Celebs Who Were Blackmailed

She's been nominated for two Grammys, two Golden Globes, and a Primetime Emmy over the course of her long career in show business, and while she didn't win any of them, there's no doubting that Jennifer Lopez is a bonafide A-lister. She took her first steps towards fame in 1990 when she auditioned to be a dancer on the Wayans family sketch show In Living Color. The Bronx native then transitioned into acting, earning plaudits for her performance as murdered singer Selena Quintanilla, and from there she set her sights on conquering the music world. J-Lo is a true triple threat, but when you're as famous as she is, you need people around you that can be trusted. According to Lopez, that wasn't the case with her former driver, Hakob Manoukian.

In 2012, her team filed a lawsuit against Manoukian that accused him of threatening to "disclose sensitive and personal information that he allegedly heard while driving Lopez," per CNN. The suit alleged that the driver "became hostile and angry because he mistakenly and unreasonably believed he had the unqualified right to designate the security team" for one of the singer's music videos. Manoukian sued for breach of contract over the incident, but J-Lo's team slapped him with a countersuit, alleging extortion. According to her lawyers, Manoukian demanded a sum of $2.8 million to bury the sensitive info he'd supposedly acquired while working for Lopez. An out-of-court settlement was ultimately reached.

You'd think that stealing wedding photos from the notoriously private Tom Cruise would be an impossible mission, but when data recovery expert Marc Lewis Gittleman was asked to fix a hard drive containing approximately 7,600 images of Cruise's nuptials to Katie Holmes, he believed he'd struck gold. Gittleman took his chance and made copies of the images, which he and a man named David Hans Schmidt (described by The Hollywood Reporter as someone "known for brokering deals involving compromising celebrity photos and videos") threatened to release unless they were paid handsomely.

Court papers have revealed that Schmidt contacted Cruise's people on several occasions, dangling some of the images in his possession as bait. He demanded as much as $1.3 million in a series of emails that were ultimately used against him — Cruise called the cops on Schmidt, who was charged with extortion. He agreed to plead guilty and was fitted with a monitor while he awaited a potential two-year prison stretch, but he would never get there. When Schmidt's monitor started recording zero movement not long after his plea, authorities discovered him dead in his home by apparent suicide. "I think it's a very sad thing that he elected to hang himself," Bert Fields, one of Cruise's attorneys, told NBC News. "Certainly no one wanted that despite what he did."

If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

The sad case of John Travolta's son Jett was made all the more heartbreaking by the drama that unfolded following the 16-year-old's death in the Bahamas. Paramedics were called to the holiday home of Travolta and Kelly Preston (who died of breast cancer in 2020) when the autistic teen had a seizure, but they couldn't save him. When the tabloids learned the circumstances surrounding Jett's death, his Scientologist parents came in for criticism. "The Travoltas as Scientologists — and very prominent Scientologists — would never consult a doctor to deal with the treatment of autism," Rick Alan Ross of the Cult Education Institute told the New York Post. "This child lived out his life without ever being evaluated or treated, in my opinion."

Things got worse for Travolta when he received word that an ambulance driver was planning on releasing copies of the medical liability form that he'd signed that day. His reps were contacted by the blackmailer's lawyer, who informed them that he would back down for no less than $25 million and "would give interviews claiming that Mr. Travolta had refused treatment for his son," per the Independent. The two-time Oscar nominee vehemently denied this was the case. The driver and lawyer were charged with extortion, but concerns over the jury led to a retrial that Travolta chose not to follow through with, citing the "heavy emotional toll" the process had already taken on his family.

To say Sylvester Stallone had a complicated relationship with his late half-sister Toni-Ann Filiti would be an understatement. He was among the biggest stars in Hollywood when Filiti accused him of historical abuse in the late 1980s, fronting the Rocky and Rambo franchises. The actor vehemently denied all the claims made by his half-sibling, and so did their mother. "This was nothing more than a shakedown," Jacqueline Stallone told Page Six after it emerged that Sly had paid a $2 million settlement back in 1987. "Toni-Ann was on 65 Oxycontin pills a day, and she threatened Sylvester. A drug addict will do anything... At the time he was very hot, and his lawyers said, 'Give her something just to shut her up.'"

The settlement came about after Filiti told Stallone that she would take him to court if he didn't cough up, papers reveal. Not only did he hand over a lump sum of two million bucks, but the action star also agreed to pay "$16,666.66 per month for her lifetime, plus a trust with $50,000 per year for psychiatric and medical expenses," Page Six was able to confirm. According to Stallone's team, the payments were not an admission of guilt, but proof that he had been blackmailed. "Unfortunately, celebrities, politicians and athletes frequently find themselves the targets of blackmail efforts by family members and associates who fabricate claims in order to extort payments from them," Stallone's spokesperson said.

He got blackmailed by the mafia and the CIA as the titular cat burglar in the film Hudson Hawk, but in real life, Bruce Willis had to deal with an apparent extortion attempt by someone a lot closer to home. Court documents unearthed by TMZ reveal that, in 2006, the actor filed a lawsuit against longtime friend Bruce DiMattia, whom he had employed to "organize private family photographs, videotapes, DVDs and films depicting Willis and his family members," the papers state. DiMattia is said to have "acquired knowledge of certain highly personal, private and confidential information" during the four years he worked for Willis, and he apparently wanted to turn that knowledge into hard cash by writing his own book.

The lawsuit claimed that DiMattia was working on a damaging tell-all about his childhood pal, and had "threatened to unlawfully exploit private family photographs and memorabilia belonging to Mr. Willis" unless his demands were met — he apparently wanted the movie star "to pay him over $100,000 and buy him a car." It looked like the two Bruces would no longer be buddies, but a few months later, news broke that the extortion suit had been settled. Willis' lawyers claimed that DiMattia "was overcome by greed and jealous of his former friend's success" in their original complaint, but they turned around and said that it had all been "based on a regrettable misunderstanding" in a statement (via the East Bay Times).

Kiss frontman Gene Simmons claims to have slept with approximately 4,800 women over the years, but there's one encounter that has come back to haunt him on numerous occasions. In 2008, a clip that appeared to show Simmons with an Austrian model found its way online. The rocker not only confirmed that it was indeed him in the video with his response, but he also revealed that the people who released it (whom he refers to as an "entity") had already tried to blackmail him with it on numerous occasions. When he refused to hand over any money, they made the footage available to purchase online.

"You should know for the record, the garbage was recorded without my knowledge and is a page from my past," Simmons said in a statement posted to his official website (via Digital Spy). "This is not the first time the entity has tried to blackmail and extort us. We have always refused and we will continue to refuse." The timing of the video's release was certainly no coincidence — Simmons and his family were starring in the A&E reality show Gene Simmons Family Jewels at the time. The whole thing was doubly awkward because Simmons had been with baby mama and co-star Shannon Tweed since the mid-80s, which is likely why he was quick to clarify that the footage was "decades old." He added: "It happened and there's nothing I can do to repair that."