Kim Kardashian’s defamation lawsuit against Ray J took another turn this week, with Kardashian insisting she never conspired with her mother to release her infamous sex tape — and Ray J’s lawyer calling the denial “demonstrably false” and possible “perjury.”
“His claim that I had a plan with my mother and others to release a sex tape, defraud the public, and file a ‘fake’ lawsuit against the porn company that released it to ‘create buzz’ is a lie,” Kardashian wrote in a sworn declaration filed Tuesday. “My family and I are not part of a criminal enterprise; we have not conducted racketeering activity, nor have we profited from racketeering activities as the defendant claims.”
Speaking with TMZ, Ray J accused Kardashian of lying under oath about both the intimate video and a credit card fraud lawsuit filed by his mother against Kardashian and her siblings. In her new declaration, Kardashian called the fraud lawsuit “discredited,” saying it was dismissed after a private settlement with no admission of liability or wrongdoing.
On Thursday, Ray J’s lawyer, Howard King, released a statement to Rolling Stone backing his client. “If Ms. Kardashian is so concerned about demonstrating to the State Bar that she possesses the requisite moral character to be admitted to the Bar, when and if she passes the bar exam, she should not be committing perjury,” King said. “Her sworn statements that she did not steal money from Ray’s mother and that she and her mother did not orchestrate a false narrative about the release of the sex tape are demonstrably false and could subject her to criminal perjury prosecution.”
Lawyers for Kardashian and Jenner did not immediately respond Rolling Stone‘s requests for comment Thursday.
In a separate declaration filed this week, Kardashian’s mother, Kris Jenner, also denied involvement in an alleged fraud related to the sex tape. Jenner is a co-plaintiff with her daughter in the defamation lawsuit against Ray J, whose legal name is William Ray Norwood Jr.
“Defendant’s allegation that I was in charge of the release and commercial exploitation of my daughter Kim’s sex tape is absolutely false,” Jenner said. “I did not file a ‘fake’ lawsuit against the porn company that released the tape of my daughter in order to defraud the public and create buzz ahead of the tape’s release, as he claims.”
Jenner said she has been in therapy as a result of “the emotional distress defendant has subjected me to because of his awful lies about me and my daughter.” She also denied being involved in a racketeering conspiracy with her daughter.
Norwood and Kardashian dated in the early 2000s and appeared together in a sex tape recorded in 2003 and released in 2007 by Vivid Entertainment. The company has long said it obtained the video legally from a third party. The tape’s release came shortly before the premiere of Keeping Up With the Kardashians on E! in 2007.
According to Kardashian’s lawsuit, Norwood defamed her and Jenner with statements last year aimed at “reviving his own fading notoriety.”
“Unable to accept the end of his fleeting relationship with Ms. Kardashian over 20 years ago, Ray J has repeatedly sought to attach himself to plaintiffs’ names and exploit their prominence for personal gain,” the lawsuit says. “Ray J’s defamatory statements about plaintiffs are part of a broader campaign of harassment designed to generate publicity for his flailing career and satisfy his acknowledged animosity toward the Kardashian family.”
Kardashian and Jenner say Norwood’s alleged pattern of “antagonistic behavior” dates back to his 2013 song “I Hit It First,” which the lawsuit says “was widely understood as a disparaging reference to Ms. Kardashian.” The lawsuit says Norwood’s “campaign” reignited on May 30, 2025, when he inserted Kardashian’s name into a live discussion about Sean Combs’ racketeering trial in New York. “If you told me that the Kardashians was being charged for racketeering, I might believe it,” Norwood said on camera while speaking with TMZ’s Harvey Levin.
On Sept. 24, 2025, Norwood allegedly “escalated his attacks” during a livestream on Twitch, declaring, “The federal RICO I’m about to drop on Kris and Kim is about to be crazy,” according to the complaint. In a recording of the stream played in court two weeks ago, Norwood added, “The feds is coming, there’s nothing I can do about it,” and, “It’s worse than Diddy. It’s worse than Diddy.”
At a March 3 hearing, Norwood’s other lawyer, Jackson Trugman, argued that Kardashian and Jenner had failed to properly deny the racketeering claims in earlier sworn statements, so their lawsuit should be dismissed. He described the Twitch stream, where Norwood’s comments were more pointed than they were on TMZ, as “a bunch of people hanging out in a house, using coarse language.” He called it a context very different from a news broadcast.
“There is absolutely no evidence that Mr. Norwood had any actual awareness of the probable falsity of anything he said,” Trugman argued.
The judge has not yet ruled on Norwood’s special motion to strike the lawsuit.Meanwhile, Norwood stated in social media posts from January that he believed he was in his “last days” amid a health crisis, had been hospitalized for pneumonia, and that his heart was “only beating like 25 percent.” He claimed his superstar sister, Brandy, was paying his bills and later gave a performance where he appeared to be bleeding out of his eyes.
Michaela Coel in ‘The Christophers.’Claudette Barius/NEON
