T.I. and Tiny Answer Defamation Lawsuit, Say ‘No Malice’ When They Denied Gun, Sexual Assault Claims
Atlanta rapper T.I. and his wife Tameka “Tiny” Harris filed their long-awaited answer to a defamation lawsuit Monday, claiming they were being truthful and harbored “no malice” when they made public statements allegedly branding assault accuser Sabrina Peterson a liar.
The underlying lawsuit, filed in March 2021, accuses T.I. and Tiny of harming Peterson’s reputation with social media posts that called her “strange,” denied her allegation T.I. once held a gun to her head, and disputed her claims T.I. was facing credible sexual assault accusations from multiple women.
T.I. and Tiny waited to respond with their list of defenses this week because it was only in June that an appeals court decided what elements of Peterson’s complaint could proceed to trial. In its ruling, California’s 2nd Appellate District spiked five of Peterson’s seven causes of action, leaving only defamation and invasion of privacy. (The court rejected claims for trade libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among others.)
Peterson, a former friend, alleges in her complaint that T.I. held a gun to her head and said, “Bitch, I’ll kill you,” after she got into an argument with his assistant. She posted about the alleged assault on her Instagram account in January 2021 and also shared video and screen shots purportedly showing other women in Atlanta accusing T.I. of abuse.
T.I., Tiny and yet another friend, Shekinah Jones Anderson, initially responded to Peterson through their social media accounts boasting a combined 23.6 million followers, the lawsuit said. Tiny’s post included a photo of T.I. posing with Peterson’s son, who was 8 years old at the time.
“Hold up,” Tiny wrote in a Jan. 26, 2021, post. “So you want your abuser to train your sons? He was just uncle 2 years ago… now when did you say my husband assaulted you? Did you change your mind or change it back? What’s up wit you today Pooh?… You strange. Everybody know you been special.”
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Three days later, T.I. and Tiny posted a joint statement denying Peterson’s claims. T.I. then posted a video to his Instagram that went viral. “Whatever we ever have done has been done with consensual adults who into what we into and like what we like,” he said. “We want something, we know exactly where to go to get it. We ain’t never forced nobody, we ain’t never drugged nobody against their will. We ain’t never held nobody against their will. We never made nobody do anything. We never trafficked anything. Well, sexually traffic, anything. I ain’t ever raped nobody.”
Anderson posted a video on Jan. 29, 2021, that claimed Peterson wanted Tiny to be her girlfriend and was seeking “attention.” In the video, Anderson alleged Peterson had consensual sex with T.I. and Tiny. Peterson denies the claim.
According to Peterson, T.I. and Tiny’s denials caused her to be “shunned by clients,” viciously harassed online and subjected to “hatred, ridicule, and contempt.”
In their reply Monday, T.I. and Tiny doubled down on their stance they did nothing wrong. They said Peterson’s surviving claims should be barred because “the alleged defamatory statements attributed to defendants are true and/or substantially true.”
“There was no malice conveyed by the publication of the allegedly defamatory statements and plaintiff is accordingly barred from recovery,” their filing states.
Lawyers representing Peterson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A hearing in the civil case is scheduled for Tuesday.
Prosecutors previously said they declined to file any charges against T.I. and Tiny over an alleged 2005 sexual assault in Los Angeles County, and stated that the alleged incident was outside the 10-year statute of limitations.
Still, the deluge of allegations led MTV Entertainment to pull the plug on the couple’s VH1 reality series, T.I. and Tiny: Friends and Family Hustle.
Update 10/17/2023: In a loss for accuser Sabrina Peterson on Tuesday, a Los Angeles judge ruled the entrepreneur must pay T.I. and Tiny a whopping $96,703 to cover legal bills the couple racked up with their motion that got five of the seven claims in Peterson’s original lawsuit dismissed.
T.I. and Tiny had asked for $116,902, and Peterson argued no fees should be granted.
“She understands that she has the pay,” one of Peterson’s lawyers, Tyrone Blackburn, told Rolling Stone after the hearing. “She’s eager to have her day in court. She’s eager to have her voice heard and to prove once and for all she was not lying when she said T.I. put a gun to her head.”
After issuing her order Tuesday, Judge Anne Richardson said co-defendant Shekinah Jones could face sanctions for failing to appear at the hearing and failing to answer the complaint.
“If she appears and participates, I have no interest in sanctions, but I want to find out why she’s not participating,” Judge Richardson said.
The court declined to set a trial date, saying it wanted to hear from Richardson first.
“We want to protect legal freedom of speech, but that does not mean unlimited illegal freedom of speech,” Peterson’s other lawyer, Rodney S. Diggs, said Tuesday. “I intend to do everything along with my co-counsel to have the laws applied and enforced against the defendants in this case. Words may not break your bones, but they have consequences, and in this case, legal consequences. We will fight to get justice for Ms. Peterson.”