The Kardashians’ fallout with Kim Kardashian’s infamous ex Ray J has finally come to a head as the parties officially sue each other over a decades-old scandal.
The musician — who dated the reality TV star in the early 2000s — has officially sued Kim and her mom, Kris Jenner, claiming the mother-daughter duo have been lying about the former couple’s infamous 2003 sex tape for years, TMZ reported on November 13.
In court documents obtained by the outlet, Ray J doubles down on his long-held claim that Kris and Kim orchestrated the tape’s “leak” in 2006, and have spent “two decades peddling the false story that the sex tape that Kardashian filmed with [Ray J] was leaked against her will.”
Ray J’s filing has been a long time coming as he has publicly warned the Kardashians multiple times; he was finally pushed over the edge after Kris and Kim sued him for defamation last month.
The Kardashian-Jenners’ lawyer, Alex Spiro, hit back at Ray J’s lawsuit in a statement to Page Six: “After realising he is losing the case and losing his way, this disjointed rambling distraction is not intimidating anyone. Ray J will lose this frivolous case too.”
Kim Kardashian and Ray J’s dating history (2003-2006)
Kim’s history with Ray J goes back to the early 2000s, before she was a well-known TV star. The seeds for the scandal were planted on Kim’s 23rd birthday back in October 2003, when the on-again, off-again couple went for a Mexican getaway.
It was at the luxury Esperanza resort in Cabo San Lucas where the tape was filmed.
Everything was quiet for a while; Kim focused on building her career, appearing on shows like The Simple Life with Paris Hilton. Meanwhile, Ray J was finding his footing in the music and entertainment industries.
The couple finally called it quits for good in 2006, but just a year later, everything would change.
Kim Kardashian and Ray J’s tape gets leaked (2007)
In 2007, Kim and Ray J’s tape leaked online and immediately spread like wildfire, throwing Kim into the spotlight. While she initially took legal action against Vivid Entertainment for distributing the film with the title, “Kim Kardashian, Superstar,” she dropped the lawsuit just three months later for a reported $5 million settlement.
Ray Jay’s allegations against Kim Kardashian (2016-present)
Nearly ten years after the scandal, author Ian Halperin claimed in his book Kardashian Dynasty that Kim and Kris carefully orchestrated the whole thing, allegedly inspired by Paris Hilton’s launch to fame.
Things were relatively quiet for a while, until, in 2022, Ray J dropped a nuke and declared he never leaked the tape. Instead, he claimed to the Daily Mail, it was “a deal and a partnership between Kris Jenner and Kim and me.”
Fast forward to September this year, Ray J went on a livestream with Chrisean Rock and warned, “The federal RICO I’m about to drop on Kris and Kim is about to be crazy.”
“Anybody that is cool with Kim, they need to tell her now, the feds is coming. There’s nothing I can do about it,” he said ominously, adding that “it’s worse than Diddy.”
Kim and Kris didn’t take the warning lightly and sued Ray J for defamation a week later. That brings us to Ray J’s latest filing, in which he notes that “Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner’s lawsuit is not about defamation — it’s about publicity, power, and punishment.”
He claims that Kris and Kim, along with her then-husband Kanye West, falsely accused Ray J of sexually assaulting him and “releasing revenge porn and extortion.”
When he tried to fight back at the time, Ray J alleges he received a $6 million settlement offer as all parties agreed that “no further mention or public reference” to the sex tape would be made on the Kardashians’ reality TV show.
However, Ray J claims the agreement was “almost immediately” violated when Kim, Kris, Ye, and Kendall Jenner discussed the tape on the show.