TikTok star Justine Paradise has accused YouTuber Jake Paul of sexual assault in a 20-minute YouTube video she uploaded Friday, titled “TRIGGER WARNING: Jake Paul Sexually Assaulted Me.”
In the video, Paradise, 24, alleges that Paul, 24, forced her to perform oral sex at Paul’s Team 10 house in California in July of 2019. She claims that she signed a non-disclosure agreement when entering the home—where Paul and his YouTube friends work—and that she thought it meant she “wasn’t allowed to talk” about the alleged incident.
Daniel E. Gardenswartz, an attorney for Jake Paul, released a statement on behalf of Paul that his client is “aware of the recent allegation against him” and “categorically denies” it.
“Our client is aware of the recent allegation against him. While others have already begun to debunk the claim alleged against him, our client categorically denies the allegation and has every intention of aggressively disproving it and pursuing legal action against those responsible for the defamation of his character. Our client believes that any false allegations diminish the credibility of those who have truly been victims of misconduct.”
In her video, Justine said that “Jake pulled me into this little corner area in the studio and started kissing me. I was fine with that. I did think he was cute.”
She went on to explain that Paul allegedly took her to his bedroom, where the two kissed, before she says “he took it to his bed.” Paradise, who has 524,000 TikTok followers and posted about the alleged incident there as well, alleges that Paul then began to put his hands in places she didn’t want him to, and as she pulled his hands away, he asked “if nothing’s going to happen, what’s the point?”
“Normally, everybody respects me when I don’t want to do sexual things, so I thought that it was fine if I went in his room,” she said. “I thought it would be fine to kiss him, because I thought he would stop if I didn’t want to do anything else.”
Paradise then said that Paul continued to make advances despite her telling him “no,” and that he forced her to perform oral sex while physically on top of her. “He didn’t ask for consent or anything,” she added. “That’s not okay. On no level at all is that okay.”
She explained that Jake allegedly didn’t speak to her after it happened, and that she hopes he “realizes what he did and doesn’t do it again.”
“I know he knows that I didn’t want to do anything sexual with him,” she said. “I’ve thought about this literally every single day since it happened. But the more and more I think about it, the more I realize, no one can be doing that and think that it’s something right to do.”
Paul tweeted a long denial opening with, “Sexual assault accusations aren’t something that I, or anyone should ever take lightly, but to be crystal clear, this claim made against me is 100% false.” He said he’ll pursue a defamation case “to the fullest extent of the law” and called the “manufactured” accusation “a blatant attempt for attention during a highly visible fight week.” And in a truly staggering bit of defense, he wrote, “At the time of [the accuser’s] story I was in a relationship, and as someone who was a momma’s boy growing up, I respect women and mothers more than anything.”
