50 Cent has filed a defamation lawsuit against his ex-girlfriend Daphne Joy Narvaez after the model, entrepreneur, and mother of his 11-year-old son accused him of rape in an Instagram post.
The rapper, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, was in a romantic relationship with Narvaez between 2011 and 2013. He claims in his new lawsuit that she “retaliated” and posted the “false” rape allegation on March 28 in the wake of news reports that he planned to seek sole custody of their son. Jackson says in his complaint obtained by Rolling Stone that he decided to “take immediate legal action to protect the interests of his minor child” after learning that a high-profile lawsuit filed by music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones against music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs alleged that Narvaez was a “sex worker” employed by Combs.
Jackson had previously been trolling Combs online over the string of sexual assault lawsuits filed against the Bad Boy Entertainment boss. On March 27, Jackson posted a now-deleted comment on Instagram that many people interpreted as a reference to Narvaez, Combs, and the lawsuit by Jones. “I didn’t know you was a sex worker, you little sex worker,” Jackson wrote, not naming anyone.
In her post a day later, Narvaez wrote that Jackson’s “joke” was compromising her safety. “Let’s put the real focus on your true evil actions of raping me and physically abusing me,” she wrote. The post had more than 22,000 likes as of Tuesday.
“In publishing the defamatory post, Narvaez knew that her statements were false. Narvaez knows that Jackson did not rape or physically abuse her, yet she knowingly published the false statements to her almost 2 million followers on Instagram and the public at large,” Jackson’s lawsuit filed Monday in Texas reads. “Narvaez published the defamatory post, and refuses to remove it, out of sheer hatred and ill will toward Jackson.”
Jackson says in his lawsuit that his legal team sent a letter to Narvaez on April 2 demanding a “prompt retraction.” According to the complaint, Narvaez responded by “demanding that Jackson pay millions of dollars and unspecified legal fees and withdraw his custody suit in return for taking down the defamatory post.” Jackson and his lawyers allege “such demands are neither grounded in fact nor law and are clearly extortive in nature.”
Narvaez did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.
“Despite being given ample opportunity to retract a false and malicious retaliatory accusation, Ms. Narvaez has shamefully chosen to interfere with her 11-year-old son’s relationship with his loving father by falsely calling him a ‘rapist,’” Jackson’s lawyer Reena Jain says in a statement to Rolling Stone. “The motivation behind this appears to be Ms. Narvaez’s unfortunate entanglement and misguided loyalty to Mr. Combs, who we believe to be underwriting this attack and whom Mr. Jackson has been warning Ms. Narvaez and others about for many years.”
Combs also did not immediately reply to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment. His lawyers previously called Jones’ lawsuit “pure fiction.”