Bilal Salaam, 56, who was once one of Will Smith’s close friends, is asking a court to ease a debt of more than $32,000 after losing a lawsuit against Jada Pinkett Smith. TMZ reported that Salaam says he is now destitute and homeless, living on welfare, and cannot pay the legal costs the judge ordered him to cover. He has asked for a steep reduction or permission to pay in installments. The court has not yet responded.
Salaam sued Pinkett Smith about six months ago, claiming she threatened his life during a private September 2021 birthday party at a hotel for Smith’s 53rd birthday. In court filings, he said she approached him with seven men, spoke aggressively, threatened that he would become a “missing person” or “get a bullet,” and demanded that he sign a nondisclosure agreement. He said one of the men followed him when he tried to leave and kept threatening him.
He also alleged that in March 2022, after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, mutual friend and actor Duane Martin asked him to help manage the crisis. Salaam said Martin warned he would have a “serious problem with Jada” if he refused. According to Salaam, the couple’s associates then launched a campaign of threats and defamation, which intensified when they learned he planned to write a book about his relationship with them. Later that year, he claimed in a television interview that he caught Will Smith having sex with another man, identified as Martin. Jada Pinkett Smith denied all of Salaam’s claims, and Salaam says his publisher later canceled his book deal.
Salaam is also facing a separate defamation suit from Will Smith’s ex-wife, Sheree Zampino, 58. She says he spread false claims online that she was promiscuous and had slept with everyone, including in a video that described her as having slept with “everyone in Hollywood.” Zampino is seeking more than $1 million in damages.
