Smokey Robinson Sued By Four Women For Sexual Assault

Four women who worked for Smokey Robinson as housekeepers have sued the famed Motown singer for sexual assault, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles on Tuesday and obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

In the complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, the four anonymous women accuse Robinson of raping them at several of his residences, most primarily at his home in Chatsworth, California. The listed causes of action include negligence, sexual battery, assault, false imprisonment and a hostile work environment among other claims. The women also claimed the defendants failed to pay them minimum wage.

Robinson’s wife, Frances Robinson, was named as a defendant as well, with the women claiming that she “failed to take the appropriate corrective action to prevent Defendant Robinson’s deviant misconduct despite having full knowledge of his prior acts of sexual misconduct,” stating Robinson had settled claims with other women.

The first plaintiff, identified as Jane Doe 1, claimed that she worked for Robinson at his home on weekends for about a year from January 2023 to February 2024. Jane Doe 2 alleged she worked for Robinson from 2014 to 2020, Jane Doe 3 claimed Robinson employed her from February 2012 to April 2024, and Jane Doe 4 said she worked for Robinson from October 2006 to April 22, 2024. All four of the plaintiffs claim they were “forced to resign due to Defendant Smokey Robinson’s repeated sexual assaults and sexual harassment.”

The four Jane Does alleged that they didn’t report their allegations to the authorities over fear of “losing their livelihoods, familial reprisal, public embarrassment and shame and humiliation.” The first three Jane Does also claimed they feared adverse impact on their immigration status. All four also claimed Robinson often screamed at them, “using ethnically pejorative words and language.”

A rep for Robinson didn’t immediately respond to THR’s request for comment.

Jane Doe 1 alleged that Robinson would assault her after driving his wife to the nail salon on the weekends. After he’d return home, she alleged, Robinson would call her into his bedroom, where he’d be “showered and clothed only in his underwear.”

“Defendant Smokey Robinson would then begin to kiss JD1 in her mouth, neck and breasts,” the suit alleged the suit alleged, describing digital, oral and penetration by penis. Jane Doe 1 alleged she “would protest and resist his sexual assaults but to no avail,” and that Robinson assaulted her at least seven times.

Jane Doe 2 claimed that “Robinson’s brutal sexual advances were constant and even predictable,” alleging that Robinson assaulted her in other rooms of his home where there were no cameras such as the laundry room or garage. Jane Doe 2 alleged that Robinson would summon her, at which point “he would immediately grab her and begin to penetrate her” digitally, “causing excruciating pain, and then would proceed to rape her.” Jane Doe 2 claimed Robinson would threaten her if she refused to have sex with him, claiming Robinson sexually assaulted her 23 times.

Jane Doe 3 claimed Robinson “sexually assaulted and raped JD3 during most of her entire employment,” at least 20 times. Jane Doe 4 claimed Robinson first sexually assaulted her in 2007, a year after she first started working for her and Frances Robinson as a housekeeper, personal assistant, cook and hairdresser. She claimed Robinson raped her at his Las Vegas home after she accompanied him there from Los Angeles. She alleged that Robinson “would often create a situation or seize the opportunity where he would be alone with JD4 at their Chatsworth residence.”

She claimed the alleged behavior “continued to the very day she decided to resign her employment with the Defendants.”