Soulja Boy Accused of Sexual Assault and Battery by Former Assistant

Soulja Boy's former assistant has accused the rapper of multiple instances of sexual assault and abuse in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles and obtained by PEOPLE. The woman, identified as "Jane Doe," claims that in the 18 months she worked as the musician (né DeAndre Cortez Way), she was also not paid the wages she earned, held hostage subject to a hostile work environment. The rapper has not responded publicly to the allegations against him.

When Soulja first hired the woman in December 2018, she said she was expected to be available at all times to clean, cook, chauffeur, style his hair and perform personal assistant tasks for her employer in exchange for $500 a week. After less than a month of employment, the lawsuit claims Soulja began sending "unsolicited pictures of his penis." The two would engage in a brief consensual relationship, but the lawsuit alleges it quickly became violent.

She describes in the lawsuit that beginning Jan. 23, 2019, Soulja began to abuse her emotionally and physically, kicking, body-slamming, and punching her, including repeatedly in the head on 10 separate occasions, during one of which she "lost consciousness." That February, she alleges Soulja sexually assaulted her for the first time, expressing remorse afterward by offering her $1,000. However, she alleges he continued, and "on numerous occasions, and sometimes twice in the same day, [he] would inappropriately touch [her] body, forcefully pull her pants off, and rape her."

When she tried to leave, she says Soulja locked her in a room without hot water for three days "until she was coerced into not leaving." In August 2020, Soulja allegedly attacked the woman "so hard that she thought she was going to die." When she awoke on his lawn, she fled without her belongings. When she attempted to collect them weeks later, she alleges she was raped again. When she returned a second time with law enforcement to collect her items, he refused entry, and she ultimately left her belongings there. She also alleges she was not paid for most of the more than a year she was employed.

The "Crank That" rapper has had legal problems over the past several years and spent three months in jail more than a year ago for violating probation. He was initially arrested in 2014 on charges of carrying a loaded gun in public and was given probation in the case, extended in December 2016 after he was arrested and found with another firearm. In April 2017, he pleaded no contest to two counts of felony weapons possession and one misdemeanor count of receiving stolen property, which TMZ said resulted in a five-year plea deal. In February 2019, when police raided his home to investigate a claim of kidnapping and assault of an ex, they allegedly found ammunition, violating his probation.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org.