Jada Pinkett Smith has asked a Los Angeles judge to order Bilaal Salaam, the former friend of Will Smith who is suing her for $3 million, to sit for a psychiatric exam. Judge Eric Harmon will hear the request in Van Nuys Superior Court on Nov. 9, and Pinkett Smith’s lawyers have proposed that the exam last five to six hours.
TheGrio reported that no judge has yet approved the request. Pinkett Smith has denied all of Salaam’s allegations. Salaam is representing himself.
What Pinkett Smith’s Lawyers Are Asking the Court to Order
Pinkett Smith’s attorneys argue that Salaam made his own mental state part of the case by suing for intentional infliction of emotional distress. In their filing, they wrote that he “has placed his mental condition in controversy,” MyNewsLA reported. The papers name psychiatrist Dr. Christopher R. Thompson to conduct the evaluation and propose Feb. 11 as the date.
The filing date is reported differently. MyNewsLA, in a story dated Oct. 1, said her lawyers filed the papers on Monday, which would be Sept. 28. TheGrio and Thought Catalog both gave Oct. 4.
The legal test comes from California law. Under Code of Civil Procedure Section 2032.320, Hoodline reported, a court may order a mental exam only on a showing of good cause and only if the order spells out the procedures and scope. Hoodline also noted that Salaam could avoid the exam by agreeing not to present psychiatric testimony. If a judge orders the exam and Salaam refuses, Thought Catalog reported, he could face discovery sanctions.
Rolling Out reported that her lawyers wrote that Salaam placed his own psychological condition at the center of the case, a variant of the phrasing MyNewsLA quoted. The two outlets word the filing differently, but both describe the same argument: a plaintiff who seeks damages for severe distress opens his own psychological condition to examination.
What Salaam X Claims In the Lawsuit
Salaam filed suit in November 2025, according to MyNewsLA, which dated the filing Nov. 7, 2025. A July MyNewsLA story on a deposition dispute gave the filing date as May 7, 2025, so accounts of the date vary even within one outlet’s coverage. He alleges that Pinkett Smith threatened and intimidated him, according to TheGrio.
Thought Catalog reported that he places the confrontation at Will Smith’s birthday party on Sept. 25, 2021, where he says she told him he would “end up missing or catch a bullet” if he kept discussing her private matters. Rolling Out placed the exchange in a movie theater lobby in Calabasas and said Salaam alleges she also pressed him to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Pinkett Smith denies the allegations.
MyNewsLA gave a different account of how the dispute began. That report said Salaam alleges she became upset after he declined crisis-management work following the 2022 Oscars slap, and that threats came through intermediaries after she learned of his planned memoir. MyNewsLA reported in July that Salaam alleges a talent manager called him in November 2023 and told him to “end this feud before you get physically hurt.”
Salaam says the conduct drove him to live outside the United States for 18 months and ended a significant relationship, MyNewsLA reported. Hoodline reported that he also says it caused post-traumatic stress and other health problems and put a $500,000 memoir project on hold. Pinkett Smith’s lawyers told the court he has no documents showing the injuries he claims, according to MyNewsLA.
Rulings and Discovery Fights Before the Exam Motion
The case has had several rulings before this motion. According to MyNewsLA’s account of the August ruling, Harmon partly granted Pinkett Smith’s anti-SLAPP motion on April 13, which eliminated many claims. The surviving claims concern alleged threats, coercion and intimidation of Salaam through intermediaries. California’s anti-SLAPP law lets a defendant ask for an early ruling on suits aimed at speech or petitioning activity.
On Aug. 19, Harmon denied Salaam’s motion to file a revised complaint. MyNewsLA reported in an Aug. 29 story that Salaam filed an amended complaint on a Thursday anyway and that Harmon ordered it stricken the next day. Hoodline reported that a motion to add Will Smith as a defendant was denied that month, that a restraining order request was dismissed in February, and that the court awarded Pinkett Smith $32,836 in legal fees in May.
Discovery has been contested since the summer. In July, her attorneys asked for a protective order limiting her deposition to two hours, with a hearing set for Aug. 25, MyNewsLA reported. The lawyers argued that a longer session would create undue burden and expense. In a separate motion, they demanded that Salaam say whether recordings of the alleged threatening calls exist and produce them if they do. The psychiatric exam request is the third discoverystage motion that coverage has documented in three months.
The Timeline and the Money
The calendar shows how slowly the exam issue will move. The hearing is Nov. 9, a year and two days after the lawsuit was filed on Nov. 7, 2025, and the proposed exam date of Feb. 11 falls 94 days after the hearing. If Harmon grants the motion, Salaam would have just over three months to prepare, and any refusal would be addressed through the discovery process.
The $32,836 fee award equals 1.1% of the $3 million Salaam seeks. The $500,000 memoir project he says he lost is about one-sixth of the claim, so the remaining five-sixths rests on the distress and relocation allegations that the exam would test. Pinkett Smith’s lawyers rely on that point in their motion, arguing that a plaintiff who sues for emotional distress puts his own mental condition at issue.
Salaam has appeared without an attorney since September, Hoodline reported. The Nov. 9 hearing in Van Nuys is the next scheduled event in the case.
