Culture
Will Smith Accused of Sexual Harassment by Famous Male Violinist
Hollywood actor and musician Will Smith is facing a new legal challenge after professional violinist Brian King Joseph filed a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment, wrongful termination, and retaliation.
According to court documents filed on Tuesday, December 30, at the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County, Joseph is suing Smith, 57, and his company, Treyball Studios Management, Inc. The lawsuit claims Smith engaged in inappropriate conduct while Joseph was part of the actor’s global concert tour, Based on a True Story: 2025.
Joseph, a Washington, D.C.-based violinist best known for finishing as a top-three finalist on America’s Got Talent season 13 in 2018, alleges that Smith began “grooming and priming” him for sexual exploitation after inviting him to join the tour in November 2024.
The complaint outlines what it describes as a “traumatic series of events” that allegedly occurred in March 2025 while the tour was in Las Vegas. Joseph claims he returned to his hotel room to find evidence that someone had entered without signs of forced entry.
According to the filing, the items allegedly discovered included a handwritten note that read, “Brian, I’ll be back… just us,” accompanied by a drawn heart and signed “Stone F,” as well as wipes, a beer bottle, a red backpack, an earring, hospital discharge paperwork belonging to an unknown individual, and a bottle of HIV medication bearing another person’s name.
Joseph alleges that the incident left him fearful that an unknown individual would return to his room to engage in sexual acts with him. After reporting the matter to hotel staff, a local non-emergency police line, and members of Smith’s management team, Joseph claims he was later confronted by a tour management representative who allegedly “shamed” him and informed him that his services were being terminated. The lawsuit further states that another violinist was hired to replace him on the tour.
Will Smith has strongly denied the allegations. In a statement issued on January 1, Smith’s attorney, Allen B. Grodsky, said the claims were “false, baseless, and reckless,” adding that they are “categorically denied” and that Smith intends to pursue all legal avenues to clear his name.
The lawsuit adds to recent legal scrutiny surrounding the Smith family. Earlier in December, a former associate, Bilaal Salaam, also known as Brother Bilaal, filed a separate $3 million lawsuit against Jada Pinkett Smith, alleging verbal threats. A source close to the family dismissed those claims, describing Salaam as “an opportunistic person out to exploit them.”
Smith’s Based on a True Story tour followed the March 2025 release of his album of the same name and ran from June to September 2025. The case filed by Joseph remains ongoing, and no court date has yet been announced.
Festivals & Events
Breakfast, Business and Big Ideas: Inside One of Accra’s Must-Attend Professional Gatherings
On a Saturday morning in Accra, conversations over breakfast will carry more than casual small talk. They will revolve around entrepreneurship, leadership, financing and the decisions that shape careers.
Winning in Your Corporate and Business World – 3.0, taking place on Saturday, July 25, at the Accra Marriott Hotel, offers a refreshing twist on the traditional business seminar by blending practical learning with meaningful networking in one of Ghana’s leading hospitality venues.
A Platform for Growth and Connection
Now in its third edition, the summit has become part of a growing culture of professional development events in Ghana, where entrepreneurs, executives and emerging business leaders regularly gather to exchange ideas and sharpen their skills.
This year’s theme, “Fearless Financing in Business,” reflects an issue that resonates across the country’s expanding business landscape. Access to capital, financial confidence and sustainable growth remain priorities for start-ups, small businesses and established companies alike.
Rather than focusing solely on theory, the event promises tested business strategies delivered by experienced professionals. Interactive sessions and opportunities for one-on-one engagement with resource persons are designed to leave participants with practical knowledge they can apply long after the event ends.

