Cuba Gooding Jr. faces allegations of dodging court process servers in connection with a sexual assault lawsuit filed by producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones Jr.
Jones accuses the Oscar-winning actor of inappropriate behavior on a yacht in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Jones has thrust Gooding into the limelight alongside Diddy Combs with the legal complaint, escalating tension in a multi-layered legal battle.
Jones’s attorney, Tyrone Blackburn, has tried to serve legal papers on Gooding in New York and Florida, but all attempts thus far have been unsuccessful.
Blackburn states, “The difficulty in serving Mr. Gooding points to a deliberate attempt to evade these very serious claims.”
The lawsuit stems from an incident in January 2023 on Combs’s yacht, where Jones alleges that Cuba Gooding Jr. groped him despite clear non-consent.
After Jones forcefully denied Gooding’s advances, the complaint details that neither Gooding nor Diddy, the host, intervened substantially to address or halt the escalating situation.
But Gooding isn’t being quiet about the lawsuit to influence the court of public opinion. The actor sat down for an interview on the Patrick Bet-David Podcast and expressed his astonishment upon learning about the lawsuit.
“It’s crazy, that’s the craziest thing I’d ever [heard]… and then, hey how about me?” he said. “I wake up in the morning, I turn [on] the show…I was like, excuse me, [they] pull me into this!”
Gooding also addressed the now-infamous photo of himself with Jones, which Gooding dismissed.
“You made it look the way you wanted it to look, but that [photo]… we were just listening to music,” Gooding said, adding that there were more than 300 people on the yacht at the time.
Gooding referred to the lawsuit as nothing more than an attempt to extort money out of Diddy.
“This guy who’s suing him, going after the money man… I’m sure,” Cuba Gooding Jr. said.
As of now, the lawsuit is uncertain due to the difficulties associated with serving Gooding.