Montia Sabbag, the woman who allegedly appeared alongside Kevin Hart in secretly-taped provocative photos and videos, spoke out about the incident in a press conference on Wednesday, September 20, explaining that while she and Hart did have an intimate relationship, she did not demand any money from him.
“My name is Montia Sabbag. I was involved with Kevin Hart a month ago,” she told Us Weekly and other reporters. “Since then my pictures and my name have been released with lies written about me. I’m not an extortionist. I’m not a stripper. I’m a recording artist and an actress and I have not broken any laws.”
![Monita Sabbag Kevin Hart Lisa Bloom](/wp-content/uploads/lisa-bloom-montia-sabbag-cc21b278-6e70-4420-90e7-4f4f724b6e98.jpg?w=1000&quality=84&strip=all)
She added: “I had nothing to do with these recordings. I hired Lisa Bloom solely to protect my legal rights. I am truly sorry for any involvement I had in this.”
As previously reported, Hart posted an emotional Instagram video on Saturday, September 16, admitting he “made a bad error in judgment” resulting in someone trying to extort him. “It’s a s–ty moment when you know you’re wrong and there’s no excuses for your wrong behavior. Um, at the end of the day man, I just simply have got to do better. But I’m also not going to allow a person to have financial gain off of my mistakes and in this particular situation that’s what was attempted,” the comedian said at the time. “I said I’d rather fess up to my mistakes.”
![Eniko Parish Kevin Hart](/wp-content/uploads/eniko-parish-kevin-hart-bc42ed15-d8eb-429c-b769-84aa39e09f7a.jpg?w=1000&quality=62&strip=all)
Following Sabbag’s opening statement on Wednesday, her lawyer, Lisa Bloom answered questions from reporters and explained that Sabbag doesn’t know who is responsible for the leaked footage. “She does not have any idea who is behind this, but she is willing to cooperate with law enforcement and give them all the information about people who may have been there, who could be possible suspects,” she said. “We don’t know sitting here today who it is.”
As for reports that Sabbag’s previous lawyer demanded money from Hart’s team in exchange for taking a lie detector test, Bloom shut down the allegations. “She’s not demanding any money. That is the end of that. She’s not demanding any money and that is a false statement,” Bloom said. “I don’t believe in lie detector tests. I don’t have any of my clients take lie detector tests. They are not admissible in court. There are high false outcomes to lie detector tests, so I don’t see any purpose in that.”
When asked if Sabbag knew that Hart was married (to wife Eniko Parrish, who is currently 31 weeks pregnant) at the time of their intimate interaction, Bloom responded, “I’m not going to answer that question.”