More Than a Business Seminar
Visitors can expect an atmosphere that balances professionalism with Ghanaian warmth. The breakfast networking session encourages conversations that often prove just as valuable as the formal presentations, creating opportunities to meet entrepreneurs, corporate executives and business owners from different industries.
For international visitors, the summit offers a window into Ghana’s dynamic business community. It showcases a country where innovation, entrepreneurship and collaboration are becoming defining features of economic life.
For locals, it provides a chance to expand professional networks while gaining insights that support career advancement and business growth.
The formal dress code adds to the occasion, creating an environment where participants arrive prepared to make lasting impressions while exchanging ideas over a carefully prepared breakfast.
An Experience Worth Adding to Your Accra Itinerary
Whether you are building your first business, climbing the corporate ladder or simply curious about Ghana’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, Winning in Your Corporate and Business World – 3.0 offers more than a morning of speeches.
It creates a space where knowledge meets opportunity, and where a single conversation could become the beginning of your next professional breakthrough.
Arts and GH Heritage
Gideon Hanyame Turns Stains Into Symbols of Memory and Transformation
At KNUST, an everyday water filter became a powerful symbol of work, memory, and the marks that shape human lives.
A clean white filter is designed to disappear. Hidden inside a water system, its success is measured by what it captures and what it keeps out of sight.
Yet Ghanaian artist Gideon Kobbla Hanyame asks a disarming question: what if the stains we try hardest to avoid are the very things that give an object—and perhaps a person—its meaning?
That quiet challenge sat at the centre of I call upon these persons here present to witness that…, an exhibition presented at the Sculpture Auditorium of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi. Rather than treating cleanliness as an untouched ideal, Hanyame explored purity as something earned through contact, labour and change.

His starting point was the humble string-wound water filter. Bright white when new, it gradually darkens as it removes impurities. Instead of viewing that transformation as deterioration, Hanyame turned it into a metaphor for the invisible work carried out every day—by people, communities and even cultures that absorb pressure while creating something life-giving for others.
Craft Traditions Meet Contemporary Thought
The exhibition drew deeply from Ghana’s material traditions. Dyed filter yarns, flour sacks, stitched textiles and handcrafted mirror frames merged into works that resisted simple labels. They shifted between sculpture, painting and woven installation, reflecting the artist’s belief that identity is never fixed.
Equally significant was the collaborative process. Local dyers and artisans became part of the creative journey, reinforcing the idea that contemporary art does not exist apart from community knowledge but grows through it.

Visitors were encouraged to wander freely rather than follow a prescribed route. Every path produced a different conversation with the works, mirroring the unpredictable ways people accumulate memories, experiences and scars throughout life.
A Different Definition of Purity
At a time when polished perfection dominates social media and consumer culture, Hanyame offers a striking alternative. His exhibition argues that transformation is rarely spotless. Growth leaves marks. Service demands sacrifice. Objects—and people—carry evidence of every encounter.

In Ghana, where handmade traditions continue to evolve alongside contemporary artistic practice, that message feels especially timely. The exhibition reminds audiences that heritage is not preserved by remaining untouched. It survives by adapting, absorbing and changing with each generation.
Perhaps that is the exhibition’s most enduring idea: the marks we often hide may be the clearest proof that we have lived, worked and become something new.
Reels & Social Media Highlights
Ghana’s X-Rated Thursday: BBC Blasted, DJ KA Trends, and Viral Juju Tests Take Over
If you logged into Ghanaian social media on Thursday, July 21, 2026, you didn’t just scroll—you experienced a full-blown digital theater of justice, controversy, and sheer audacity.
It was a day where the online mood swung from righteous anger at international media to the morbid curiosity of celebrity gossip, proving once again that the Ghanaian internet is never boring.
The day’s heavyweight conversation centered on Chairman Wontumi, the Ashanti Regional NPP chairman sentenced to 20 years for illegal mining. While the ruling was a victory for anti-galamsey advocates, the real firestorm started when the BBC described the public’s reaction as “Shock and anger.” Ghanaians were having none of it.
The replies to the broadcaster’s post were a masterclass in pushback, with users like ValleyOftheKings clapping back: “No shock and no anger. It’s relief and happiness.” The sentiment was clear: Ghanaians felt the BBC was tone-deaf to the local joy over a galamsey kingpin finally facing the music.
This trend also unearthed an old prophecy by spiritual leader Karma President, who had apparently foreseen Wontumi’s downfall months ago, adding a layer of spiritual intrigue to the political saga.
Just as that was simmering, the internet shifted gears with the alleged private video leak involving Kumasi-based radio personality DJ KA. While the video’s authenticity remained debated, it sparked a significant debate on privacy and digital ethics.
Veteran journalist Erastus Asare Donkor went viral himself with a plea for empathy, asking, “Before you share that video… would I have shared it if my sister or I was the one in the video?” His appeal divided the public, with some questioning the DJ’s choices and others echoing the call for compassion.
And if that wasn’t enough content, we had the self-proclaimed “big boy” testing his anti-cutlass juju in a video that left many shaking their heads, alongside public calls for police action regarding young men flaunting guns and wads of cash.
From fighting foreign narratives to policing local privacy, Ghana’s social media today reflected a society deeply engaged in its own governance and culture, demanding accountability from politicians and media alike.
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