Vivica A. Fox Hit w/ Lawsuit, Accused of Stealing Strippers

Vivica A. Fox

Vivica A. Fox Hit w/ Lawsuit, Accused of Stealing Strippers

It’s officially time for Vivica A. Fox to lawyer up! The actress is being suing for libel, slander and intentional interference with contractual relations, among other claims.

Reportedly, her former business partner, Jean-Claude LaMarre alleges that she slandered him and stole strippers. LaMarre claims that he came up with idea for Chocolate City as a Magic Mike-style movie targeted to people of color. He states that he recruited the cast including Fox, Tyson Beckford, Michael Jai White and Ginuwine for both the 2015 movie and the 2016 sequel.

After two films, LaMarre decided to hit the road with a real-life exotic male review. His film investors weren’t interested, so he decided to pursue the project using the name Black Magic Live.

He alleges that as he was getting the show off the ground, he was approached by Propagate Content to develop a reality series based on the lives of male exotic dancers for Lifetime. He says that they were interested, but wanted a female lead in the reality show, so he suggested Fox. His complaint states the series was dubbed Vivica’s Black Magic because of clearance issues.

LaMarre believed that the exposure and publicity that Black Magic Live would receive from the reality series would dwarf any negative impact from the perception of an actor, Fox, running his business. 

LaMarre began planning a 75-city Black Magic Live tour. He recounts that during an interview promoting the show, Fox told a New York radio show that the male review tour was intended for women, not gay men.

Recalling the controversy, LaMarre says the statements were reported as homophobic, so he did an interview apologizing, and distanced himself from Fox. He says that at this point is when, she began secretly planning a competing business, Xplicit Minds, and recruited four of the five Black Magic dancers from the reality series. His attorney writes in the complaint,

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. Fox also began advertising her Xplicit Minds shows as dancers ‘from Vivica’s Black Magic.’

He also says that Fox told dancers and staff that they had to take sides — and anyone who didn’t choose hers wouldn’t be back for season two of the Lifetime reality show. Ultimately, he says he decided to rebuild the Black Magic Live tour without the dancers who left with Fox and set a series of Southern California shows, but customers canceled their tickets because Fox repeatedly posted on social media that his shows were fake and fans shouldn’t go see them.

He is suing for libel, slander and intentional interference with contractual relations, among other claims.

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