UPDATED with latest: Motown great Smokey Robinson is under criminal investigation after recent allegations of rape and other abuse made in a $50 million lawsuit earlier this month. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department confirmed the news to multiple media outlets.
“The investigation is in the early stages, and we have no further comment,” the LASD said in a statement.
Robinson’s attorney Christopher Frost issued his own statement in response to the news.
“We are aware that a police report has now been filed by the Plaintiffs in the civil lawsuit. It is clear to us what is happening here,” the statement said. “Plaintiffs filed a police report only after they filed a $50 million lawsuit. This means only that the police are now required to investigate.
“We welcome that investigation, which involves Plaintiffs who continue to hide their identities, because exposure to the truth is a powerful thing,” the statement continued. “We feel confident that a determination will be made that Mr. Robinson did nothing wrong, and that this is a desperate attempt to prejudice public opinion and make even more of a media circus than the Plaintiffs were previously able to create.”
PREVIOUSLY on May 6: Alleging rape and other abuse over the period from 2007 to 2024, four former housekeepers of Smokey Robinson and Frances Robinson are suing the Motown legend and his spouse for $50 million in a lawsuit alleging sexual battery, assault, false imprisonment, labor violations, gender and more.
“JD1 began working for Defendants as their housekeeper at their Chatsworth residence on January 3, 2023 until February 2024, when she was forced to resign due to Defendant Smokey Robinson’s repeated sexual assaults and sexual harassment against her,” says Jane Doe 1, who claims the first rape by octogenarian Robinson happened in March 2023. In descriptive terms, Jane Doe 1 alleges in the 27-page filing that the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer “would roughly penetrate her vagina with his fingers, orally copulate her and proceed to penetrate her vagina with his erect penis causing her great pain.”
Filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court, the 16-claim civil action alleges that the “Cruisin’” singer-songwriter individually raped the quartet of women in his homes in Las Vegas, Chatsworth and Bell Canyon in Ventura County over the years. From Robinson taking a shower before the assaults and putting a towel on the bed to prevent stains, the tales from Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2, Jane Doe 3 and Jane Doe 4 are remarkably similar in the worst of ways.
“Defendant Smokey Robinson enjoyed ejaculating in her vagina without using a condom,” Jane Doe 1 states the suit from the L.A. firm of Harris and Hayden. “JD1 would protest and resist his sexual assaults but to no avail. In a desperate attempt to get him to stop his sexual assaults, she would proclaim ‘you’re married’, to which he would casually ignore.”
All of the plaintiffs accuse Frances Robinson, who has been married to the now-85-year-old Kennedy Center Honoree since 2002, of creating a “hostile work environment” with screaming at staffers and skimping on their rightful pay. The four women also say that Frances Robinson “failed to take the appropriate corrective action to prevent Defendant Smokey Robinson’s deviant misconduct against JD2, despite having full knowledge of his prior acts of sexual misconduct, having settled cases with other women that suffered and experienced similar sexual assaults perpetuated by him.”
Reps for Robinson did not respond to request for comment from Deadline on the suit and its claims.
However, anticipating those who will attempt to reject her claims by falling back on why the women didn’t do something earlier to stop Robinson’s alleged assaults, JD1 took the offense in today’s suit.
Like the other three women who are her co-plaintiffs, JD1 says she “was unwilling to report Defendant’s Smokey Robinson’s unlawful acts to the authorities due to her fear of losing her livelihood, familial reprisal, public embarrassment, shame and humiliation to her and her family, the possible adverse effect on her immigration status, as well as being threatened and intimidated by Defendant Smokey Robinson’s well-recognized celebrity status and his influential friends and associates.”
Robinson was a founding member and singer for Motown group The Miracles, which had a half-dozen Top 10 hits including the 1970 chart-topper “The Tears of a Clown” and also recorded such classics as “The Tracks of My Tears,” “Ooo Baby Baby” and “Going to a Go-Go.” He also wrote many of the group’s songs as well as hits for labelmates including Mary Wells’ “My Guy,” “The Way You Do the Things You Do” and “Get Ready” for The Temptations and Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t That Peculiar.”
Robinson went solo in the early 1970s and four Top 10s of his own including “Cruisin’” and “Being with You.”
