Here’s why Tiffany Haddish child sexual abuse lawsuit was dismissed

In court documents obtained by TMZ, the child sexual abuse lawsuit which was filed against Tiffany Haddish and comedian Aries Spears was dropped by the plaintiff.

The plaintiff, a 22-year-old woman identified as Jane Doe, requested that the judge dismissed the case with prejudice, which means that she cannot refile the same claim again in that court. The lawsuit alleged that Haddish and Spears exploited Jane Doe and her brother John Doe in two comedy sketches filmed when they were children.

“My family and I have known Tiffany Haddish for many years — and we now know that she would never harm me or my brother or help anyone else do anything that could harm us. We wish Tiffany the best and are glad that we can all put this behind us," Jane Doe said in a statement to TMZ, who first reported the news.

When the news of the lawsuit surfaced, Haddish took to Instagram to respond to the matter:

“I know people have a bunch of questions. I get it. I’m right there with you. Unfortunately because there is an ongoing legal case, there’s very little that I can say right now. But, clearly, while this sketch was intended to be comedic, it wasn’t funny at all — and I deeply regret having agreed to act in it. I really look forward to being able to share a lot more about this situation as soon as I can.”

According to PEOPLE, the plaintiff had claimed that Haddish was a “longtime family friend” of her mother and that in 2013, when Jane Doe was 14, Haddish took her to the taping of a “sexually suggestive Subways commercial” that Haddish allegedly said would help Jane Doe get on television and would be included in the teenager's film reel. During the taping, Haddish allegedly instructed Jane Doe on how to perform inappropriate sex acts after watching a man and woman in a video.

Furthermore,  PEOPLE reported that plaintiff John Doe was allegedly molested by Spears in 2014 after Haddish told him he would be taping a reel for Nickelodeon at Spears’ home. While there, Haddish allegedly told Jane Doe that she needed John Doe alone and took him to a room where Spears began "molesting" the then-7-year-old on film. The plaintiffs' court documents claim Haddish witnessed the alleged incident "and aided, abetted and watched Spears sexually molest a child.”

According to The Daily Beast, a representative for Funny or Die – the website where the video was originally posted, told in a statement, “Funny Or Die found this video absolutely disgusting and would never produce such content. We were not involved with the conceptualisation, development, funding, or production of this video. It was uploaded to the site as user-generated content and was removed in 2018 immediately after becoming aware of its existence.”