Smokey Robinson sues former housekeepers for defamation over rape
allegations
[May 30, 2025]
By ANDREW DALTON
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Smokey Robinson has filed a defamation lawsuit
against four former housekeepers who accused him of rape and prompted a
police investigation.
Robinson and his wife, Frances Robinson, filed the counterclaim
Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court against the women and their
lawyers, whose allegations, they say, were “fabricated in an
extortionate scheme.”
The filing is a fast and forceful legal and public pushback from the
85-year-old Motown music luminary in response to the women's May 6
lawsuit and a May 15 announcement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Department that its Special Victims Bureau is “actively investigating
criminal allegations” against Robinson.
The Robinsons also filed a motion to strike the women's lawsuit. The
women are seeking at least $50 million, alleging Smokey Robinson
repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted them in his home when they
worked for him between 2007 and 2024. They said Frances Robinson, a
co-defendant, enabled him and created an abusive workplace.
The counterclaim opens with friendly text messages from the women to
contradict their claims against Robinson, whose songs, including “Tears
of a Clown” and “The Tracks of My Tears," established him among the
biggest hitmakers of the 1960s.
The filing says the women “stayed with the Robinsons year after year,”
vacationed with them, celebrated holidays with them, exchanged gifts
with them, asked for tickets to his concerts, and sought and received
help from them including money for dental surgery, financial support for
a disabled family member, and “even a car.”
The filing — which includes photos from the vacations and gatherings as
exhibits — says that despite the couple's generosity, the women
“secretly harbored resentment for the Robinsons and sought to enrich
themselves through the Robinsons’ wealth.”
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 “Unfortunately, the depths of
Plaintiffs’ avarice and greed know no bounds,” the counterclaim
says. “During the very time that the Robinsons were being
extraordinarily generous with Plaintiffs, Plaintiffs were concocting
an extortionate plan to take everything from the Robinsons.”
John Harris and Herbert Hayden, attorneys for the
former housekeepers, said in a statement that the defamation lawsuit
“is nothing more than an attempt to silence and intimidate the
survivors of Mr. Robinson’s sexual battery and assault. It is a
baseless and vindictive legal maneuver designed to re-victimize,
shift blame and discourage others from coming forward.”
The lawyers said they intend to get the Robinsons’ lawsuit thrown
out by invoking California’s laws against using the courts to
silence and intimidate people who sue.
The four women, whose names are withheld in their lawsuit, each
allege that Robinson would wait until they were alone with him in
his Los Angeles house and then sexually assault and rape them. One
woman said she was assaulted at least 20 times while working for
Robinson from 2012 until 2024. Another said she worked for him from
2014 until 2020 and was assaulted at least 23 times.
The Robinsons’ other legal filing seeks to strike the women’s
lawsuit as invalid, saying they have no right to hide their
identities in it, especially after they “chose to make a very public
spectacle of themselves” when they appeared at a news conference the
day they sued, their faces covered with masks and sunglasses.
The Sheriff's Department would give no details on its investigation
beyond confirming its existence.
Robinson, who was a central figure in the Motown Records machine
with his group the Miracles and as a solo artist, is a member of
both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
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