Terry Crews’ former friend and social media manager Darwin Hall has filed a lawsuit against the actor, claiming that he is owed more than US$1 million in wages and reimbursements for his services on terrycrews.com.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the lawsuit accuses Crews of encouraging his fan base to harass Hall with threats of violence after Crews criticized his ex-employee on social media.
“In response to Defendant Crews’ false and defamatory posts, Plaintiff Hall was located, and then contacted by numerous followers of Defendant Crews, who threatened Plaintiff’s life, property, and business and promised to hunt him down for ‘hurting’ Defendant Crews, even publicly asking Defendant Crews if Defendant Crews would pay a ‘bounty’ for Plaintiff Hall,” the lawsuit reads. “Plaintiff Hall was terrified and feared for his safety as well as that of his family.”
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Hall says he began working for Crews in 1999 at the beginning of his acting career and that he was working under the firm Symbolic Web Media.
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He says that the firm was paid $28,479 for services, but the amount only covered 296 hours of work out of the 6,000 hours he says he actually completed.
Hall claims that Crews agreed to pay him $55 an hour.
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In July 2013, Symbolic said that it began work for a separate client on a dating app for professional women.
“The client identifies as LGBT, although the app did not involve the LGBT community,” states the complaint. “Crews found out that Plaintiffs were working on the app and flew into a rage. Defendant Crews told Plaintiffs that in no uncertain terms could Defendants continue to work with Plaintiffs if Plaintiffs worked with anyone that was LGBT on an app for the LGBT community. Plaintiffs told Defendants that the app did not involve the LGBT community, and that because the client had already paid for Plaintiffs to build the app, Plaintiffs were contractually obligated to perform the work.”
Crews allegedly promised to reimburse funds but after the firm stopped working on the app, the Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor ignored the request for payment.
“Thereafter, as Plaintiffs’ counsel began to negotiate with Defendants’ counsel to come to some sort of resolution over the outstanding balance, Defendant Crews retaliated with unbelievable and unlawful cyberstalking, cyberbullying, harassment, and destruction of Plaintiffs’ reputation and business,” the complaint states.
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According to the complaint, when the parties were in the middle of reimbursement negotiations, Crews allegedly began tweeting about Hall in late 2017.
Crews did not include Hall’s name in the tweets but he did refer to the person as a “former friend.”
His tweets did not mention the dating app but they referred to an alleged porn website.
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“The former friend squatting on my domain name terrycrews.com has decided-because of r/CrewsCrew pressure- to offer a settlement of 30 per cent of the original 1 million dollars he wanted. So $300,000 will get my domain back. Merry Christmas,” Crews tweeted on Dec. 25, 2017.
He continued: “The former friend (squatter) is a ‘mirroring’ sociopath. One who pretends to like things you like in order to manipulate and control. I wanted to believe he was cool, so I ignored the signs. I didn’t recognize until it was too late.”
“He would regularly confess wrongdoings under the guise of ‘being honest.’ But it really was just a form of intimidation,” Crews tweeted.
“One time he bragged about trying to kill his college roommate by spiking the guy’s peanut butter with mercury. He said the guy got really sick, but didn’t die. I don’t know if it was true or not, but He was bragging to subtly let me know how far he would go if ever crossed,” Crews shared with his followers.
“He sold both illegal drugs and Amway at the same time. Just to let you know the extent of his hustle. I was constantly telling him he needed to find a right way to live. He would always thank me and say how glad he was to have me to help him — as long as I never crossed him,” Crews wrote.
“When I found out he was building porn sites, I told him I couldn’t work with him anymore, I saw how it all would backfire on me. He agreed to no longer build them … Then promptly asked ME to pay him to replace all the money the porn sites would have given him. I refused,” the White Chicks actor continued.
“I grew up around all different kinds of hustles, the drug hustle, pimp hustle, Ponzi scheme hustle, gambling hustle, family hustle, even the church hustle. I am now being exposed to the ‘friend’ hustle,” the actor said during his Twitter rant.
Crews added: “I am being as open as possible about these kinds of things, so that if anyone out there recognizes these dangerous signs from people in their own life — RUN, don’t walk — RUN AWAY.”
“Merry Christmas everyone! I hope I’ve given you a gift you can use to help live your best life!” he concluded.
Hall is seeking damages for breach of contract, defamation, cyberstalking and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
As of this writing, Crews has yet to respond to the allegations.