An event planning company has filed a lawsuit against comedian Kevin Hart claiming he canceled a party appearance and never gave them a return on their money.
AIM Hospitality Group LLC and president Maksim Vladimirskiy say the Philly native cost them tens of thousands of dollars after he canceled an appearance for an afterparty event they scheduled on July 28, 2018. According to Page Six, the party was located at the Highland Ballroom in Manhattan, which was set up as a celebratory after-party event for Hart’s New Jersey standup performance that happened earlier that night.
The group and Vladimirskiy claim the comedian also promised to make two Instagram posts as early promotion for the party. The Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit was filed on Wednesday. The parties say the deal included Hart getting an advance payment of $10,000 as a deposit and that he would receive $26,000 for his appearance.
Leading up to the party, the group and Vladimirskiy say Hart never promoted the event, and that’s when they realized “Hart had no intention of honoring the Instagram agreement.”
According to the court documents, Aim asked for their $10,000 deposit back a few weeks before the event. AIM says that they’d spent $12,000 on advertising for the event in the midst of dealing with the drama. They claim that from July to September, Hart’s agents “strung along plaintiffs, promising the refund” and blamed others “for sending the refund to the wrong persons.” The lawsuit states Hart’s agent continued to act like Hart’s appearance was still a go, but he had actually canceled his coming to the event on May 18, 2018.
In 2019, AIM allegedly still hadn’t received the money, and Hart’s agent claimed they sent the $10,000 refund to the wrong people. Hart’s “appearance at a venue is worth large sums of money to promoters,” the suit says. “Hart’s mere appearance, even if for a few minutes, draws a crowd.”
They claim Hart’s team “willfully disregarded their contractual obligations by using delay tactics and making false promises to perform,” the suit charges. “Defendants recklessly issued a refund to the wrong party and without any attempt to fix the careless error made excuses for their own mismanagement of accounts.”
Now, they want their money back plus thousands more. The New York Post reports AIM is suing Hart, his two companies, one of his agents, and an executive at one of his companies for a total of $390,000 in damages. Hart has yet to respond.
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“Weddings, parties, and occasions are costly in regards to budget and venue booking. There is a lot of money involved in it.
If you tend to cancel such significant events, the organizers will lose big money. I appreciate that someone cared about it and covered it.
Thanks.”