Vivica A. Fox Hit With a Stripper Lawsuit
Vivica A. Fox's stripper venture isn't going according to plan, based on recent reports, as she is currently being sued for libel, slander and intentional interference with contractual relations.
According to theJasmineBRAND.com, the actress's former business partner, Jean-Claude LaMarre, claims that she slandered him and stole his strippers. In addition to that, he alleges that he came up with the idea for Chocolate City as an urban version of Magic Mike, which Fox later ended up starring in.
LaMarre specified that he brought on the cast for the film, including Fox, Tyson Beckford, Michael Jai White and Ginuwine for both the original 2015 film and the sequel, which premiered the following year.
After the films aired, he decided to take the concept to the real world, forming his own exotic male review. Since film investors weren't interested, he decided to continue pursuing the project under the name Black Magic Live.
Once the show began to take off, he claims, he was approached by Propagate Content, which agreed to develop a reality series surrounding the lives of the dancers for Lifetime. While they showed interest in the concept, he says they wanted a female lead for the show, so he suggested Fox. However, he alleged that once she became the face of the series, the name was changed to Vivica's Black Magic due to "clearance issues."
While planning a 75-city Black Magic Live tour, he recalls the moment, while promoting the show, where Fox said on The Breakfast Club that the male review tour was intended for female audiences only, and not gay men.
After the controversy took on a life of its own, LaMarre said he did an interview apologizing for Fox's words and distanced himself from the actress. Once he started backing away, he claims he noticed Fox secretly planning her own competing business called Xplicit Minds, where she allegedly recruited four of the five dancers from the Black Magic reality series to join her.
"Fox began a campaign of defamation against LaMarre, telling the dancers that LaMarre didn't care about them, was exploiting them, and taking advantage of them, and now that they were on the brink of celebrity, they no longer needed LaMarre," his attorney said in a complaint. "Fox also began advertising her Xplicit Minds shows as dancers from Vivica's Black Magic."
That's not all — LaMarre went on to add that Fox told the dancers and staff that they had to choose a side and if anyone failed to hop on board with her plan, they would not be asked to return for the second season of the Lifetime reality series.
Trying to rebuild, he claims he decided to form the Black Magic Live tour again, but without the dancers whom Fox allegedly stole in a new series set in Southern California, however, customers reportedly canceled their tickets because the actress posted on social media that his shows were fake, and urged fans not to attend.
Hence, LaMarre is suing Fox for libel, slander and intentional interference with contractual relations, in addition to other claims.
Get some good news on the actress in the BET Breaks video, above.