David Copperfield Forced to Reveal Secret to Famous Illusion in Court

A magician never reveals his secrets. Unless, of course, you’re ordered to by a judge in a court of law.

That’s the situation famed illusionist David Copperfield found himself in this week. The 61-year-old is currently being sued for negligence by British man Gavin Cox, who attended one of his shows at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in 2013 and was allegedly injured by one of his tricks known as “Lucky No. 13”

In order to clear his client’s name, Copperfield’s executive producer Chris Kenner testified in court on Tuesday and broke down the trick from start to finish.

The tick starts out with Copperfield choosing 13 members from the audience and have them sit on a platform up on the stage.

“We’re going to send you all to hell,” Copperfield says before the trick. “This is like going on vacation, only hotter, with more familiar faces.”

He then covers each of them with a large curtain and begins to banter with other members of the audience, eventually pulling back the curtains to reveal the group has disappeared. He then tells everyone in the crowd to turn around, where they’ll see the 13 people standing in the back of the room.

Kenner explained the stunt works by having stagehands guide the participants off the stage and through special hidden passageways while still being concealed by the curtain. They eventually end up outside the building and are walked to the back of the theater to surprise the audience.

Cox, a former chef for the British Royal Family, claims he fell while being guided through the passageways and suffered “brain and body injuries,” according to Page Six. He also claims that the medical bills for his injuries reached $400,000.

“There was a duty by the defendants to provide a safe environment to the audience participants,” Cox’s attorney, Benedict Morelli, said in his opening statement last week.

Copperfield was questioned by Morelli in court after Kenner revealed the secrets of the trick to the court. He emphatically denied any wrongdoing in this situation.

“If somebody participated in the 13 illusion, and they were injured, it’s their fault, not yours, yes or no?” Morelli asked

“I can’t answer that as a yes-or-no question. It would depend on what happened,” Copperfield said. “If I did something wrong, it would be my fault.”

Copperfield was accused back in January of sexually assaulting then-17-year-old model Brittney Lewis back in 1998, which he denied in a lengthy social media post before the accusation made headlines.

“So while I weather another storm, I want the movement to continue to flourish,” Copperfield wrote at the end of a lengthy post. “Always listen, and consider everything carefully, but please for everyone’s sake don’t rush to judgment.”