rape in a $50 million lawsuit filed earlier that month on May 6, 2025. 

The women, identified as Jane Does 1 through 4, alleged that Robinson sexually assaulted and raped them between 2007 and 2024 at his homes in Chatsworth, California, Bell Canyon, California, and Las Vegas. They claimed Robinson used his celebrity status to intimidate them, and they feared reporting the incidents due to potential job loss, public shame, and, for three of them, concerns about their immigration status. Their lawsuit also accused Robinson’s wife, Frances, of enabling his behavior and creating a hostile work environment through ethnic slurs and labor violations, such as failure to pay minimum wage or overtime.

Robinson’s cross-complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims the women and their lawyer, John W. Harris, fabricated the allegations to extort money. 

It alleges that the women conspired to make “slanderous statements” during a May 6 press conference, where Harris called Robinson a “serial and sick rapist.” Robinson’s filing argues that these statements, made outside the protected context of the lawsuit, constitute defamation. It further claims the women were treated “as extended family” during their employment, receiving gifts like money for dental work, clothing, vacations, concert tickets, and even a car in one case. 

The complaint accuses one housekeeper of deleting text exchanges and photos from Frances Robinson’s phone but includes a text where a housekeeper invited Robinson to her son’s graduation dinner, suggesting a positive relationship.

Additionally, Robinson and his wife filed a motion to strike the women’s complaint, demanding they refile it with their legal names instead of pseudonyms, arguing that the anonymity hinders identification and that the allegations are false. The motion notes that two of the plaintiffs are allegedly sisters, one inviting the other to work for the Robinsons during a period she claims she was being assaulted.