Rapper Snoop Dogg Sued by Woman Who Claims Assault
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An Emmy-winning makeup artist has sued rapper Snoop Dogg, the ABC network and its "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show for $25 million, claiming she was drugged and raped backstage at the show by the hip-hop star and his associates.
The legal complaint came about two months after the rapper, born Calvin Broadhus, brought his own preemptive suit claiming he was the victim of an extortion plot by the woman, Kylie Bell, and her lawyer, although Broadhus did not then refer to her by name.
Bell's suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday and made public this week on www.thesmokinggun.com, said she was sexually assaulted on Jan. 31, 2003, in the rap star's dressing room after Broadhus finished taping a segment of Kimmel's show as his guest co-host.
Kimmel was not named as a defendant in the suit. But his show was named, along with ABC, corporate parent the Walt Disney Co., and an ABC investment subsidiary that according to the suit began paying Bell's expenses after she initially came forward with her complaint in May 2003.
Bell's suit said ABC, Disney and Kimmel's producers "knew that sexually oriented misconduct ... was reasonably foreseeable" given Broadhus' background as host "Girls Gone Wild: Doggy Style." That adult video sparked previous legal claims underage girls were induced by drugs to expose themselves on camera.
An ABC spokesman issued a statement on behalf of the network, Disney and the Kimmel show that said, "There is simply no merit to the charges against the company." The spokesman added Broadhus has not returned to the Kimmel show since serving as co-host during the show's first week.
According to the suit, Bell, who won an Emmy for work on the HBO drama "Six Feet Under," was sexually assaulted by Broadhus, his security chief and three other men after she was offered champagne apparently spiked with some type of drug.
She says relatives initially dissuaded her from going to police because of Broadhus' supposed street gang affiliations. Bell ultimately filed a police report and brought her complaint to the Kimmel show four months later, when she sought assistance from a women's crisis center.
The suit says an ABC executive immediately arranged to pay Bell's living expenses, with Broadhus picking up those costs later when his lawyers opened negotiations with her lawyers.
The two sides agreed to a settlement in January, nearly a month after Broadhus filed his extortion claim, but the deal fell through when his insurance company refused to pay a portion of the sum promised by his legal team, according to the suit.
Ten days later, Bell filed her suit, claiming she suffered "serious emotional distress and anxiety" that resulted in ongoing psychiatric treatment. The suit seeks $5 million in compensatory damages plus $20 million in punitive damages.
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