Jada Pinkett Smith said in November 2023 that she and Will Smith planned to sue Brother Bilal, the man who described himself as Will’s close friend and former assistant for nearly four decades, over his explosive claims on a podcast that he had caught Will in a sexual encounter with actor Duane Martin. Bilal went into graphic detail about an alleged incident in a dressing room, and the interview went viral within hours. Will’s representatives called the story completely fabricated and unequivocally false, while Duane Martin’s team said the claims were so ridiculous they did not deserve a response. Jada later told The Breakfast Club that Will laughed when he heard the allegations because they were so absurd, adding, “We suing” when asked about legal action.
. Bilal did not back down. In December 2025, he filed a $3 million lawsuit against Jada, alleging that at Will’s birthday party in September 2021, she had warned him that he would “end up missing or catch a bullet” if he kept discussing their personal matters. Jada responded in February 2026 by filing a motion to dismiss under California’s anti-SLAPP law, arguing the suit was designed purely to silence protected speech.
The judge agreed, and by April 2026, Jada was seeking nearly $49,000 in legal fees from Bilal after winning. That legal battle is still ongoing. . Long before the Smiths became tabloid fixtures, the Hollywood studio system created the very conditions for similar betrayals, often with far more tragic consequences.
In the 1940s and 50s, studios had total control over actors’ images, and being openly gay was considered career-ending. The pressure was so intense that studios pushed some men into real marriages with women who often had no idea what they were signing up for. That context is essential to understanding the stories that follow, including that of Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli. Judy Garland was 23 when she married director Vincente Minnelli in 1945, after he had directed her in Meet Me in St.
Louis. From the outside, it looked like a fairy tale, but Judy did not know that Vincente had lived openly as a gay man in New York before Hollywood got hold of him. According to biographer Emanuel Levy, Vincente had documented relationships with men, but once he was inside the studio system, all of that got buried. One day, Judy came home and walked in on Vincente in bed with their own gardener.
Another time, she caught him with a bit player from MGM. Levy reported that after catching him, Judy threatened suicide, and according to writer Mark Stein, she actually attempted it once. By 1947, just two years into the marriage, Judy was hospitalized for nervous exhaustion, and by 1949, the marriage was over. Judy’s next marriage, to Mark Herron, followed a similar pattern.
She discovered he was also gay, and before she could leave, he physically beat her. Biographers have noted that Judy’s deep insecurity about her looks made her vulnerable to men who seemed emotionally safe, who gave her warmth without the pressure of real physical desire. The protection felt real, but the marriage never was. Judy’s daughter, Liza Minnelli, walked almost the exact same path, with her version beginning on the actual wedding night.
In March 1967, at age 21, Liza married songwriter Peter Allen. According to the book David Bowie Made Me Gay, Liza walked into the honeymoon suite hours after the ceremony and found Peter in bed with another man. In a 1996 interview, she said, “I married Peter, and he didn’t tell me he was gay. Everyone knew but me.
” She added,“I found out, well, let me put it this way. I’ll never surprise anybody coming home as long as I live. ” The betrayal went deeper: Peter was having an affair with Mark Herron, who was Judy Garland’s husband at the time–meaning Liza’s husband was sleeping with her mother’s husband. Despite all of that, Liza stayed eight years, hoping something might shift.
It didn’t. She later married David Gest, with Michael Jackson as best man, but that marriage also ended in a lawsuit. She later joked that she had grabbed Michael and said,“Why did you let me marry this idiot? ”
Angela Lansbury’s first marriage was equally short-lived.
At 19 in 1945, she married Richard Cromwell, an established actor more than a decade older than her. Cromwell had a documented connection to billionaire Howard Hughes, and gay rumors had followed him around Hollywood for years, but Angela later described herself as a naive greenhorn, completely inexperienced when it came to sexuality. She was attracted to his personality, saying he was attractive, full of fun, knew all the old movie stars, and was close with Joan Crawford. The marriage lasted less than a year.
When Richard decided he was done, he did not sit down for a conversation. He left Angela a handwritten note that simply said,“I can’t go on. ” No explanation, no apology, no discussion. Angela later told the Daily Mail,“He was such an attractive man, so full of fun, but the marriage was probably not a good idea.
” Richard likely married her because that was what you did in Hollywood in 1945 if you wanted to survive. Angela, however, only made this mistake once. After Richard, she married Peter Shaw, and that marriage lasted 53 years until his death. Fran Drescher and Peter Marc Jacobson met when they were 15 years old and married in 1978.
They built The Nanny together, and their entire world, career, and creative life was completely wrapped up in each other. Behind the scenes, Peter was quietly struggling with something he had never fully faced. He told Fran during their marriage that he might be bisexual, but that he didn’t want to pursue it further. He didn’t want to be gay.
He was born in the 1950s, when being gay wasn’t even a concept most people knew how to navigate. Everyone got married at 20; that was the path. He didn’t want to get a divorce. Fran eventually realized Peter’s control issues were really manifestations of him trying to suppress his own natural orientation, but she also said that his inability to face who he really was made him angry, bitter, and controlling.
She was living with someone taking out an internal war on her, and she did not even know why. In 1999, after 21 years, Fran ended the marriage. Peter did not want a divorce; she had to push for it. He was furious, moved to New York, and they did not speak for a full year.
Then, in 2000, while wrapping the final season of The Nanny, Fran was diagnosed with uterine cancer. When Peter heard the news, everything cracked open. He burst into tears, all the anger melted, and he came back. Two years after the divorce, Peter told Fran the full truth: he was not bisexual, he was gay.
He came out to her specifically and directly, so she would not hear it from someone else. He told her,“I don’t want you thrown if someone says your husband is living as a gay man now. ” In 2011, they made it a show. Fran and Peter created Happily Divorced, a sitcom based directly on their real lives, about a woman whose husband comes out after 18 years of marriage.
Today, Fran calls him her gay ex-husband, and her parents still see him as a son. They are best friends. Rather than a breakdown or a lawsuit, their story produced a genuine friendship that survived the truth.
