A month after a judge found issues with a lawsuit filed by a violinist against Will Smith in which the plaintiff said the actor groomed him for sexual exploitation after inviting the musician to join his global tour, the plaintiff has dropped his lawsuit.
Violinist Brian King Joseph competed on “America’s Got Talent” in 2018. On Thursday, Joseph’s attorneys filed court papers with Judge Michael Shultz asking that the lawsuit be dismissed “without prejudice,” leaving the door open for it to be refiled. The request has been temporarily delayed due to the lack of a needed signature flagged by the Clerk’s Office.
Joseph sued Dec. 30, alleging wrongful termination, retaliation, sexual harassment and civil rights violations. Joseph is a professional violinist who maintained he was hired to perform on Smith’s global tour “Based on a True Story: 2025,” after Smith heard him play at his home.
On April 28, Shultz heard arguments on a motion by attorneys for the 57-year-old Smith and his company, Treyball Studio Management Inc., to toss all claims against each, calling the lawsuit a “money grab” and denying Joseph’s claim that he was invited to join Smith’s tour. Schultz took the case under submission and ruled on May 5, saying the complaint needed to have more facts supporting Joseph’s claims in an amended version to be filed within 30 days. However, the plaintiff never filed a revised complaint.
According to the suit, Smith told Joseph, “You and I have such a special connection that I don’t have with anyone else” while progressively expanding the plaintiff’s role in the show.
In March 2025, however, Joseph returned to his hotel room and found a handwritten note addressed to him by name that read, “Brian, I’ll be back no later 5:30, just us,” with a drawn heart along with HIV medication, hospital discharge paperwork, wipes and other personal items, leading Joseph to fear someone was coming to have sex with him, according to the suit.
Joseph reported what he found to the police, hotel security and Smith’s management team, that latter of which had access to his hotel room, the suit stated. Within four days, a Smith representative confronted Joseph and asked, “Why did you lie and make this up?,” and terminated the plaintiff, who was replaced by another violinist, the suit stated.
But in their previous court papers urging dismissal of the case and the striking of the request for punitive damages, attorneys for Smith and Treyball contend that the lawsuit contained “false and salacious allegations (that) undoubtedly make for tabloid fodder but, like most tabloid stories, they are untrue, inflammatory, legally baseless and are nothing but an attempted money grab.”
Joseph was never invited to join Smith’s tour, was hired only on a per-show basis, and “any assumptions he made to the contrary were a figment of plaintiff’s imagination and illustrate his lack of experience in the industry,” the defense attorneys further contended.
Joseph “squandered” his chances to be part of the tour by arriving late to rehearsals and frequently disappearing mid-rehearsal, according to the Smith/Treyball attorneys.
Ultimately, Joseph was determined to not be a good fit for the band, according to the Smith/Treyball court papers.